It's far too grand and wide a catalog to capture the scope of in one best-of list, but we here at Billboard wanted to pay tribute to one of the all-time greats with our list of the best Neil Young songs not counting his work in groups like Buffalo Springfield and CSNY. Here are our 25 favorite examples of ol' Neil putting it down. Hard to believe this gut-punch of a song is a scant two minutes, as Young's harrowing vignette about heroin feels like a fully realized epic of addiction, despair and decay.
Less than 10 months after Harvest which features a live performance of "The Needle and the Damage Done" from sandwiched among the studio cuts came out, Crazy Horse's Danny Whitten -- one of the addicts likened to a "setting sun" -- died of a heroin overdose at age As punk pointed the way to rock's immediate future in , Young — certainly no stranger to raucous guitar fury — instead went full-on honky-tonk cornball with the title track to that year's LP.
Giddy fiddlin', unironic countrypolitan strings and gorgeous harmonies from Nicolette Larson give a sweet earnestness to this bucolic breather from his tumultuous '70s heyday.
On the Beach 's opening track "Walk On" is probably the kindest clapback in rock history. Lesser talents might've bitten back harder, but when you're smack in the midst of a classic streak like Young was in , you can just shrug it off and walk on. Bush at the height of the Iraq War is more than a ripped-from-the-headlines riposte to a divisive leader: It's an invigorating anthem against the excess of American leaders, whether that means blood for oil or spying on citizens in the name of national security.
The damning Dubya audio snippets might confuse listeners who didn't live through it, but his line about a leader "dividing our country into colors and still leaving Black people neglected" continues to ring depressingly true. The ten-minute exploration of lusty fascination that caps Neil Young's first classic album is indeed one of his greatest six-string exercises, as scorching and feverish as Neil himself on the famously flu-stricken day where he originally wrote it.
But for all Young's majesty shredding, it's the limber bass work of Billy Talbot that really electrifies, anchoring the song with a roaming curiosity that matches the sensuality and intrigue of the lyric. Ask Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey : Old age is a risky subject to tackle in song if you have any aims to live long enough to eventually be referred to in "-genarian" terms. Grandpa Grunge's impact on '90s alt-rock is a matter of public record, but Young's influence on the lo-fi scene was no less significant thanks to his minimalist musical detours, of which 's "Will to Love" is a quietly towering achievement.
Meandering yet mesmerizing, Young's hazy acoustic strumming and the sound of a fireplace crackling in the background are dwarfed by a sense of enormous emptiness, as if this seven-minute fever dream is wafting across a silent canyon on a peaceful, lonely night. An admittedly flawed retelling of Mesoamerican history and lore -- Young claimed to have written the song in high school after a binge-eating blackout -- "Cortez" endures as one of Young's signature epics for its bluesy drop-D soloing, reaching notes of yearning and melancholy previously unheard in guitar-rock history.
Performed at a near-somnambulist lurch, "Free Bird" it ain't, but it's inspired nearly as many axe-slingers in the decades since, having been covered by more renowned alt-rockers than you can skip a stone at. No Terry Richardson video needed here: Neil's Freedom ballad doesn't swing in like a force of unstoppable destruction, but rather as one of his most tender, twinkling ballads, all but predicting Adam Granduciel's entire career with its hazy, last-call piano-led grandeur.
With the Seattle sound about to spill over into the mainstream, the Godfather returned to remind that there were still none grungier with 's aptly named Ragged Glory. The record's filthiest cut even put the F-word in its title, living up to the name with a shambolic rave-up that both blew the roof off and shook the earth below the new decade.
Really: Crazy Horse guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro told SPIN in that an earthquake happened during the recording -- but, of course, the band barely even noticed. When Neil Young gets tired of the traps of fame and rigors of the road, he frequently retreats to the comforts of country music for spiritual solace. On "Albuquerque," perhaps his finest ode to rural regeneration, the enervated rocker flees his troubles and the otherwise shambolic sounds of parent album Tonight's the Night for a soothing pedal steel, harmonica and people who "don't care who I am" but can still serve up "fried eggs and country ham.
As a treat. Lanois added the occasional disorientating tape loop while Young accompanies himself on distorted electric guitar, which he is clearly playing at ear-splitting volume. Bringing this freshness of approach to a solo singer-songwriter album resulted in some strong material. Harvest Moon is better than the classic album its title referenced, and whose backing musicians it reassembled. The sound fits the songs, which are wistful and streaked with nostalgia. A blast from start to finish.
The gentle country-rock album his record company doubtless wished he had released as a follow-up to Harvest, Comes a Time is far better than its spiritual predecessor. It is rougher round the edges — Crazy Horse show up on the wonderful Lotta Love and Look Out for My Love — and home to a brace of Young classics, the title track among them.
Elsewhere, this is as bleakly compelling and creepy as his mids work, with Crazy Horse on surprisingly muted form. Piece of Crap, meanwhile, introduces Young the cranky middle-aged refusenik, a role he would frequently inhabit. Rust Never Sleeps was recorded on stage in , then overdubbed. When the song was recorded at Wally Heider Recording in Hollywood, Billy Talbot laid down a pulsating bass guitar line.
The real identity of the main character was a subject of intense speculation at the time. It was hard to explain to my wife. They divorced in and Young subsequently married the actress Daryl Hannah. He said it was such a good line, he was going to use it — resulting in one of the best Neil Young songs of the 80s. Young went straight to his hotel room in Portland and wrote this highly-charged political rocker, which criticises President George HW Bush and references contemporary figures such Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini and civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson, along with the crack cocaine epidemic which hit America in the late 80s.
He dies tragically trying to protect his family. Depends on how you interpret it. Might be. I think that the crux of it is anti-violent, because it shows the futility of violence. Old Man, on which James Taylor plays a sweet banjo solo, looks at the way different generations have the same essential desires in life. I can feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck when he hits the first few notes of Helpless.
Young picked up a guitar and wrote Ohio, one of the best protest songs of the 20th century, in just 15 minutes. Crosby and Young flew to Los Angeles the following day to join Nash and Stills, and they recorded the song in a few takes. At the end, according to Young, Crosby was in tears. When Young introduced his anti-drug song The Needle And The Damage Done at a concert in January , he said he had written this short, powerful song because he had seen so many great musicians die before realising their potential, because of heroin abuse.
In , Young recorded the two-minute song for his Harvest album, which featured the London Symphony Orchestra. After a decade spent experimenting with different styles, from electronic to rockabilly and hard-edged electric rock, Young returned to his country-folk roots with his gorgeous love song Harvest Moon — dedicated to his then wife, Pegi — which was the title song for a album that displayed all his multi-instrumentalist skills: Young sang and played harmonica, banjo guitar, pump organ and vibraphone.
One of the best Neil Young songs to focus on romantic love, it has been streamed more than million times.
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