“I’ll do it for nothing”: The moment Neil Young nearly joined The Rolling Stones
Neil Young’s career has been defined by an uncompromising pursuit of authenticity. While his iconic solo career solidified his place as a legend, some of his most cherished musical moments come from his contributions to celebrated bands like Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In both groups, Young left an indelible mark, pushing their songwriting to new heights while developing a distinctive, conversational style of guitar playing alongside Stephen Stills, a key collaborator in both bands.
But his position in both bands was nothing more than a residency; with Young’s dogged pursuit of creative authenticity coming before everything, he left both projects to ensure it wasn’t being compromised. Young is the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll star in many ways – wholly unwilling to compromise to any commercial expectation or financial proposition. In 1994, he turned down a reported $1m to headline Woodstock due to the festival’s more obvious corporate incentives.
Given his fiercely independent nature, Young would have approached the idea of joining another group with caution. For Young, artistic integrity would have needed to be the core of any project, with commercial expectations taking a back seat—or being entirely removed. This unyielding commitment to creativity has always been central to his decision-making.
In 1979, The Rolling Stones were at the peak of their powers. Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street and Some Girls had not long been released, and the band were flying in the delicate slipstream of artistic and commercial success. An albeit thrilling but potentially compromising environment for someone like Young to experience, The Stones’ success was global and verging on mania.
So it’s interesting that in ‘79, Young almost joined The Stones in what would have become one of music’s most compelling supergroups. Speaking to Dave Schulps for Trouser Press, Mick Jagger said Young was “really involved” before adding: “He came down from San Francisco to meet Keith, ’cause they’d never met and, as things had it, the timing was wrong – Keith was unreachable while Neil was in L.A., and then Neil had to return to San Francisco. I told Neil not to worry about it, that Keith and I would come up and see him there. By the time Keith showed up though, Neil had gone down to Acapulco to take a break from editing his film”.
Jagger continued: “It wasn’t really my idea to have him, but he kept on coming on so strong about it, saying ‘Don’t forget, if Woody does a tour you can count me in. I’ll do it for nothing, I just want to tour with him and Keith, a couple of English rock’n’rollers’”.
In one of music’s most gutwrenching sliding doors moments, Young and The Stones would have turned the decade on tour together, perhaps exploring uncharted sonic waters and changing the course of their individual releases thereafter.
While music fans were deprived of the crossover, it did happen behind closed doors. In the same interview, Jagger was asked about the origins of his friendship with Young, to which he replied: “Oh, I hung out with him when I lived in Malibu. He used to come around in his bus – turn up with a guitar on the doorstep”.
Young’s admiration for The Rolling Stones had pre-existed the days of Ronnie Wood’s introduction. He once said: “What I really liked about the Rolling Stones was Brian Jones and Keith Richards playing together,” he continued. “Even though Brian Jones was just kind of a bratty, sub-blues kind of guy. He still had the exuberance”.
There’s an alchemy that exists between two guitar players in great rock ‘n’ roll bands. It’s a sibling-like relationship, sonically capturing both the good and the bad, the love and the hate; the melodic interplay gives songs a true sense of humanity. It’s a relationship Young shared with Stills, a craftsman-like guitarist whose intricate melodic structures allowed Young’s raw emotion to pour over the top. Inextricably linked, sometimes against their will, these guitar-playing duos are bound by something almost metaphysical.
While Young, Richards and Wood are legends in their own right, who knows what the trajectory of that tour would have been had it happened. Maybe the reckoning of a new guitar-playing force, set to change the course of rock ‘n’ roll history, or maybe just a case of ‘don’t meet your heroes’, especially when you’re working for them “for nothing”.
