Neil Young’s 40 Greatest Songs

Welcome to Uncut’s deep dive into 40 of Neil Young’s greatest songs – rock’n’roll in its highest form, from gold-plated standards to long jams and forgotten gems. Here, members of Young’s extended musical family – including David Crosby, Graham Nash, Nils Lofgren, Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, Poncho Sampedro, Spooner Oldham, Niko Bolas, Daniel Lanois, Jim Keltner and Micah Nelson – give up their intimate secrets about his mercurial recording practices. We discover the origin of “Don’t spook the horse!”, enjoy a cameo from Marlon Brando, pay heed to Young’s studio direction (“More air!”) and learn that genius can manifest itself surprisingly easily via magic marker and a big easel.

But for all the different Neils we encounter in this chronological survey – folkie Neil, ornery Neil, electronic Neil, rocker Neil, eco-warrior Neil and more besides – the overriding message we can divine from this multitude of first-hand recollections is this: “You never know what he’s going to do next.”

1 SUGAR MOUNTAIN
(Neil Young, The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972; 1965)
Lament for lost youth

RANDY BACHMAN, friend: I first met Neil at a gig I was playing in Winnipeg. He seemed determined to get to a place far from where he was. He played me both “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” and “Sugar Mountain” as acetate demos. I also saw him play them live at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in 1971. I was absolutely amazed. He had sold out several nights in a row and performed solo on guitar and piano. I couldn’t believe that this kid from Winnipeg had turned into this artist that had the audience so mesmerised with his music. At that concert he announced that he had written “Sugar Mountain” about a Joni Mitchell connection and, while driving in the canyons the other day, he’d written about 10 more verses! He asked the audience: “Do you want to hear the new verses?” He sang it for about eight minutes with the audience singing along on every chorus.

2 MR SOUL
(Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again; 1967)
Early swipe at rock stardom
BRUCE BOTNICK, engineer: I think it was on “Mr Soul” that Neil overdubbed his solo and I forgot to put the eight-track into Sel-Sync, so when we did the playback Neil’s solo was out of synch by something like 187 milliseconds. They all thought that was cool and left it. Neil’s playing on this was great. There was this constant competition between Neil and Stephen [Stills]; they were always pushing one another. But they were so fluid and so good together. When they did the Buffalo Springfield reunion tour in 2011, both Neil and Steve were having a ball on stage, especially with “Mr Soul”. In the studio I could sense there wasn’t a lot of harmony within the group because there were these two big stars – Neil and Stephen – rising out of that whole thing. Neil always felt comfortable standing on his own two legs. He was bursting with music. He didn’t necessarily know where to go with it, he just knew he needed to get it out. He followed the adage – don’t think, just do, let it come. You can hear that in his playing, it’s very fluid. Every album is still Neil Young, so that untapped creativity is still inside him. A lot of artists dry up and imitate themselves, but not Neil. He might go back and take a snapshot of a style, but he won’t copy it. I’ve always felt Neil paid attention to his emotions. He is a very sensitive guy. But when you see him on stage it’s no holds barred: he opens the barn doors and out he comes.

3 EXPECTING TO FLY
(Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again; 1967)
Singer-songwriter confessional

BRUCE BOTNICK, engineer: We recorded “Expecting To Fly” at Sunset Sound. It was basically Neil and the Wrecking Crew. I think we had Carol Kaye on bass, Russ Titelman on rhythm, Hal Blaine on drums and Don Randi on piano. I was doing some work with Jack Nitzsche and he got me in. On “Expecting To Fly”, none of the other guys from Springfield were around. Jack came in with a full-blown arrangement and we did the rhythm track. I think Neil overdubbed the guitar because that was emotionally such a feel thing. I found Neil was very deep and very open. Musically he had a fire burning inside him, glowing red like ET’s heart. When we finished the album, I was producing Love’s Forever Changes. I asked Neil if he’d like to co-produce because I felt this musical kinship. Initially he said yes, but then he came back and said, “Sorry Bruce, I really have to do me.” He went and did his own stuff and I did Love. It worked out for both of us, and later I co-produced the first Crazy Horse album with Jack Nitzsche.

4 BROKEN ARROW
(Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again; 1967)
Ambitious folk-rock suite
JIM MESSINA, engineer: I think the episode that most summed up Neil’s creativity was working on “Broken Arrow”. When Neil brought the song in, he wanted to use all these separate pieces. That was a first for me, but I knew what we had to do to make it work. I got a chance to see how his mind worked in terms of piecing all those images together. The last part has that jazz part in it, which I never understood why he wanted it there. But when it all came together, it was quite wonderful. I would never have pictured it in that way, but Neil did. Sitting back and watching him think it through, then bringing the band in and getting them to play it, then putting that little piece in at the end, it was fascinating. I remember him standing up when it was done, with a huge smile on his face, and saying, “That’s it. That’s great!” It’s wonderful to see anybody who has a passion and vision for something and is able to put it all together.

