The five best Neil Young love songs
One of the key aspects that makes Neil Young such an influential songwriter is his ability to write honestly and open up about his emotions. While he has also mastered abstract lyrics in his time, the Canadian legend is at his best when frankly discussing matters of the soul. This ability to be profound can be perceived clearly across his extensive career.
Although many people rightly celebrate the ‘Down by the River’ songwriter primarily as ‘The Godfather of Grunge’ due to his innovative weaponisation of drop-tunings, artistic dissonance and distortion in the late 1960s, this only accounts for one portion of his work. He’s appealed to far greater numbers of listeners through the moments where he lays it all bare and has his heart pumping on his proverbial sleeve.
From heartbreak to ageing, and struggling to cope with the changing times, Young has covered a lot of different personal topics in his time. A master of poetry and melody, this fusion can be so hard-hitting at points that listeners have no choice but to reach for the box of tissues, as he adeptly evolves intimate themes into universal ones, the sign of a truly remarkable songwriter.
One area in which he also excels is love songs. It’s often overlooked in light of his other creative successes, but the concept of romance courses throughout many of his finest compositions, from the hopeful to the depressing, with him examining the many complicated features inherent to love. Find the best below.
The best Neil Young love songs:
5. ‘Motion Pictures’
Following 1972’s Harvest, Neil Young’s life became extremely miserable. He might have become a global star with the record, but the deaths of close friends Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry and the ensuing split with Carrie Snodgress nearly broke the artist. This is reflected in his albums from the early to mid-decade.
‘Motion Pictures’ from 1974’s On the Beach is an incredibly moving song, coloured by the essence of a songwriter who knew something was awry in his relationship with Snodgress. Not only was she unfaithful, but so was he, and in the track, Young outlines his romantic alienation and deep feelings of regret in lines such as “Well, all those headlines / they just bore me now” and “I’d rather start all over again.”
Adding extra significance, in Jimmy McDonough’s biography Shakey, Young says that the song was penned “before I knew – when I could sense” that Snodgress was cheating on him.
4. ‘Cinnamon Girl’
Famously, Young wrote this Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere single when he was suffering from a high fever at home. It’s pretty miraculous that he did, considering it has long been hailed as one of his most important compositions, as it laid the foundations for alternative rock and was a key moment in his partnership with Crazy Horse guitarist Whitten. Because of these aspects, it’s often overlooked that ‘Cinnamon Girl’ is also a love song.
The opening lines make this character very clear: “I wanna live with a cinnamon girl / I could be happy the rest of my life / With a cinnamon girl”.
As with many Young efforts, the inspiration for this love song has never been revealed. However, he has said that he wrote it “for a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me through Phil Ochs’ eyes playing finger cymbals. It was hard to explain to my wife.”
3. ‘Danger Bird’
This highlight of the depressing but brilliant Zuma strongly claims to be one of Young’s most heartbreaking numbers ever. Some lines were originally written for the unreleased ‘LA Girls and Ocean Boys’ such as “Cause you’ve been with another man / There you are and here I am,” which refers to Young’s doomed relationship with Snodgress.
Snodgress’s infidelities crushed Young so much that during this depressing period of the early-mid 1970s, it crops up many times in his work. As the unreleased song was inspired by the trip Young had made to visit Snodgress when he discovered her infidelity, it makes this one more substantial thematically.
The profoundly personal nature of the words and their ability to be used as a metaphor for a failed romance make this number one of Young’s most effective love songs, no matter how gloomy it is.
2. ‘Heart of Gold’
Bob Dylan might openly hate this song because he thinks Neil Young channelled him too explicitly in it, and Young himself has expressed contempt for the hit, which put him “in the middle of the road,” but this Harvest staple is an absolute classic. Featuring Young singing lines such as “I’ve been a miner / For a heart of gold,” the song is smattered with a lovelorn essence.
While the former Buffalo Springfield member has never revealed the meaning of the track, he sings about crossing the world and oceans to find the titular heart. If taken as autobiographical, this means that at the time, he was still searching for romantic satisfaction, but even so, there’s a universal element to the words that makes this one perfect for heartbreak. Of course, this bittersweet element is aided by the backing vocals of James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.
1. ‘Harvest Moon’
There really could be no other contender for the top spot. Featuring the simple but wistful guitar melody, the emotive sweeps of the broom, Linda Ronstadt’s exquisite backing vocals, and, of course, lines such as the chorus openers, “Because I’m still in love with you / I want to see you dance again”, this is the perfect Neil Young love song.
Not only does ‘Harvest Moon’ have everything needed to be a love song of the finest quality, but it’s also a personal favourite of Young’s, a significant point given the mass of content he’s written over the years. The Canadian knows full well there’s an extremely “romantic atmosphere of the song” and that it has taken on great significance in the stories of people’s relationships across the world. It’s been the source of much satisfaction for him.
