Spinning in the rock room today is another “lost” album in a long series of Neil Young releases from the recesses of his musical vaults. The Neil Young Archives have exhumed and presented several mythical albums hailing from the same era including, Hitchhiker, Homegrown, and Chrome Dreams, all puzzle pieces that fit into gaping voids in the career image of Neil Young.

Originally recorded during sessions in May through September 1977, the unreleased record Oceanside Countryside was planned as the follow up to American Stars and Bars. The record would have, hypothetically, taken the place of 1978’s Comes a Time in Young’s discography.

Three songs from the Comes a Time record, “Field of Opportunity,” Goin Back,” and “Human Highway,” appear on this Oceanside, Countryside album. “Lost in Space,” “Captain Kennedy,” “The Old Homestead,” would be shelved until a later date and included on 1980’s Hawks and Doves

Neil Young said about Oceanside, Countryside in a 2025 press release,“This analog original album was recorded in 1977 and unreleased. These songs are the original mixes done at the time of the recordings in the order I planned for the album. I hope you enjoy this treasure of an Analog Original Recording as much as I do. Listening to it now, I think I should have put it out back then.”

Young’s songs have been reframed into his first concept with this record. Pulled from the master tapes, the collection is a typically unorthodox Neil Young artistic statement. The album moves thematically from ocean to land, and is a stony exploration at first sailing away, and then landing onto the human highway. The record was recorded by Young at Triad Studios in Florida and in Malibu at Indigo Records. Side one, “Oceanside,” finds Young singing and playing all of the instruments. The flip side, “Countryside,” has Young accompanied by additional musicians.

This track listing and record was not just a concept, but a finished product sent to Reprise Records, and President Mo Ostin, who told Young that the record was too mellow, needed overdubs and could be done better.

Young said on his Neil Young Archives in 2018, “When I walked into Reprise in 1977 and played Oceanside-Countryside for the company, Mo Ostin and Lenny Woronker were the listeners. I trusted them then and still do. Their musical taste was a sounding board for years. This was a record I felt really good about. It was quite a personal record, mostly made up of acoustic songs with no bass or drums. I made the lion’s share of it in Ft Lauderdale, just playing myself, singing the songs and overdubbing acoustic instruments. I was alone and went into Triad recording studios daily for a while, laying these new songs down. I got seven tracks, including overdubs I added to Pocahontas from indigo ranch. That version ended up on Rust Never Sleeps.”

Essentially an early iteration of Comes a Time, but now released from its original mixes and intent, Oceanside Countryside has become  a critical part of Young’s canon. While all the songs except one have been released in other guises, placing them in these new surroundings provide them with new different personality traits.

The breezy, “Sail Away,” opens side one, a song that would later appear on the acoustic side of 1979’s Rust Never Sleeps. Here, it catches the wind and is all Neil with double tracked vocals, harmonica and a beachy lilt setting the thematic spread of side one.

“Lost In Space,” which would later appear on Hawks and Doves, is again just Neil, while featuring another one of those late 1970’s Young melodies that seem to come from the same blood line. Acoustic guitar and mandolin call out across the breakers where Young strums in silent smoky contemplation, eventually ending up blowing bubbles below the surface.

“Captain Kennedy,” was a sea chanty narrative developed by Young, and was in consideration for several of his album projects. It plays like a forgotten folk song with Young’s fingerpicked guitar the only accompaniment to the tale of a seafaring boy heading off to war while recalling his father’s same trials on the water.

“Goin Back,” would find a home in a full band arrangement on Comes a Time, but on this album side its melody is carried by Young’s unclad vocals and his longing for simpler times; where even hellfire in the skies would be preferable to current conditions. This song seems thematically connected to “Will to Love,” where Young’s life journey is shared with a salmon swimming upstream.

“Human Highway,” follows and is a song that had been around since 1973 and was going to be the title track of a never realized CSNY record. It was a song without a home and by closing side one of Oceanside Countryside Young found a perfect place for it to park. Again, it’s only Young playing acoustically with himself and the result is an intimate and refreshing view of a song Young obviously had an affinity for but couldn’t find a place for it to settle down. The version that would later appear on Comes a Time, would be a full band reading with Nicolette Larson joining Young on vocals.

The opening side of the album is a close knit collection of songs, almost a solo performance, full of introspection, humor and melody. The “Countryside,” flip side begins with “Field of Opportunity,” and finds Young harmonizing with himself, whereas Nicolette Larson sang on the version that would end up on Comes a Time. The song includes Ben Keith on steel guitar and Rufus Thibodeaux on fiddle while Young expresses the optimism of the planting season which belies the feelings of a love lost

“Dance, Dance, Dance,” is a familiar song that Young had been playing live as early as 1971 and that he had given to Crazy Horse for their 1969 debut album. It’s down home boot scootin’ vibe made it a perfect addition to “Countryside,” with an arrangement very close to the 1969 Crazy Horse version that had a squiggly fiddle line running through it.

“The Old Homestead,” must be one of Young’s most underrated cuts. Surpassing seven minutes, this version has two sets of lyrics missing from the first officially released version on the Comes a Time record. On this release it feels like a centerpiece track and defining song with a newly deserved focus. The song spotlights the bayou thump of the Band’s Levon Helm on drums and Tim Drummond on bass. The song clip clop’s along sparsely, yet dramatically, with Young’s imagery of a dark rider and his interactions with prehistoric birds the focus, the lyrics and story, some of Young’s best.

“It Might Have Been,” is the only truly unreleased song on the album though had been played on stage by Young and Crazy Horse as early as 1970. Performed as a true “cry in your beer” country number, the weeping fiddles and slow swing pulls even more emotion out of the song than its first performance by Joe London on a 1959 Canadian single.

“Pocahontas,” closes “Countryside,” and the album proper in an up-tempo folky dress. The song first appeared on Rust Never Sleeps, and has since become one of Young’s most beloved numbers. Here, in an alternate world, Young’s twelve string chimes, his boot heels tap the floor, and seabirds wail as they streak by Young and his surreal song mates. At the risk of sounding redundant, this current iteration, gives one of Young’s best song’s a new insight and deeper meaning.

As previously mentioned, while the songs on Oceanside Countryside are familiar to Young’s fans and admirers, the new relationships explored between them is worthy of inspection. A true “lost” album, Oceanside Countryside, illustrates a critical part of Young’s artistic development. The label didn’t want Young’s original vision because they questioned its commercial viability. In a rare instance of capitulation, Young dissected his creative focus and disseminated it over his next two records. Even the two thematic sides of Oceanside Countryside would be reassessed later on Hawks and Doves where each side of that record expressed a different musical approach and idea.

Placing yet another missing link in the connecting chains of Neil Young’s expansive musical career, Oceanside Countryside shows a unsurpassed prolific creativity that is beautifully rendered in these welcome unreleased collections and almost lost thematic ideas.