5 COWGIRL IN THE SAND
(Neil Young With Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere; 1969)
Heroic guitar jam
RALPH MOLINA, drums: Neil’s playing on this was awesome, it was so fresh and original. We did a lot of different versions, but this was the best. How it started is Neil would come up to Billy [Talbot]’s house in Laurel Canyon when he left the Springfield and we’d sit around playing acoustic with Danny [Whitten]. We were doing a show at the Whiskey and we asked him to sit in with us. He wasn’t a heavy yet, he was just a guy called Neil. The next thing I remember is that Danny said, “Neil wants to do some recording.” So we went to his house in Topanga and started to play. That’s when we realised it was a working thing. Neil loved the way Danny played. After we got Poncho [Frank Sampedro] we became a crunch band, but with Danny it was a mellower kind of thing. The last time we toured with Ben Keith, I thought Ben would do organ or keyboard, but Neil liked Ben on guitar. I asked why and he said it was because he played rhythm like Danny did.

6 CINNAMON GIRL
(Neil Young With Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere; 1969)
The horse unleashed!

BILLY TALBOT, bass: What I remember about “Cinnamon Girl” is the four of us playing it – me, Ralph [Molina], Danny [Whitten] and Neil – and realising, “Oh yeah, we can do this.” There’s Danny’s guitar, there’s Neil’s voice and guitar, and Ralph and I just need to keep the beat. When you are inside a song like that, it’s something beautiful. It sounded good and I liked it, then we got to the bridge and I loved it! We were able to get very psychedelic; we could slow it down and it got bigger and even more beautiful. I don’t think we worked on it for long, we really did just play it once or twice before we got the take. I never really thought about who the Cinnamon Girl was – I don’t even know if there was one – but I know in my heart that everybody who is young and is male and who likes girls will have a vision of a girl in his mind’s eye when he hears that song. That’s what that song does.

7 DOWN BY THE RIVER
(Neil Young With Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere; 1969)
The first Crazy Horse classic
BILLY TALBOT, bass: When we were The Rockets, we would do long instrumentals with Danny, Ralph and I, plus Leon and George [Whitsell] and Bobby Notkoff. We even recorded one called “Let Me Go”. But “Down By The River” was the first time we did it with Neil. We were playing the song, and it opened up into this long jam. The three of us were used to doing that and Neil just stayed there with us. We went to his place in the canyon and played “Cinnamon Girl” and “Down By The River”. The first song was pretty cool, but “Down By The River” we didn’t get right. We wondered how to play it, tried it a few times, but it wasn’t working. We went home and Ralph and I talked about it and we thought it should be played more in half time instead of double time. That decision went into shaping the song. That stretched it and give it space to breathe. Ralph and I had only been playing bass and drums for a year, so we had this one beat that was a bit advanced for us and we decided to use that one – it worked! It was the first time the four of us ever did that, and I guess we did that for another 50 years on a bunch of different songs! It’s a fun song to play for anybody, but nobody plays it like Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

8 HELPLESS
(CSNY, Déjà Vu; 1970)
Nostalgic evocation of time and place

DAVID CROSBY: It was obvious to me that Neil was a special talent right from the first night I heard him. But I didn’t fully comprehend his weight and range as a songwriter until one afternoon when I was in front of either Joni or Elliot [Roberts]’s house in Laurel Canyon. I was sitting in my car waiting for whichever one to show up, when Neil pulled in. I’d never actually had a conversation with him before, so we started talking. My first impressions were that he had a great sense of humour and was very smart. I liked him immediately. Then he said, “Do you wanna hear a new song?” And I said, “Fuck, yeah!” So we sat on the trunk of the car, he pulled out a guitar and sang probably four of the best songs I’d ever heard. I thought, ‘Oh Jesus, this guy’s good.’ One of them was “Helpless”. Right there and then I said, “I wanna work with this guy.” That experience absolutely fed into CSNY.

9 OHIO
(CSNY single, 1970)
Powerful protest anthem
DAVID CROSBY: I watched Neil write “Ohio”, so I’m the first person who ever heard it. It was in a friend of ours’ house in Butano Canyon up in northern central California. Neil and I were sat out on the porch and our friend had just come back from the grocery store, where he’d gone to get breakfast. He had a copy of Newsweek magazine, featuring the Kent State shootings of May 1970, with the picture of the girl and the other kid in a puddle of blood and the question “Why?” written all over her face. Neil and I both looked at it and realised we were now in a country that was shooting its children. It was a shocker for the both of us. The guitar happened to be on the other side of me and he said, “Hand me that.” Neil sat there right in front of me and wrote it. It took him maybe 10 minutes, then I got on the phone to Nash and said, “Get a studio, right now! Find Stephen and get him there, too. We’re coming to Los Angeles now.” Within 24 hours of Neil writing it, we had it recorded. Then we put “Find The Cost Of Freedom” on the B-side, which was about as appropriate as we could get. “Ohio” pointed the finger. It was very powerful because it was so direct. It named Nixon and said what he was doing. Part of our job is just to rock and entertain you, but another part is to be the troubadour, the town crier. You know, it’s midnight and all is fucking not OK. We did our job there on “Ohio”. Probably did our job the best we ever did it.

