Neil Young Offers Illustrated Journey in ‘Hitchhiker’ Video
Neil Young offers an illustrated journey across America in the new video for “Hitchhiker,” the title track from his just-unearthed 1976 LP.
Created by Black Balloon, the “Hitchhiker” video opens with a shot of an open highway as road signs and mile markers go whizzing by.
The images correspond to Young’s lyrics throughout the video: During the second verse, when Young’s titular traveler “tried amphetamines,” the visuals become a smoky haze until the ocean appears when the hitchhiker arrives in California, “where I first saw open water.”
Black Balloon previously crafted a video for “Powderfinger,” another Young staple that features – in sparse acoustic form – on Hitchhiker, which Young finally released from his vaults in September, 41 years and one month after the rocker recorded the album over the course of one night at a Malibu studio.
“The idea I had at the time was to present these new songs in their purest and simplest form, just as they had been written,” Young said of the bare bones recordings during a Colorado public radio appearance in September. However, Young’s label shelved the album until its release last month.