What was Neil Young’s only number one?
Neil Young was always something of an unlikely mainstream star. The Canadian singer-songwriter was a folkie at heart, only having come down to the United States once rock and roll became his calling. Young was at the forefront of the psychedelic rock explosion, but he didn’t always seem all that interested in the genre. Instead, he leaned into country, blues, and hard-edged rock music – genres that didn’t always produce pop hits.
He has always been a star who favours following his muse rather than rushing towards the will of others. As Graham Nash recently told Far Out, “I think Neil is very smart. I do respect his connection to what he calls ‘the muse’ of his music. He follows that inherently, and I understand that, and I respect that.”
However, his fidelity to this spiritual quest has also had a few unwanted side effects in Nash’s eyes. “One of the things I don’t quite like is all the people who surround him, all the stage technicians, all the lighting technicians, to have a tour six weeks in the summer all of a sudden cancelled because of whatever reason Neil wants to cancel it, all of those people can’t find a job.”
His former bandmate continued, “That’s one of the things about him being associated with the muse that I don’t respect at all. But he’s an incredible musician, and I’ve always enjoyed being on stage with him.” However, perhaps that musicianship has never been awarded with as many hits as it might have been if he was more willing to waver on his principles—but then that would make him a different musician entirely.
So, what is Neil Young’s only number one?
And yet there Young was, sitting at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts with his 1972 single ‘Heart of Gold’. A yearning and stark look at finding meaning in life, ‘Heart of Gold’ still had enough of a mainstream sheen on it that Young could ride all the way to number one. Thanks to his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Neil Young was already one of the most famous rock stars in the world. With ‘Heart of Gold’, he was an honest-to-god superstar.
But being a pop superstar was the last thing that Young wanted to be. “This song put me in the middle of the road,” Young famously wrote in the liner notes to his 1977 compilation album Decade. “Travelling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.” Like many artists before him and even more since, he was dismayed by his biggest hit.
Even Bob Dylan was sick of ‘Heart of Gold’. The legendary singer-songwriter had frequently seen himself compared to Young, but it was usually Young who was accused of ripping off Dylan. Now that Young took the acoustic guitar/harmonica/folk song blend to number one, Dylan couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous over Young’s success, especially since Dylan had never managed to snag a number one hit of his own.
“The only time it bothered me that someone sounded like me was when I was living in Phoenix, Arizona, in about ’72 and the big song at the time was ‘Heart of Gold’,” Dylan told Spin Magazine in 1985. “I used to hate it when it came on the radio. I always liked Neil Young, but it bothered me every time I listened to ‘Heart of Gold.’ I think it was up at number one for a long time, and I’d say, ‘Shit, that’s me. If it sounds like me, it should as well be me.'”
Despite the position it put him in, Young never fully abandoned ‘Heart of Gold’. The song remained a key part of his live performances, often acting as the centrepiece of his acoustic sets. When Young returned to the live stage for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2023, ‘Heart of Gold’ was dutifully performed. Young seems to have found an understanding with ‘Heart of Gold’, even if he never cared much for what it did for him. In fact, he’s now played ‘Heart of Gold’ more than any other song live.
Check out ‘Heart of Gold’ down below.