10 ONLY LOVE CAN BREAK YOUR HEART
(Neil Young, After The Gold Rush; 1970)
The simplest of sentiments, timelessly transcribed
GRAHAM NASH: That song means a lot to me because Neil wrote it about me and Joni. It’s such a beautiful song. I knew it was about me the day Neil played it for me at Stephen’s house in Laurel Canyon. It was incredibly important for
me to hear what Neil had said because he was dead right, it is only love that can break your heart. We are strong, mankind, but these love things can really trip you up. He was only 24 when he wrote that. It’s incredible how prolific he was. At this time, Neil would come to rehearsals with us as CSNY and then at the end of the day we’d go about our business and we didn’t know he was going into the studio to record a solo album. It’s been amazing to watch Neil become this great artist. When we were first together as CSNY we all realised how talented he was. I personally feel that Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby, Nash, Stills & Young are two completely different bands because of his talent and the difference that it makes. Over the years, I accumulated 28 handwritten documents by Neil containing original lyrics that had been left behind at studios or given to me. A year or so ago, he decided to sell his archive to a university in Canada and he asked me if I still had those lyrics. I said I did. I’d valued them at $800,000 but I realised that Neil wanted them, I realised how much money I had made because of his talent, and I gave them to Neil with a good heart. If Neil wanted his stuff back, he could have it.

11 SOUTHERN MAN
(Neil Young, After The Gold Rush; 1970)
Savage commentary on Southern racism

NILS LOFGREN, guitar: That was a startling song. The way it starts musically – dum-dum-whack! – is just a half-time groove, very down. Then I started doing a polka-beat on the piano, Ralphy double-timed it, and we went on this roaring groove. David [Briggs] and Neil said, “That feels great.” But, yeah – between the Vietnam War and the civil rights marches I’d played on in 1968 and the assassination of Martin Luther King, we’d seen all these movements, and now just a year or two later we’re tracking “Southern Man”. Neil seemed angry as he sang it. There’s a rage and a concern. It was really a beautiful, powerful statement about the shame and stain of racism. In my country, we’ve struggled with it since the beginning – and we’re still struggling with it mightily now. I wouldn’t have coined the phrase then, but what Neil was talking about is moral treason. With that song I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that’s a scary lyric.’ I’m proud of Neil for writing and singing it.

12 HARVEST
(Neil Young, Harvest; 1972)
Sorrow-soaked country waltz
HENRY DILTZ, photographer: I remember the flow and the beautiful sound of that song. It’s one of his more cryptic lyrics, quite impressionistic. I photographed Neil many times around this time. I’d go to the ranch and he was always sitting around noodling with his guitar. This was such a prolific time; he was taking every thought and turning it into a song. That is what makes songwriters so brilliant – they can turn their thoughts and feelings into a song and make it universal. It’s what makes them so special. I do a slideshow of people I have photographed – Joni, The Doors, CSN, Neil – and I always say there’s a reason these people are loved around the world and it’s simply that they are interesting people. They are a little bit different to us, they are special, they really live life and they have a wonderful musical way of stating it. They have a certain kind of freedom from their lifestyles and that gives them time to sit and think and to reflect and really dig into how they feel about something. They are a cut above the average person.

13 HEART OF GOLD
(Neil Young, Harvest; 1972)
That massive hit single

ELLIOT MAZER, producer: We first met in Nashville when Neil came down to do a Johnny Cash TV show. He said, “You have a studio?” Yes. “Great, you have a band?” Yes. So I got Kenny Buttrey, Ben Keith, then Tim Drummond and various pianists. Went to the studio, I set it up. I remember hearing “Heart Of Gold” for the first time. Neil played the song in the control room on guitar. Kenny and I looked at each other and we each put up one finger to show that we felt it would be a No 1. From that point on, it was easy. With Neil, his songs are worked out in advance and he plays them with great conviction and what he plays and sings dictates what the record should be. He is totally prepared. In the studio, Neil would play a new song for us and give us some ideas. When Neil plays a song, his playing implies a complete arrangement. The band learned to play less around him.

14 THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE
(Neil Young, Harvest; 1972)
Heartfelt meditation on addiction
GRAHAM NASH: Neil had just had some surgery on his back and was in hospital in Los Angeles. I went to visit him and there he was with his back in a brace in his hospital bed, but he had his guitar with him, obviously, and he said to me, “Graham, do you want to hear a new song?” Of course I said yes because who doesn’t want to hear a new song from Neil Young? He played me “The Needle And The Damage Done”. I knew straight away that it was about Danny Whitten. Neil loved Danny and was worried about him, and this was such a sad time in his life. He thought Danny was an incredible talent, and for him to OD at such a young age was heartbreaking. It’s one of the most powerful songs I’ve heard about drugs and what an incredible title – “The Needle And The Damage Done”. It tells you everything. He’s such a great songwriter and I am so pleased and fortunate to be his friend.

15 TIME FADES AWAY
(Neil Young, Time Fades Away, 1973)
The ditch beckons…
JOHNY BARBATA, drums: Neil called me up halfway through the tour and said, “Can you come out and play drums?” The mood was pretty wild because Danny Whitten had died, so Neil started drinking tequila and everybody thought he was on heroin, which he wasn’t. Did I get a sense of mourning from “Time Fades Away”? Well, Neil’s songs could put you in a mood and I’ve got a feeling it’s all about Danny Whitten. But who knows what’s in Neil’s oven? He’s a pretty happy-go-lucky guy. When he’s having a really good time, he’ll slap his hand on his leg. Like a good old country boy. But when he’s pissed off, he’ll let ya know. As far as grief goes, the show went on, and the Stray Gators were magic, man. Neil was down a little bit. Because that was a hard thing, to think that he had fired Danny and he died. But he was always up when he played, and the crowd were OK with the new songs. Because with Neil, you never know what you’re going to get.

