The Last Time Around album was damn good. Stills' ‘Pretty Girl Why’ showed that the band was capable of being very effective while understating. Sure--Buffalo Springfield could rock hard and play hard but ‘Pretty Girl Why’ points to a level of sophistication and subtlety that was just coming into rock at the time. Nobody had to yell and scream or show how many hot licks they could play in that song. In that regard, it was anticipating the better angels of the coming singer-songwriter genre.
Maybe Neil didn’t sanction that album but look he gave us ‘On The Way Home'; that's just a beautiful song. It was on rotation on our AM and the new FM radio playlists--years after the band was gone. B. Mitchell Reed, in particular, implicitly positioned the Springfield as an important antecedent by programming tracks well into the early 1970s, but in the context of Crosby, Stills & Nash or After the Goldrush.
‘On The Way Home’ is atypical of Neil because it’s an optimistic song. And you don’t get optimistic songs from Neil Young. He deals in dour self-immolation. And it’s Richie Furay at his optimistic, celebratory best. That’s as good as anything they ever did. At the same time you’ve got ‘I Am a Child'--something new as well. Yes, it’s Neil indulging his obsessive self-examination, but he’s also leveling a critique of the music industry and painting himself in a very vulnerable light. In that, it’s a window into the future solo Neil Young: you hear similar sentiments on the first Neil Young album in ‘Last Train To Tulsa.’ The lyrics on both tunes are from a supine point of view.
On the front cover of Last Time Around, Neil is looking away from the other group members--signifying his continual one-foot-in-and-one-foot-out status in the band. Neil always asserted his individuality in the Springfield, and probably in his mind, it was time to go; I don’t think he had any compunction or second thoughts.
Last Time Around almost sounded like a different band on every track. So I didn’t have the sense of great ride coming to an end so much as a great band splitting off into different directions.” From: https://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2022/08/buffalo-springfields-last-time-around.html
