Lana Del Rey covers Neil Young’s ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’
Lana Del Rey performed a surprise cover of ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ during her slot at the Harvest Moon concert over the weekend.
The singer was appearing at the Harvest Moon benefit concert in Lake Hughes, California, on October 25th, which is led and headlined by Young every year. As such, in honour of the folk star, Rey took on her own version of his 1972 hit from Harvest.
Performing an acoustic take on the track, Rey paired this in her set alongside a selection of her own greatest hits, including ‘Young and Beautiful’, ‘Summertime Sadness’, and ‘Video Games’. Additionally, she also brought her young niece out on stage to perform a special version of the classic Sound of Music song ‘Do-Rey-Mi’.
With the fellow artists on this year’s line-up of the Harvest Moon concert consisting of Beck, Tyler Ramsey, Muireann Bradley, and the traditional African and Latin American music group Masanga Marimba, the event was raising money for both The Bridge School and The Painted Turtle, two charities which support disabled children in California.
Young has been a strong supporter of the two organisations throughout his career, with the first Harvest Moon benefit concert taking place in their honour seven years ago, back in 2018.
This year, it comes off the back of a particularly busy period for the classic rocker, having already toured extensively over the past few months, with highlights including his headline slots at Glastonbury and BST Hyde Park over the summer.
Rey’s choice of ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ to perform as a cover of Young’s stands to represent one of the most significant crossroads in his career. Although the song featured on Harvest in 1972, its themes of drug use and deaths among his closest friends went on to become the focal point of his 1975 album Tonight’s the Night, roundly also considered another one of his greatest works.
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