16 ON THE BEACH
(Neil Young, On The Beach; 1974)
Anthem of alienation and loneliness
AL SCHMITT, engineer: Neil wanted the room set up like a living room with a
couch and lamps. He wanted this comfortable atmosphere as if they were at home. He kept getting this amazing guitar sound and I was just trying to capture that. People from the record company kept coming down to see what we were doing. We had to stop the tape and put the old tapes on for a playback. This was getting to be a drag, so Neil said, “Let’s make some rough mixes for the label.” We did that on a two-track, no echo but good rough mixes. We finished the album and I said, “OK Neil, when are we going to mix?” He said, “You know, I’ve been listening and I’ve fallen in love with those rough mixes.” I said, “Neil, you can’t do that, you have to let me mix them.” There’s no arguing with Neil. He didn’t want it to be slick, so the fact there was no echo other than what came out in the studio is what he liked. Even now, he’ll ask if I still want to remix On The Beach. It’s a running joke. “Where are you going, Al?” “Oh, I’m off to finish the mix for On The Beach.”

17 AMBULANCE BLUES
(Neil Young, On The Beach; 1974)
Cryptic meditation on changing times

RALPH MOLINA, drums: This wasn’t a Crazy Horse thing. I came in and played drums on a couple of songs like “Walk On” and “Ambulance Blues”. These were great sessions, but it was more like a solo album with the rest of us coming in and out. Neil was really digging into his life on this song. I played a very minimal drum part on this; I was a lot more subtle than I am now. It was basic but it was good, and Neil liked that because what Neil really wants is lots of space. We give him space, we don’t crowd him. You can definitely hear the influence of Bert Jansch on that song. Ben Keith also played on this, and he was a very important part of the sound for these albums. When I think about Ben, I always think about him burping after he drank a quart of tequila. But he was a great player, a great fit, and when we did Tonight’s The Night he was all over the album. I never asked about the lyrics. I know the words because I sing backing vocals, but to me it’s the melody. I never try to understand what he’s trying to say. The one time that was different was Tonight’s The Night. After the first song we played, “Tired Eyes”, I knew what this album was about – Danny, the roadie, and the other shit that was happening. The record company weren’t sure, but we played it for Rick Danko and he said we have to put it out. I don’t see On The Beach as a similar thing at all. People compare On The Beach with Tonight’s The Night, but to me it was night and day.

18 TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT
(Neil Young, Tonight’s The Night; 1975)
Haunting elegy for fallen comrades
NILS LOFGREN, guitar: That whole album was a magical dark ride, to commiserate about our dear friends and heroes who had started dying on us. Top of the list was Danny Whitten. We’d get together at SIR studio in Hollywood, shoot pool, sip a little tequila and commiserate about what the hell was going on. After midnight, we’d go into the studio. “Tonight’s The Night” was a lot of piano and electric guitar, and very loose jamming. Neil said it was an anti-production record, play what you feel. Nothing was ever the same twice, as you can hear in the opening and closing versions of “Tonight’s The Night”. Had Neil been changed by his losses? I would say yes. I remember when we were playing in England, there was a reckless rage and acceptance and Neil started doing a lot of rapping during “Tonight’s The Night”. He was
getting very angry, man, and talking about Bruce Berry’s death. Instead
of playing notes, while he was yelling, he banged the piano with the heel of his hand. Neil was processing sadness and loss and rage – at everything.

19 DANGER BIRD
(Neil Young And Crazy Horse, Zuma; 1975)
The Horse reborn!
FRANK “PONCHO” SAMPEDRO, guitar: When I first met Billy and Ralph, we started jamming at their house. I wrote a couple of songs and Billy had some songs. Next thing I knew, Neil showed up. We played with him for a day. Two months later, we were recording at David Briggs’ house on Zuma Beach! I remember, every evening, I’d go visit my buddy Bonzo, and we’d play together at his house. That was where I figured out parts for every section of “Danger Bird”. When we recorded it, I was playing kinda hard on the second solo and Neil came over and said, “More air! More air! More air!” You can hear him saying that on the recording. So it was really easy for me to back off!
About a month ago, Neil sent me some versions of “Danger Bird” from Way Down In The Rust Bucket, the live Crazy Horse album he’s putting together. He asked which version I liked the best. I chose the one that sounds like when you’re in the audience, but he liked the one where his guitar sounds better! He played great that night, so I know why he likes it. There’s nothing like listening to yourself play at your best.

20 CORTEZ THE KILLER
(Neil Young And Crazy Horse, Zuma; 1975)
Moody, electric epic banned by Spain’s Franco government!
PONCHO SAMPEDRO, guitar: I’m sitting in the back at David Briggs’ house with Billy and my friend Steve Antoine. We did a little angel dust, not really knowing that much about it. Everything got really fuzzy when Neil goes, “Hey, Poncho! I got this great song, it’s only three chords. You’re gonna love it!” We played in a guest room and Briggs was in the living room, where the equipment was set up. The power went out in the living room, but it didn’t go out for us. David was so brilliant. After he got the power up, we were still playing, he listened to the tape and punched us back in on beat. But we still lost the fourth verse of “Cortez” – that will never be heard. I remember something about a ‘rocky cave’ and ‘below the ocean’. I said to Neil, “What about that fourth verse?” He said, “No, it didn’t make the record. It wasn’t meant to be.” It’s a really beautiful song, very sad and lilting. It kinda floats – and you just have to have faith that it’s going to keep moving forward! You can’t push it! It’s also very sparse; I don’t need to play a lot of notes. That gives Neil a ton of room to exercise his craft. There were nights on tour when it got intense and crazy and
we pushed it hard, but we always came back to the feeling on that record – that floaty, spacey thing, where the song almost stops. When you talk about those earlier records and first getting together with Crazy Horse, those songs like “Cortez”? I remember thinking, ‘Wow, we’re really making some good rock’n’roll!’

