Neil Young song draft

[Erik]

5. Helpless (CSNY's Deja Vu, 1970)
This was one of my first exposures to Neil and it is the top-ranked acoustic song on this list. My parents had a cassette of CSNY's So Far compilation that I remember being played frequently, and this was one of two Neil contributions to it.
First worked up with Crazy Horse for the Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere sessions, CSN told Neil it would sound better with them, and he agreed, bringing it to the Deja Vu sessions. According to Neil, CSNY ran through a ton of takes in one night, finally getting one Neil liked in the wee hours in the morning, when everyone else was exhausted and had slowed down to his speed.
Like many Neil songs, it is simple but offers so much. The piano and guitar flourishes pique your interest early on, and the harmonies on the chorus may be CSN's finest on any recording. The lyrics evoke a "dream comfort memory to spare," as Neil offers vignettes from his childhood in Ontario, more bird imagery, and a plea to "sing with me somehow." It all adds up to spine-tingling wonder.This is one of the songs you play if someone asks you what's the big deal about Neil Young. When the very biggest names in music perform with or decide to cover Neil, this is often the choice.

[Erik]

4. Ohio (CSNY non-album single, 1970)
Neil lives and creates in the moment, and nowhere is that better illustrated than this song, which was my other first exposure to him, also being included on the So Far compilation that my parents had. Neil decided to pen a song about the shooting deaths of four Kent State University student protesters by National Guard troops when David Crosby visited to show him a copy of Life magazine, which had photos of the incident. Stunned, he wrote the lyrics within minutes of first seeing the photos. Equally stunned, Crosby called Stephen Stills and Graham Nash and suggested they get to the studio as soon as possible. The quartet convened shortly thereafter and, with new bassist Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels and new drummer John Barbata, required only a few takes to get the version we all know. Crosby was so overcome during the performance that he bellowed "Four!", "how many more?" and "Why?" at the end; these outbursts were unrehearsed and left on the recording. For a B-side, the band then recorded Stills' Find the Cost of Freedom, an ode to war casualties that he had unsuccessfully submitted for the Easy Rider soundtrack.
At the band's insistence, Atlantic Records rush-produced and rush-released the single, which was made available within weeks after recording, despite CSNY already having Teach Your Children climbing the charts. The band members believe this decision prevented Teach Your Children from reaching #1, but that it was absolutely the right thing to do. The passion and anger that sparked Neil to write the song can be heard in every second of the recording. If you like immediacy and emotion in your rock and roll, this is the song for you. It never fails to move me deeply. I was fortunate to see Neil play this with CSNY in 2000 and 2006, and surprisingly saw CSN do it as an encore without Neil in 1995.

[Erik]

