Neil Young’s Favorite Neil Young Song
Neil Young he has written hundreds of songs, so it is easy to understand how difficult it is for the Canadian musician to indicate which is his favorite. Songs are like children, we love them all, maybe in different ways. In 2013 in an interview with the journalist Dan Ratherthe now 78-year-old Young was actually asked which of the many writings were his favorites. Young avoided answering, explaining that for him they were all the same, always leaving it up to the public to choose their own favorite.
But when Rather asked him to “Harvest Moon”, Neil Young she gasped as she revealed that yes, that was one of her favorites.
“This is one of my favorite songs because it’s a song about real feelings. I remember when I started writing the melody and everything I was on my boat in the Caribbean. I started writing this melody, then finally the whole thing came to me and then the words. What really touched me about that song, even more than singing it, although it was fun to do and record. Linda Ronstadt added her beautiful voice to it and it blew my mind how well it all came together.”
Young continued to reflect on “Harvest Moon” saying, “But the fact that people come up to me now and say, we played that at our wedding, we played that song when we first met, things like that. The romantic feel of the song, there’s something about it that brings it to people. So it’s funny, it’s nice to see that it’s like I’m a farmer and I’m out there and I throw these seeds. Then I take another bag and throw some more seeds. Suddenly there’s eight or ten cows checking out all those seeds. What’s the difference between that and the others? I don’t know. They’re all beautiful, with blue eyes, big eyelashes, the cows are looking at you. It’s all good, it’s perfect. They’re really happy to have the food. I mean, what happened? I don’t know what happened. But it’s the same thing that happened with that song.”
“Harvest Moon”
is the title track of the album released in 1992 by
Neil Young
. Twenty years earlier Young had released one of the most significant albums of his career,
“Harvest”
which included songs like
“Heart of Gold”, “Old Man”
And
“The
Needle and the Damage Done”
.
In an interview with Q magazine in 1992
Neil Young
he revealed that he felt
“Harvest Moon”
as if it were a sequel to
“Harvest”
(
read the review here
).
“Now that it’s been created it seems to be related to “Harvest.” But when I started working on it I had no idea that it would be like that. The first thing I did was finish a song called “You And Me,” which I had started writing in 1975. Then I wrote a few more songs until I had enough to start thinking about doing a session. I started figuring out which musicians to use. Once I wrote down the names and started calling them, I realized that this is the same band I used on “Harvest.” So the songs dictated who I had to play with. Luckily there was no problem getting the guys back together. Everyone was available, it all happened very easily.” .