21 LIKE A HURRICANE
(Neil Young, American Stars ’N Bars; 1977)
Celebration of love’s destructive mystery

BILLY TALBOT, bass: I remember it all happening very fast. Neil was
right there, he was ready, he had that song in his head and we just tagged along. He sang it and before you knew it we’re already in the chorus. We recorded it and then we went back and added the harmonies and then it was done. Boom. It was like a hurricane. It blew in and then blew out. It’s a very strong vocal performance and he did that live in the studio as he played the guitar. That was always very cool to watch, and because he sings live on most of his records, you know when you go to a show that’s what you are going to hear. It’s what you are familiar with and there it is in front of you. He improvised that guitar. He was singing and playing guitar, supporting himself in the song. It’s because he comes from a folk background he can do that; the only difference is that he’s playing an electric guitar rather than an acoustic one. He simplifies things a little bit because of the nature of the beast, the electric guitar, but when he’s done singing and goes into the solo, that’s real. He doesn’t have it mapped out, he’s just going for it. I love the way “…Hurricane” opens. We did that as an edit so it started from the best moment, because we had been playing a bit before, but it wasn’t so good until that point. I never really think about how a song will endure when we’re making it, but a while after it came out I heard “Like A Hurricane” on the radio when I was driving down to Neil’s ranch, and that’s when I realised, ‘Wow, that one sounds really good.’

22 COMES A TIME
(Neil Young, Comes A Time; 1978)
Effortless country stylings

SPOONER OLDHAM, piano: I met Neil Young in the mid-’70s. We recorded it in Nashville and we did the rhythm tracks and then a string arranger came in and did a lot of extra stuff. What I liked about “Comes A Time” is the part I played on the piano – I liked the sentiments of the lyric; it’s like a psalm. I like the song a lot and could go out right now and play it. Neil likes you to get involved with the creative process. He’s like all the great artists I have worked with –they write the song and play it to you, and then you are like the tailor, fitting shoes and hats and gloves on it. You don’t change anything, you add to it. That’s the beauty of the creative process – you can make something durable, something that people still want to hear in 20, 40, 60 years. They can listen to it and it feels the same as when it was first done. That’s the beauty in the possibility of what we do.

23 MY, MY, HEY, HEY (OUT OF THE BLUE)
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Rust Never Sleeps; 1979)
Acoustic requiem, twinned with the electric “Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)”
JEFF BLACKBURN, co-writer: Neil ducked out for a while and came to Santa Cruz in ’78. He could just be himself without a lot of hoopla. We were old friends going back to the ’60s. I was playing in Santa Cruz with John Craviotto and Bob Mosley [Moby Grape], who were a great rhythm section, when Neil ducked into it. That was a great summer. We played about 30 shows as The Ducks. We played every night. It really was a mighty month. Neil and I swapped ideas. We both had material, we had ideas and things came together as we were rocking together pretty good. I had a song with the line, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust/It’s better to burn out than it is to rust”. Neil liked that and the whole rust thing came from that line – Rust Never Sleeps. Not many people share a credit with Neil Young. It’s hard to say why I got one, you’d need to ask Neil. But you never know what he’s going to do next.

24 POWDERFINGER
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Rust Never Sleeps; 1979)
A look back into America’s dark past
BILLY TALBOT, BASS: This is a great song to play live. Ralph and I get to do all the “oohs” in the backing vocals and we always like to get them right – which isn’t easy when you are making that much noise up there on stage. This is one of Neil’s best stories, too. We recorded it live for the Rust Never Sleeps album. We hadn’t even tried to do it in the studio, it was completely fresh. He was so prolific at this point that we were able to do this live album with all that new material. Once he gets rolling, all these songs fly out of him. Back in the heyday of “Powderfinger” it seemed that the older he got, the better he got. He just kept producing all these songs and surprising us, more and more of them each month until he slowed down a bit. But that doesn’t matter. What’s important is to be who you are at the time and take advantage of the opportunity you have been given until things change. That’s when the thing you were doing becomes the past. That’s just the way it works.

25 POCAHONTAS
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Rust Never Sleeps; 1979)
Time-travelling visions!

JAMES MAZZEO, friend: I finished doing The Last Waltz as The Band’s road manager. Neil was building a boat in Florida and he said, “Let’s drive down Route 66 to Florida.” We were going through Kansas or Oklahoma and Neil grabbed my journal and started writing. He wrote the poem “Pocahontas”, and by the time we got to Florida he had the guitar worked out and played it to
me. It was all there, including the last verse about Marlon Brando. A year or so earlier, Bill Graham had a benefit at Golden Gate Park. Neil and I met Brando and Dylan on the steps of City Hall. Marlon was a big supporter of the Native Americans. They talked about that and Neil put it in the song. This was a time when Neil stopped writing so much about himself and the songs became more external. There was “Pocahontas”, “Cortez”, “Powderfinger”. Short stories, surreal, metaphysical. When Neil was in high school he had rheumatic fever and went blind for six months; he lived with nothing but the images in his mind. That trained his brain. When he sings a song with that high, almost invalid voice, it’s coming from that hospital bed.

