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Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n
Tue 23 June 2026 20:46, UK <\/p>\n
Though music had been a central force in his operations from day dot, Neil Young<\/a> first reached ears around the world as a member of the West Coast folk-rock collective Buffalo Springfield. <\/p>\n Alongside enduring collaborator Stephen Stills, he would exercise his passion for folk, as nurtured by the work of Bob Dylan<\/a> and Phil Ochs, and blend it with a more contemporary electric sound. This combination would provide a foundation for Young\u2019s ongoing creative evolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n We celebrate Young as an artist of utmost dignity and integrity, given that he has never failed to express himself in emotive lyricism, often employing innovative instrumental ideas. Even when pandering to the masses with sweet, radio-friendly songs like \u2018Old Man\u2019 and \u2018Harvest Moon\u2019, Young reflects on his own experiences to connect with his audience. <\/p>\n In the documentary Heart of Gold, Young remembered writing material for Harvest while living on Broken Arrow Ranch<\/a>. After breaking through in his career, he bought the picturesque farmland in Woodside, California, and used it as a place to escape from the Los Angeles bustle. When he first moved to the ranch, the old caretaker named Louis Avila took Young for a ride in his jeep.<\/p>\n The old farm manager drove Young to a viewpoint on a hill above the ranchland near a lake that irrigated the pastures. \u201cHe says, \u2018Well, tell me, how does a young man like yourself have enough money to buy a place like this?\u2019\u201d Young recalled. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018Well, just lucky, Louis, just real lucky.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Well, that\u2019s the darnedest thing I ever heard.\u2019 And I wrote this song for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Likewise, discussing \u2018Harvest Moon\u2019 in a past interview with AXS, Young singled the 1990s classic as a personal favourite because of its profound effect on fans. \u201cPeople come up to me now, and they say, \u2018We played that at our wedding,\u2019 you know, \u2018When we first met, that song was playing,\u2019\u201d he beamed. \u201cThere\u2019s a romantic atmosphere of the song, there\u2019s something about it that brings that out in people. It\u2019s interesting. It\u2019s nice to see.\u201d<\/p>\n As the \u2018On the Beach\u2019 lyric, \u201cI need a crowd of people, but I can\u2019t face them day to day\u201d, suggests, Young is a man of great duality. He is introverted, but his career requires him to be extroverted; he loves the countryside but needs the city. This coin of two sides is represented throughout the Canadian\u2019s songwriting catalogue, with the breezy acoustic material of Harvest representing vast rural scapes and the heavy proto-grunge work with Crazy Horse<\/a> representing the gritty, noisy inner city. <\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n With such a chaptered career behind him, it would be difficult for Young to name just one song as his overall favourite; he has favourites of all different styles, eras and degrees of emotional connection. Understanding this, Conan O\u2019Brien asked Young to name a few landmark songs that shaped his life and career during an interview for SiriusXM. <\/p>\n When discussing the earliest song he can remember falling in love with as a young teenager, Young picked out \u2018Four Strong Winds\u2019 by Ian and Sylvia. \u201cI loved it so much that I would put nickels and dimes in the jukebox to play it over and over and over again until I didn\u2019t have any change,\u201d Young reflected. <\/p>\n \u201cI would just stand there in front of it and listen to it. It was a beautiful song. For some reason, it really got to me, and I could feel the magic of the music.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The choice is hardly surprising when viewed through the prism of Young\u2019s own work. Ian Tyson\u2019s song is built around longing, distance and the bittersweet acceptance that some things simply aren\u2019t meant to last, themes that would come to dominate Young\u2019s catalogue. Whether writing about failed relationships, lost friends or a rapidly changing world, Young has always been drawn to melancholy and impermanence. In that sense, \u2018Four Strong Winds\u2019 was almost a blueprint for the emotional honesty that would define his own songwriting.<\/p>\n At the time, Young had just joined his first band, The Squires, with his close friend Jack. The pair would frequently visit Falcon Lake near their hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where anyone could pitch up a tent. \u201cWe were out there, and I found this thing on the jukebox in the restaurant,\u201d Yung added, fondly remembering his core musical memory. <\/p>\n The Canadian songwriter Ian Tyson wrote \u2018Four Strong Winds\u2019 in 1962 and recorded the song with his musical and marital partner, Sylvia, for their sophomore album of the same name. The album was the first of the pair\u2019s to chart in the US, and though its ripple was small, those made at Falcon Lake turned out to be seismic.\u00a0<\/p>\n By the time Young discovered it, \u2018Four Strong Winds\u2019 had already become something of a modern folk standard. Bob Dylan admired it, Johnny Cash would later record it<\/a>, and generations of Canadian musicians came to regard it with almost the same reverence Americans reserve for \u2018This Land Is Your Land\u2019. Its simple arrangement and unassuming poetry concealed a depth that made listeners feel as though they\u2019d known it all their lives. For a teenage Neil Young standing in front of a jukebox at Falcon Lake, it must have seemed less like a record and more like a doorway into another world.<\/p>\n![\"Neil](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Neil-Young-1985-Musician-John-Barrett-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
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