3. Down by the River (Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, 1969)
You know those "child or person from a different culture reacts to hearing a great song for the first time" videos that are all the rage these days? That was me at age 11 (?) when I first heard this song.
Composed along with Cinnamon Girl and Cowgirl in the Sand when Neil was laid up in bed with a fever, this is an early and prime example how Neil and Crazy Horse create jams that are simple on paper but offer so much on each listen. Moving at a more relaxed pace than Cowgirl, Neil twists his way through the jams with staccato blasts (Wikipedia says that at one point, he plays the same note 38 times in a row) but never finds a rut; each measure brings slight variations that open up new possibilities. Live, this takes off and reaches tremendous heights, especially if Neil is playing with a foil such as Stephen Stills or, on one memorable occasion, Phish's Trey Anastasio.
Writing in Rolling Stone, Trey summed up the appeal of Neil's playing on this track well: "If I was ever going to teach a master class to young guitarists, the first thing I would play them is the first minute of Neil Young's original "Down by the River" solo. It's one note, but it's so melodic, and it just snarls with attitude and anger. It's like he desperately wants to connect."
Lyrically, the song fits into the folk and blues tradition of murder ballads. In 1970, Neil demurred on this, saying the song had "no real murder" and "was about blowing your thing with a chick," but in 1984 he said it was about a guy who had trouble controlling his anger and took things too far when he found his partner cheated, and the song was from his perspective while passing time in a holding cell.
In 1969-70, Neil preferred to keep his CSNY and Crazy Horse endeavors separate, but this is the one song he played regularly with both. On most nights, it was the high point of CSNY's 1969 tour and the early 1970 tour with Crazy Horse. The song is such a grabber that Reprise released it as a single (cut down to 3:35).
I have witnessed two transcendent versions, in 2000 with CSNY and in 2015 with Promise of the Real (the latter is linked in another post). These are among the greatest performances I have ever seen in concert, with Stills in 2000 and Lukas Nelson in 2015 pushing Neil to incredible heights.
Another version of personal significance is when Neil jammed on this with Phish at Farm Aid 1998 (also linked in another post). That was the first year I had internet access, and the first thing I did when I got it was join Phish and Neil discussion groups. When this collaboration happened, it helped me better integrate into both groups, as I got to explain Neil to the Phish fans and Phish to the Neil fans. This was the start of a lifetime of online ponitificating, resulting in things such as this list. What's particularly amusing about that collaboration is that it wasn't supposed to happen. Phish had learned Powderfinger and asked Neil if he would play it with them. Neil was evasive about it, and the band soon learned why: that's what he chose to close his own set with. Figuring there would be no Neil collaboration, Phish decided to finish their set with a jam of Runaway Jim; as it was winding down, Neil walked onstage with Trey's backup guitar (he had only brought acoustics to the gig) and led them through a noise jam and into Down by the River, which the band had never played before. But they found their footing quickly and treated us to 20 minutes of a hard-edged guitar duel between Neil and Trey; CMT was broadcasting the event live and was NOT pleased that it took forever before they could cut to commercial. But thankfully they showed the whole thing. Oh, and Trey lost one of his eyeglass lenses during the jam and played the rest of it half-blind. Trey tells the story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x5qLS9BkiY
On The Rust List, the Neil discussion group that I joined, it was customary for regular posters to adopt a handle named after a Neil song title or lyric. In honor of the Farm Aid performance being my integration into the group, I chose "Be on My Side, I'll Be on Your Side."

[Erik]

The Phish collaboration that I mentioned:

[Erik]

The version I saw with Promise of the Real in 2015 in Camden:

[Erik]

Acoustic medley of The Loner, Cinnamon Girl and Down by the River which was a bonus track on the Four Way Street CD:

[Erik]

Crazy Horse at the Fillmore 1970 version:

[Mithrandir]

Down by the River is #2 Neil for me.

[Erik]

Down by the River is #2 Neil for me.

It inexplicably fell into the second round in our draft.

[chancellor]

I've never heard the POTR version. Thanks for posting it.

[DMT]

Down by the River is #2 Neil for me.

Me too.

[Erik]

I've never heard the POTR version. Thanks for posting it.

No problem. Apparently they've killed it like that a lot.

[Erik]

