And now for something completely different.

Although I never was what anybody would call a huge fan of Neil Young—when I was a teenager we used to laugh him off as “Neil DUNG”—I do have tremendous respect for his songwriting skills, which are damned near miraculous; the above is probably the best example of that I know of offhand. “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” has been covered by everybody and his sister’s cat’s grandmother by now, and I do mean EVERYBODY: Annie Lennox, the Cowboy Junkies, Chris Cornell, Guns & Roses (!!!), and Paul McCartney, just to name a few. That constitutes a pretty dang powerful endorsement all on its own, actually.

It’s an achingly lovely, haunting tune, both melodically and lyrics-wise, about which Young himself once sardonicized:

On (CSN&Y’s 1971 live album)  4 Way Street, Young says, “Here is a new song, it’s guaranteed to bring you right down, it’s called ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’. It sorta starts off real slow and then fizzles out altogether.” The crowd then roars with laughter.

As well they might’ve. In Korb’s jazz-trio version above, what Salieri said in Amadeus of Mozart’s work is even more apropos: Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.

Update! Having recently discussed the vital importance of phrasing to any vocal performance, irrespective of musical genre, I would be remiss not to call Ms Korb’s impeccabe style to y’all’s attention. Keep a close ear on that piano break, also.