26 SHOTS
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Reactor; 1981)
An onslaught of guitars and effects
PONCHO SAMPEDRO, guitar: It was a really weird time. From when
I got into the band, we were always together – Neil, Billy, Ralph and I. We recorded together, toured together, even hung out at the ranch together when we weren’t touring or recording! But after Rust Never Sleeps, Neil got absorbed with Ben [his son] and the Patterning programme for cerebral palsy. We went off and did our own thing. We’d been separated as a group, for the first time in years. So when we got back together, it was different. For “Shots”, we spent time hitting everything we could find in the studio – banging pieces of metal together, doing handclaps. Everyone in the Patterning programme showed up and we banged everything we could find. Neil overdubbed the synthesisers and effects onto the song later. When we left those sessions, I don’t know if we got anything great. You could say that was a product of Neil being distracted by Ben, but it was also because, at the time, we had been separated. But I remember playing “Shots” at home on my own and thinking, ‘Yeah, this is a good song!’

27 LIKE AN INCA
(Neil Young, Trans; 1982)
Relentless rocker amid Trans’ electronic strangeness
RALPH MOLINA, drums: We did some of Trans at the ranch, some of the computer songs, and we did some rockers like “Like An Inca” with Nils in Hawaii. I loved Trans and I also love Life, neither of which got the recognition they should have done. Neil using the vocoder, changing the sound of his voice, confused people. This was one of the rockier songs on the album and it was fun to play. Neil doesn’t send us cassettes, and I like it when we walk through the door and Neil will have a new song like “Like An Inca” and we jump in and start playing. It’s a lot easier for me than it is for Billy and Poncho. They need to learn the changes, but I can just follow. Neil was always interested in the indigenous people. He wrote “Cortez” way back, long before Crazy Horse, but thank God he never recorded it. After this, we did “Inca Queen”. Maybe it was because of the Cree people up in Canada, but he loves the subject and it makes for great material.

28 THIS NOTE’S FOR YOU
(Neil Young & The Bluenotes, This Note’s For You; 1988)
Trenchant take on corporate sponsorship

NIKO BOLAS, producer: The Bluenotes started when we were just doing some blues tunes in the barn. I remember saying to Neil, “I wish we had a horn section.” The next thing I knew, we had six fucking horns! I mean he just went: boom – OK, this is what we’re doing now. Then that evolved from Crazy Horse into a different rhythm section, a bunch of new songs and suddenly there were the Bluenotes. The moniker of that tour was “This Note’s For You”, because at that time in the ’80s it was the beginning of the heinous corporate sponsorship of rock’n’roll. Neil has never aligned himself with any company. He aligns himself with music. The song “This Note’s For You” was amazing, then the video won the MTV Best Video Award – even though MTV wouldn’t play it because it was slagging them! That’s pretty standard for Neil. I didn’t have to wean Neil from Crazy Horse. I was frustrated because the groove wasn’t happening with them, so I just said, “Here’s what I really think…” All you can do with Neil is be rigorously honest, immediately. Because there’s no time wasted. Neil’s not an imposing character, and he’s not egocentric. But he’s about purpose, and the last thing you want to do is to get in its way. Neil listens to everybody. What he does with it is a different story. Neil just keeps going in the studio. Then when he hears it, we’re done.

29 CRIME IN THE CITY (SIXTY TO ZERO)
(Neil Young, Freedom; 1989)
Powerful lament for the American Dream
CHAD CROMWELL, drums: We cut it in the barn late at night. There was a full moon. I was looking out this huge window and as we were tracking the song you could see this fog bank cascading over the mountain with moonlight shining on the fog. It’s rolling up the mountain and we’re cutting this badass rock’n’roll song. I think every session I’ve had with Neil culminates with a full moon. We didn’t fool around with it much; he had it written. The lyrical content didn’t surprise me because he always writes about what is fucked up in America. Like “Ordinary People” and “Rockin’ In The Free World” – this was post-Reagan, everything that’s wrong with America and the planet. Very much
a statement about politics and the timing was pretty good. With Neil, once you are in that extended family you are part of it – you just don’t know when he’s going to need you again. It’s not a good idea to wait on Neil, but whenever I hear from him I start to get excited. Here we go again!

30 ROCKIN’ IN THE FREE WORLD
(Neil Young, Freedom; 1989)
Young’s ’90s renaissance begins

CHAD CROMWELL, drums: We were touring the Bluenotes record. While we were doing that, as Neil will often do, he started drifting in another musical direction. The music shifted away from the bluesy horn-based thing and into rock, folk, story-based writing like the early ’70s. That began the process of what became Freedom. The Bluenote stuff did well – he got a lot of attention with “This Note’s For You” and that started a resurgence. Then I think he got bored. We’d played it enough, so he started writing, and the next thing you knew we’re banging out some rock’n’roll. We cut “Rockin’ In The Free World” in a couple of days at the barn. He was writing the verses as we went. He’d write it down with a magic marker on a big easel, crossing and scribbling them out as we went through and shaped the song. In two days we had the body of the verses and the song came together. It then became pretty much the biggest rock’n’roll anthem he ever cut and it had really come almost out of nowhere. At that time he wasn’t in that mode. He was experimenting, he’d had these issues with Geffen and was being sued for producing non-commercial records, so it was very unexpected. OK, we’re going to do an eighth-note slamming rock’n’roll thing? Aren’t we a blues horn band? In the studio he has a unique approach. He’s not picky about execution or production values and sound, he’s really more interested in capturing a moment. It’s like watching a baby getting born. It might be a bit messy and fucked up, but it’s a first look at a brand-new life.