2. Rockin' in the Free World (Freedom, 1989)
The date was September 30, 1989. I was a freshman in college. After an evening of drinking, I headed to one of the common areas with a TV near my room to catch Saturday Night Live with host Bruce Willis and musical guest Neil Young. I don't even remember if I tuned in because Neil was scheduled to be on; I had his most famous albums in my collection thanks to exposure from my parents and what we now call classic rock radio, but I hadn't paid much attention to his recent work because it seemed weird and, until the This Note's for You video made waves, was dismissed in the media as irrelevant. In the past 7 years, he'd experimented with vocoders, rockabilly, country, synth-driven "modern rock" and blues, often adopting a new persona with each new album, so I had no idea what gimmick he was going to bring this time. This time, he was Neil Young. The guy who made all those songs from the '60s and '70s that I fell in love with. Dressed in casual clothes, with Old Black strapped in and a configuration of backing musicians that were only together for this one night (Frank "Poncho" Sampedro from Crazy Horse and Steve Jordan and Charlie Drayton from Keith Richards' X-Pensive Winos). The whole Godfather of Grunge rebirth thing? It started on that night, with this song.
Neil launched into the first notes of this new song and my intoxicated mind was blown. He was back. The guy that created Cinnamon Girl, Down by the River, Cortez the Killer, Like a Hurricane and side 2 of Rust Never Sleeps was back with something that was every bit as good as those songs. Playing with unbelievable power and passion, Neil jumped around the stage like a madman, creating a live-from-a-war-zone feel as the cameras desperately tried to follow him. (I later learned that this was because he had refused to participate in blocking sessions, so the director and camera operators had no idea where he was going to be from second to second. This probably explains why Neil's only subsequent appearances on SNL occurred when he was promoting an acoustic album).
The rock was fierce and the song was instantly memorable. "Keep on rockin' in the free world" from the getgo was every bit as much an anthem as "Hey hey, my my, rock and roll will never die." Neil's second performance on that show was also amazing (there was more on that in entry #14), and after everything was over, I left literally shaking with excitement. I had to let people know that Neil was back.
As soon as I got back to my dorm room (this was about 1 AM), I felt the need to call one of my high school buddies to triumphantly announce Neil's renaissance to him. The problem was, I was still intoxicated and the dorm rooms had rotary phones (remember those?) The alcohol prevented me from remembering his number correctly (remember when we had to remember phone numbers?) and from getting my fingers to dial the phone correctly.
When I finally connected with him after 2 AM, the call went something like this:
Me: He's back!
Him: What?
Me: Neil is back!
Him: Oh my God! What is wrong with you? Go to bed!
That was the immediate impact Rockin' in the Free World made on me. The reaction from others was less idiotic but equally favorable. FM radio put the song in heavy rotation as soon as it was made available, the Freedom album received rave reviews upon its release soon after the SNL appearance, and the song quickly joined the ranks of Neil's most iconic.
A year and a half later when I saw Neil for the first time on the Weld tour, his first national electric tour since the release of Freedom and Ragged Glory, there were high school kids in front of us who had come just to hear this song live. They sat for the whole show but stood up and pumped their fists when Neil closed the regular set with it. It was cemented in the Gen-X pantheon when Neil performed it with Pearl Jam at the 1993 MTV Music Awards.
Borrowing a device Neil used on Rust Never Sleeps (see entry #6), an acoustic version of Rockin' in the Free World (recorded live at Jones Beach on his summer 1989 solo tour) opens Freedom and the searing studio electric version closes it. This was a sign that Neil considered the song to be every bit as important as his young Gen-X fans did. It has received prominent placement in setlists of almost every electric tour since 1991 and is his only song released after 1979 that is in the top 10 of known live performances. Even CSNY adopted it for the baby boomers; it was the set closer or encore at all three of their shows I saw.
Despite its status as an anthem, Rockin' in the Free World may be the most misinterpreted rock song this side of Born in the USA. Neil came up with the title as a lark (when informed a tour of the Soviet Union was being cancelled, Sampedro told Neil, "guess we'll have to keep on rockin' in the free world") and fleshed out the lyrics with references to volatile situations around the time, including George H.W. Bush's "thousand points of light" and "kinder, gentler nation" campaign slogans and the ayatollah of Iran's calling the U.S. "the Great Satan." There is indeed an embrace of the free-world spirit that many think the song is about, but there are also chilling references to homelessness, military and police intimidation, drug addiction, reckless consumerism and socioeconomic disadvantages. There's a reason why right-wing politicians often try to use this song and a reason why Neil objects every time.
This song is where it is on my list because it kicked my Neil fanaticism into overdrive. An encounter with #1 took it even higher.
Electric version posted below, acoustic version in the next post.

[Erik]

The acoustic version that opens Freedom:

[Erik]

Rehearsal version of the fateful SNL performance from 1989; the actual thing was even more powerful: