Music
Plus One
The 11 best Neil Young songs
With some artists' songbooks it’s absolutely sacrilegious to rank in terms of best or worst, Neil Young being one of them. Here goes nothing…
Few musicians have endured like Neil Young. The consistent high calibre of the folk-rock renegade’s output, since the days he left Buffalo Springfield to pursue his own path, is pretty darn remarkable. In terms of longevity and maintaining relevance, only Bob Dylan can really compare. Young himself is belligerent in his belief of his newer music, known for eschewing the classics in favour of new material during sets performances no matter how high profile. Typical for an artist who has seldom bent to expectation.
As one of the most prolific and celebrated artists in the history of rock music, Neil Young has gone through his fair share of phases – the anti-establishment folk during the countercultural movement, the delicate countrified musings whilst living the quiet life on his ranch, and the abrasive rock he made with Crazy Horse. The latter of which inspired an entire genre.
Dubbed the ‘Godfather of Grunge’, his dishevelled style – torn jeans, draped plaid shirt – was the prototype for grunge garments. But it was his introspective songwriting style that enabled frustrated male musicians to lay bare their inner demons.
Neil Young set to head back out on tour in 2025 with his new band the chrome hearts, headlining BST Hyde Park and Glastonbury Festival in the process. With that in mind, we’ve given ourselves the unenviable task of whittling down his extensive oeuvre into a concise best 11, removing any Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young predominantly to eliminate an additional headache. Oh, and ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ sadly doesn’t make the grade – though he’ll no doubt play it with a handful of extended outros so you’ll get your fill if you see him in the flesh – one of numerous glaring omissions. Here goes nothing…
11. ‘I’m The Ocean’
(Mirrorball, 1995)
Young’s status as grunge progenitor was confirmed when he enlisted members of Pearl Jam – who had incorporated ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ into their sets several years earlier – to play the role of backing band on his 1995 album, Mirrorball. It’s highlight is ‘I’m The Ocean’, a seven-minute plus track that thrusts and crashes along like the giant undertow he’s singing about.
10. ‘Heart Of Gold’
(Harvest, 1972)
Arguably Neil Young’s well known song from arguably his most well known album, Harvest, it’s what you could refer to as his ‘big hit’ given it was the only song of his to reach No.1 in the US Billboard Charts. Not that chart success was a metric he gave much consideration to. It might be a bit too saccharine or spirited (or mainstream baiting) for some, but he’ll almost always perform it live – begrudgingly more often than not as the song’s straight-up positivity doesn’t necessarily align with his greater body of work. Besides, who can resist its sumptuous country balladry, complete with wistful slide guitar and warming harmonies lifted by the backing vocals of Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor.
9. ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’
(After The Gold Rush, 1970)
A wry jab at life’s varying misfortunes, ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’ is one of the melancholic highs from Young’s lauded After The Gold Rush, an album inspired by the screenplay of the same name – which never made it to film – that details a hippie community facing the apocalypse. The irregularly tuned instrumentation swirls around Neil Young’s shrill vocal melody, in an ode to inevitable change and just having to go with it. To “find someone who’s turning / and you will come around.” It’s a song admired by fans that include Sting and Annie Lennox who have both covered it.
8. ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’
(Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, 1969)
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was the album Neil Young came into his own as a rock musician, and marked the first of many collaborations with Crazy Horse. A raw, kinetic recording that sprawls across the space of ten minutes, ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’ is one of Neil Young’s most enduring songs, one of the first in which he deployed the stabbing solo-ing style that would become his trademark. Interpreted as a musing on promiscuity and its pitfalls of romantic entanglements after the ‘free love’ revolution of the late 60s, Young batted away those suggestions in Jimmy McDonough’s epic biography, Shakey, by confirming: “The words to ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’ are very important because you can free-associate with them. Some words won’t let you do that, so you’re locked into the specific fuckin’ thing the guy’s singin’ about. This way it could be anything.”
7. ‘Sugar Mountain’
(Decade, 1977)
Despite writing ‘Sugar Mountain’ at the tender age of 19, it wouldn’t feature on a Neil Young album until 1977 retrospective Decade. A lament to the years of youth slipping through your fingers – “you can’t be 20 on Sugar Mountain” – there’s palpable fragility in his awkward, high-pitched coo. It makes you nostalgic for a rural childhood that wasn’t even yours.
6. ‘Down By The River’
(Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, 1969)
Claiming to have written Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere tracks ‘Cinnamon Girl’, ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’ and ‘Down By The River’ within the same day whilst struck with a fever, it’s the latter that broods with stream-of-conscious menace about someone succumbing to their darkest thoughts and having to live with the regret. Though Young said the song isn’t about murdering someone – the refrain of “I shot my baby / down by the river” would suggest otherwise – ‘Down By The River’ mirrored the uncertainty and fear struck into Californians after the murder of five victims at the hands of the Zodiac killer, with killer staccato lead guitar parts to boot.
5. ‘The Needle And The Damage Done’
(Harvest, 1972)
Clocking in at just over two minutes, ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ remains one of Neil Young’s most affecting songs in spite of its short running time. It’s a requiem for original Crazy Horse member Danny Whitten who was fired by Young after being too high on heroin to even pick up his guitar in rehearsals, and soon after died of an overdose. The slow, eroding decline associated with addiction is depicted with mournful beauty by Young, especially in the lyrics: “I’ve seen the needle and the damage done / A little part of it in everyone / But every junkie’s like a settin’ sun,” destined to go down. Potent. Poignant. Perfect.
4. ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)’
(Rust Never Sleeps, 1979)
“Rock and roll will never die” according to Young. But with ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black), he was actually emphasising his own increasing irrelevance around the advent of punk music, where established musicians were disposed of by youths as part of the establishment. Ironically, the song came into being after a jam with art-punk oddities Devo. In the years since its initial 1979 release, the song – which showcases Young’s teeth grinding guitaring best on his trusted Les Paul, ‘Old Black’ – is regarded as a paean to the genre and its mythology, garnering greater acclaim after Kurt Cobain famously used the lyrics “it’s better to burn out than fade away” in his suicide note.
3. ‘Old Man’
(Harvest, 1972)
Neil Young showcases his rhythmic genius on the acoustic guitar in ‘Old Man’, a gorgeous country ballad about aging, the one path we must all take, and how our needs remain consistent no matter how far along we are on our respective journeys in life. The first song Young recorded for Harvest set the album’s pensive tone and is an undoubted career highlight. Though, it wouldn’t have come to fruition had he not relocated to his Broken Arrow Ranch in Northern California – the cattle ranch’s caretaker, Louis Avila, is the subject of the song. Giving Young a tour of the property in 1970, Avila wondered how a young man could afford such an asset, to which Young replied: “Just lucky, Louie, just real lucky.”
2. ‘Harvest Moon’
(Harvest Moon, 1992)
The 90s was a regenerative decade for Neil Young, who was showered in praise by rock music’s mainstream again once grunge music entered the zeitgeist. But the finest contribution he made to popular music during the decade couldn’t have been further from the doom and despair that characterised grunge. 1992’s Harvest Moon saw Young revisit Harvest in terms of musicality – which is why its regarded as an unofficial sequel – reuniting the players that helped him create his acclaimed album. Almost entirely acoustic throughout, it’s the title track that has consistently resonated with new generations of Neil Young fans, loyal acolytes or fairweather listeners alike. A gentle hymn for enduring relationships and renewed love, thanks to its sentimental lyrics ‘Harvest Moon’ is a fixture at weddings these days.
1. ‘Like A Hurricane’
(American Stars ‘n Bars, 1977)
A guitar-driven whirlwind of an anthem for fleeting moments of attraction and the fantasy of love’s infinite possibilities, ‘Like A Hurricane’ tops our list of Neil Young’s greatest songs. In between relationships in real life, the person he pines for was a mysterious woman whose path crossed with him in a bar during a bender. Romance didn’t blossom for Neil on this occasion, though it inspired him to pen the lyrics immediately. “As was our habit between bars,” he recalled in autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, “we had stopped at Skeggs Point Scenic lookout on Skyline Boulevard up on the mountain to do a few lines of coke; I wrote ‘Hurricane’ right there in the back of that giant old car.” A cornerstone of his sets ever since – typically the ‘electric side’, though you’d be remiss not to listen to the haunting MTV Unplugged version in 1993 where he plays the song on nothing but a pump organ – Young’s jagged lead guitar and unconventional falsetto clash throughout, in a seminal track whose soaring emotional force could topple the sturdiest of stoics.
Neil Young and the chrome hearts headline BST Hyde Park on 11 July 2025 – find your tickets here
