Lately, I've been spending a lot of time walking around and listening to Neil Young, so it seemed a good idea to raid David's collection and listen to more of Young's back catalogue. Zuma is basically Neil Young-styled, often lovelorn rock - towards the introspective and woozy end of the 'rock' part of the spectrum - and I like it heaps. Hearing "Cortez The Killer" in context has brought home the song's greatness; also its positioning as the penultimate song (with the closer, "Through My Sails", being a short one) tends to act as a hook for multiple listens to the album as a whole.
On that subject, Zuma seems to have, intentionally or otherwise, a symmetry to it: nine songs; 1 and 9 are short at only about two and a half minutes each; 2 and 8 are easily the longest songs on the album, both slow-burning epics (#2, "Danger Bird", is the other that I particularly like apart from "Cortez The Killer"); 3 and 7 are three-and-a half to four minute pieces; 4 and 6 are three to three-and-a-half minute ones; 5 is pretty much a flat three minutes. Unfortunately for the theory, though, there's no obvious musical or lyrical mirroring going on apart from in the lengths of the songs...