31 LOVE AND ONLY LOVE
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Ragged Glory; 1990)
The Horse at their most gleefully primitive
PONCHO SAMPEDRO, guitar: We were playing with Billy and Ralph, Neil was showing us the song, then out of nowhere David Briggs shows up. He brought John Hanlon with him, who was kinda nervous, checking the mics and amps, and all of a sudden the band choked. We couldn’t play to save our lives. That’s where Neil came up with the line, “Don’t spook the horse!” So because of that, when we went to do the sessions, no-one was allowed in the room with us apart from Briggs. “Love And Only Love”, we beat that song like it owed us money. It’s not super-complicated, but it’s what we do. We come up with the in-between – how we managed the verses, can we make them more sensitive than the rest of the song – then hammer the solos. The bottom line is when Neil’s really feeling it, he’s singing great and playing great, we all recognise it; the lightbulb goes on and everybody steps up. Don’t ask me how we know, we do. That’s what makes us a thing.

32 HARVEST MOON
(Neil Young, Harvest Moon; 1992)
Young’s fascination with lunar cycles revealed!
SPOONER OLDHAM, organ: This was always a special song to play live. We’d be in an amphitheatre and it would be mid-evening and this moon would hang up there. It made that whole moment special. I noticed with Neil how often the moon was out when he was recording. I didn’t know if he planned it but maybe he did, like a farmer. I remember the recording session for this pretty well because I liked playing the song. I was on the organ, which is unusual as I don’t usually play organ, but a lot of the heavy lifting for the song was done by Neil and his guitar riff. It’s pretty consistent, and that gave us a really good bed to work with. What makes Neil special? He has all the great qualities you want from a songwriter. He writes good songs, he’s a great musician, his singing is in a different category, and he is a great entertainer – a lot of people can do one or two of those things but not many can do them all.

33 BE THE RAIN
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Greendale; 2003)
Eco-fable still resonates today

RALPH MOLINA, drums: This was just me, Billy and Neil up at the ranch. One thing I remember is that I always play with sticks, but in the studio it was so mellow without Poncho, Neil was almost scratching his strings. I felt so loud, so I got some cool rods and threw the sticks away. “Be The Rain” is one of the rockers on the album. Neil started playing, Billy and I jumped in, and then while we were recording my snare broke. It was about halfway through but I didn’t want to stop, so I kept playing. In the studio they had to add a little snare to it. That Greendale thing was awesome, it was this big play that
just kind of evolved. Neil wrote a couple of songs and suddenly it became this story about this place. On stage for “Be The Rain”, he uses two mics taped together, one for his regular singing and one for the shouted parts – “Be the rain!” He was always very environmentally minded, and he’s become even more so now with Daryl [Hannah].

34 LOOKIN’ FOR A LEADER
(Neil Young, Living With War; 2006)
Urgent protest song, reworked for 2019’s “The Times” EP
NIKO BOLAS, producer: Is “Lookin’ For A Leader” prophetic? He sang it on his front porch a couple of months ago, about the current administration. “Yeah we’ve got our election, but corruption has a chance”. It still has a chance, unfortunately. I think every song I’ve ever recorded with Neil comes from the simpleness of a folk singer. He manages to make ideas general enough to fit a bunch of situations, but poignant enough to matter. I was at the ranch when he says, “How come nobody’s doing any protest records? We’re going to war, and we have all this corruption.” Next thing I know, the band has been flown in, and nine days later he had written and executed nine songs, and we’d recorded 100 voices singing every word, with the lyrics projected two storeys high on the studio wall. Did this record start Neil recording simpler and more directly political songs? As you get older you become more aware of how finite your time is. So perhaps there’s an urgency. But things have always been really simple for him. There’s evil. Then there’s people who love.

35 HITCHHIKER
(Neil Young, Le Noise; 2010)
Autobiographical ‘70s reject gets an update
DANIEL LANOIS, producer: Neil came to me wanting to put his best foot forward, and I wanted Le Noise to stand with the giants of his previous albums. I built a custom studio for him at my villa in Los Angeles. We didn’t want be, “OK, Neil, here’s your barstool and your old Martin.” He’s a very imaginative person. He responds to surprises, and he really appreciated the far-out sounds that I brought to him first on “Hitchhiker”, like a synth which let his guitar trigger subsonics. He’s a great technological innovator himself, and he was like a kid in a sandbox. It juiced him up. I also appreciated Neil’s Canadian commitment, and sense of humour. He said, “Well, I’m only interested in recording under the full moon.” I trusted that he knew something about it, and I think he was right! “Hitchhiker” was a song he had in his back pocket for a long time. Neil went back home to his hotel at night and wrote the extra verse to finish the song. I was really impressed by his capacity as a songwriter to deliver.

