Neil Young’s five favourite songwriters
When it comes to songwriting, Neil Young sits in the pantheon of all-time greats.
To have spent over five decades at the top of the rock world is a feat not many artists can achieve. Neil Young has done it not with gimmicks or pop prowess but by continuously writing songs which are deliberate, artistic and authentic. There are few artists that feel as genuine as Neil Young.
From a technical standpoint, Young’s voice isn’t extraordinary, but nobody can teach the skills he holds with a pen and how he marries storytelling with melody.
Young’s approach to songwriting is relaxed, and he patiently waits for a song to arrive in his mind rather than chasing it. “I don’t try to think of them,” he said in 2012 while in conversation with Patti Smith. “I wait till they come. A metaphor may be that if you’re trying to catch a rabbit, you don’t wait right by the hole… And then the rabbit comes out of the hole, he looks around.”
He added: “You start talking to the rabbit, but you’re not looking at it. Ultimately, the rabbit is friendly, and the song is born. The idea is he’s free to come, free to go. Who would want to intimidate or disrespect the source of the rabbit? And in that way, if the song happens, it happens. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t matter.”
Every songwriter uses their own technique, and while Young could never bring himself to work in another way, that doesn’t mean he can’t respect the results of other methods. Over the years, the Canadian has heaped praise on many songwriters, and below are five figures whose work Young holds in incredibly high esteem.
Neil Young’s favourite songwriters
Kurt Cobain
In the book Shakey, Neil Young spoke at length about his connection to the late Kurt Cobain in a chapter titled ‘Drain You’, named after Cobain’s favourite Nirvana song. In the section, Young reveals he’d tried to contact Cobain before his death after hearing of his fragile mental state and wanting to make sure he didn’t become another rock icon who left us far too soon.
The two figures will tragically always be intertwined because Cobain’s suicide note included a lyric from Young’s song, ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)’. “He was forced to do tours when he didn’t want to, forced into all kinds of stuff. I was trying to get a hold of him – because I had heard some of the things he was doing to himself – just to tell him it’s OK not to tour, it’s OK not to do these things, just take control of your life and make your music,” the musician told TIME in 2007. “Or, hey, don’t make music. But as soon as you feel like you’re out there pretending, you’re fucked.”
Young recognised a lost soul in Cobain and couldn’t sit idly by while a generational talent veered off the edge, but despite his best attempts, he couldn’t stop the tragic departure.
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney has been a constant presence in Young’s life since high school, when The Beatles ignited his existence. Like so many songwriters before him, without McCartney, Young simply wouldn’t have been the artist he is today.
They were an entry point into the world of rock ‘n’ roll, and the first song Young ever performed in a public setting was by the ‘Fab Four’. While his taste in music has continuously developed over time, the work of McCartney has remained a critical component of his library.
When he inducted Macca into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, Young told the crowd: “The first song I learned to play was a Beatles song – ‘Give Me Money, That’s What I Want’. Paul McCartney is one of the greatest songwriters ever. He’ll be remembered hundreds of years from now”. Additionally, the pair of talents have shared the stage on a series of occasions.
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell and Neil Young took different routes to the top of the music industry, but their Canadian upbringing was the same. “I was 20, and she was about 22, or maybe one year older than me. I think we were in Winnipeg at the 4th Dimension Club,” Young said on The Zach Sang Show about his first interaction with Mitchell.
He added: “I was listening to her, I was local in Winnipeg, she was just passing through on the road with her husband, Chuck. They were a duo playing, and we talked a little bit, I got to know her and played her ‘Sugar Mountain’.” He concluded by saying, “I love Joni. She’s wonderful. She’s one of the greatest artists of our generation. She may be the greatest artist of our generation.”
Young’s respect for Mitchell is reciprocal, and after she heard ‘Sugar Mountain’, the singer-songwriter felt compelled to create ‘The Circle Game’, which was written in response to his song. Together, they’ve been on an immensely turbulent journey but have successfully etched their names into Canadian cultural folklore.
Bob Dylan
Like almost every other songwriter of note, Neil Young is an admirer of Bob Dylan. The freewheelin’ troubador has long since been an influence on the entire world of music.
For many, he’s the most talented musician to ever pick up the pen, and Young is also of this belief. During an interview with Time in 2005, he said of Dylan: “He’s the master. If I’d like to be anyone, it’s him. And he’s a great writer, true to his music and done what he feels is the right thing to do for years and years and years.”
Young added: “The guy has written some of the greatest poetry and put it to music in a way that it touched me, and other people have done that, but not so consistently or as intensely.” Dylan created the singer-songwriter prototype, and while Young is his own artist, he holds nothing but gratitude toward the person who made his journey possible.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
Individually, neither of these names could be classified as one of Neil Young’s songwriters.
However, when The Rolling Stones members put their heads together, they become a songwriting powerhouse. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards instinctively know how to make each other tick musically, with their strengths complementing one another tremendously.
In Shakey, Young says: “‘Satisfaction’ was a great record. ‘Get Off My Cloud,’ even better record. Looser, less of a hit. More of a reckless abandon. ‘Get Off My Cloud’ – I know it’s not as good of a song, and I know the performance is probably not as good as the ‘Satisfaction’ performance, maybe it is – but the thing about it is it’s obviously just such a throw-together song that they came up with on the way to the studio or the night before, y’know? That’s what I liked about it. It really sounded like the Rolling Stones.”
