1974- "Star Of Bethlehem"

.....In the 1970's most new original Christmas music came from rock musicians in the U.K. and soul musicians in the U.S. Very little came from rockers in the U.S. (or soulsters in the U.K., for that matter) besides covers, notably Bruce Springsteen's "SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN". This is a sweet and subdued exception.

• 02:42 "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" (Neil Young)
• perfrormed by Neil Young
• original source: LP AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS Reprise Records MSK 2261 (US) May 27, 1977
• and my source: 2CD DECADE Reprise CD2257-2 (US) 1990

.....The compilation DECADE was previously released on vinyl (as SRS 2257) on October 20, 1977, mere months after the latest album from which it drew selections like this. Funny thing is, if you check out the catalogue number of LP AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS you may notice that it falls numerically just after that for 3LP DECADE. For any music label with a healthy release schedule those numbers are completely unrelated to order of release, but they are assigned in order at an early stage of production. Before I make this any more complicated than it needs to be, I should offer a brief chronology:

1. In November 1974 the song "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" is recorded, produced by Eliot Mazer. The line up is: Neil Young on acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocal; Emmylou Harris on vocal; Ben Keith on dobro and vocal; Tim Drummond on bass; and Karl T. Himmel on drums.
2. Young writes this about the song, later used in the liner notes of DECADE: "I cut this in Nashville where I cut HARVEST, but much later in late '74. It is from the unreleased album HOMEGROWN, sort of a sequel to HARVEST."
3. At about this time Frank Sampedro joined Crazy Horse as a guitarist. None of the band's regular members are credited on this track, although Ben Keith would later do session work for them (see below). Emmylou Harris, obviously, is also not a member of Crazy Horse. She had been singing with Gram Parsons until his death about a year earlier and after this song went on to record her first major label solo album. (She released a little known LP c.1970 before joining Parsons.)
4. In the spring of 1975, Young had completed a preliminary version of HOMEGROWN and played it for friends along with an incomplete project from 1973. He and they preferred the performances from 1973 and decided to cancel the release of HOMEGROWN and complete the earlier album, which was released as TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT.
5. In late 1976 the planned release of DECADE was delayed with the intention of releasing new material instead. Promotional material for DECADE had already been circulating when a different album, CHROME DREAMS, was announced in the music press. In early 1977 an acetate of the new album was created including the songs "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" and "HOMEGROWN" (a rerecording from late 1975).
6. In April 1977, after the acetate was cut, five songs were recorded with Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Frank Sampredo [i.e., Crazy Horse](with Ben Keith) that would eventually become side one of AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS. Needless to say, this meant CHROME DREAMS was not going to come out. The second side of AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS began with the 1974 recording of "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" followed by a 1976 recording called "WILL TO LOVE". Side two is completed by "LIKE A HURRICANE" and the newer "HOMEGROWN", both recorded in November 1975 with Crazy Horse. All four tracks were intended for CHROME DREAMS, with the play order of "WILL TO LOVE" and "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" reversed.
7. None of the recently recorded songs from side one of AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS were included on the compilation DECADE, but "LIKE A HURRICANE" became the first song on side six and "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" became the last song on side four, following the 1972 A-side "HEART OF GOLD".

.....The program position of "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" is not a trivial thing because of the nature of the song. It is not a conventional Christmas song because it uses the Star to evoke the journey of the Wise Men metaphorically, not literally. Where it is positioned relative to other songs can lead the listener to interpret the search differently. On one hand, the Star signifies the means to achieving an end, that is, it leads the Wise Men to Christ and it is understood that finding Christ is their objective. On the other hand, the Star signifies a journey that is an end in itself and it leads the Wise Men to discover Christ. The difference is that the second interpretation assumes that the Wise Men can only determine that the Star is a good omen and that following it is neccesary but that they had no idea what their saviour would look like until the Star led them to him.

.....By using the song at the beginning of an LP side followed by love songs, as it was on AMERICAN STARS AND BARS, it poses a search as the frame of mind with love, whether or not it is found, as the objective. By relocating the song so that it follows "HEART OF GOLD", a song that is explicitly about searching, on side four of DECADE, the song "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" becomes about the means to that end. The enigmatic closing line, "Maybe the Star Of Bethlehem wasn't a star at all...", means that the nature of the Star was never as certain as the need to follow it, or to follow something in the quest for purity or meaning, for a 'heart of gold'. Using this song in compilations requires not only considering how it mixes in in strictly musical terms but also in thematic terms.