36 RAMADA INN
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill; 2012)
Horse back!

PONCHO SAMPEDRO, guitar: The lyrics are very personal to Neil and Pegi [Young’s second wife; they divorced in 2014]. I told Pegi, “I don’t know if you’re gonna like this song or not. It seems like it’s revealing a lot of stuff. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. You should check it out.” She came back two days later and said, “Poncho, it’s just a song about people and relationships. Everybody goes through that stuff.” I saw it more as, “Wow, the writing on the wall has been announced.” I cried a lot of times in that song, man. On the Alchemy Tour, we had a big sound. Neil was here in Hawaii, I was here in Hawaii and before that tour I walked down to his house with my acoustic guitar over my shoulder like it was a shovel, and we’d play the whole set. Then say goodbye and the next day we did it again and the next day we did it again. We got into some nuances in those songs that we could carry forward. He wasn’t really playing; he was working more on his vocals. But at the same time, we goofed around with some other songs. That’s where I really learned how to play “Mr Soul”. “Ramada Inn”, I still play that song with my girl. It’s a lot, you know? That’s what he has to do: “He loves her so”. Right now, I’m looking at a picture of Pegi with me and my wife at the Bridge School. This song is really special to me.

37 ORDINARY PEOPLE
(Neil Young, Bluenote Café; 2015)
State-of-the-nation address, originally recorded in 1988
NIKO BOLAS, producer: There are so many iterations of that song. But it’s the best example of how deep the entity of Neil Young is. It’s so much deeper than the verses he finally decides to give us. On “Ordinary People”, or “Sixty To Zero”, or “Crime In The City” – I’ve cut it with all three of those titles – there are so many verses, each one of them is a concise vignette of a life. By the ends of the stanzas, you actually have a picture of an emotion, or a person, or a situation. Then you string 15 of ’em together and you realise all of those things are going on in Neil’s brain. You’ll actually leave having felt it and whistling it when you go home. Oh, and there’s more coming out, man. There’s a version on the way that’s 25 minutes long. It’s just one thing after another. The groove is just – boom! Give us another story, give us another story. And by the end of it you’ve gone around the world, you’re exhausted, and you still want some more.

38 VAMPIRE BLUES
(Neil Young & Promise Of The Real, Earth; 2016)
’70s cut given first live outing in more than 40 years
MICAH NELSON, GUITAR: I’m really glad we got to play it with him, as the guitar solo on the original is my favourite of all time. Because it’s such a strung-out song, of course Neil would play the solo as if he was nodding off, as if he’s a junkie who’s falling apart on that one note. When Neil played it with us, it was perfectly shitty and unhinged. Jim James was there, and after the show he said, “Man, ‘Vampire Blues’ creeps me out!” We all grew up with Neil’s music under our skin. My brother Lukas has got the ballad, country-rock and blues thing and I’ve got the cinematic, trance-out and abstract qualities. We free Neil up to play any era of his music authentically – and he feels like he’s 25 again and playing in the band. Is Earth a freaky live album? Yes! The background singers singing “Exxon” and shit sound shiny and plastic – but that’s the point. They’re like a commercial on TV, and he juxtaposed that with a live band and animal sounds. He’s a conceptual genius!

39 PEACE TRAIL
(Neil Young, Peace Trail; 2016)
Spare trio tune about feeling past it but pressing on
JIM KELTNER, DRUMS: That was one of many times with Neil where the session’s really fun, then when the record comes out you think, ‘Oh my god, I wish I’d had time to think.’ Like on “Peace Trail”, I hadn’t put the snares on, but he started and bam, you’re in it. I didn’t want to reach down to them and cause that bump. Because that would have stayed as well! Neil is all about the moment. And he really loves train wrecks along the way. I was talking about
the beauty of playing with Crazy Horse one night, and I’m always amazed at how he brings an idea to the band, and then as it develops he seems to know that it was going to go like that. He’s so sure of what he does. And maybe that’s why he loves the accidents. Maybe that’s why it’s so important to him to be in the moment. And listen to the way he plays on “Peace Trail”. He’s a great jazz musician, to me. He takes the chords and just chews them up.

40 OLDEN DAYS
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Colorado; 2018)
Valedictory ballad finds Young taking stock
NILS LOFGREN, guitar: We were doing shows up in Winnipeg, 40 below zero and very dangerous, with me on the old Gold Rush upright piano, which was a beautiful, spooky feeling. We were on the bus with Elliot [Roberts, Neil’s long-time manager] after the last show and it reminded me of the Tonight’s The Night tour. It was a reckless, raw show. Elliot was laughing and we were talking about more to come. Then when we lost Elliot it was that same kind of rage and sadness as Tonight’s The Night. Months later, Neil sent us these real primitive demos and we recorded up in the Colorado mountains. “Olden Days” is a more reflective reaction to loss than Tonight’s The Night was. For all of us, too – we get older, we all got stuff going on. It was very therapeutic and healing – the ragged inspiration of Colorado, playing with old friends and creating something new. It won’t bring anyone back, but it reminds you their spirits are with you and they want you to carry on.

INTERVIEWS BY MICHAEL BONNER, NICK HASTED, ROB HUGHES AND PETER WATTS

This article originally appeared in Uncut Take 285 (February 2021)