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Countdown of my top 101 Neil Young songs. Now with entries 102-204, notable covers and other stuff (2 Viewers)

Dr. Octopus said:
Shocked at Rolling Stone's ranking - if it was left off altogether I doubt many would push back.
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Their criteria are definitely different from mine. They seem to have taken cultural impact into account, and I did not. Though there are other discrepancies that can’t be explained by that.

 
Pip's Invitation said:
88. Ride My Llama (Rust Never Sleeps, 1979; written in 1975; first performed in 1978)
Rust Never Sleeps is peak Neil. How good is it? This song, with its keening melody and far-out sci-fi lyrics, would be one of the best on most albums. Here, it is an afterthought compared to what surrounds it. I have very strong feelings about this album, which I'll delve into later.
Like many songs Neil wrote in the mid-70s, this one has a twisted history of how it ended up where it did. It was written during the Zuma sessions and its lyrics inspired the title of an early version of that album (In My Neighborhood). Then it was recorded for the Hitchhiker sessions in 1976 -- an archival release of that abandoned effort came out recently. Then Neil dusted it off for 10 acoustic shows in 1978. One of these performances, with the audience noise stripped out, is what made it on Rust Never Sleeps. It has not been performed live since.

Rust Never Sleeps version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMC3DjAFQEs&feature=youtu.be

Hitchhiker version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcAGO7X9zok
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I enjoyed this one a lot, but I don't think riding a lam-uh from Peru to Texarkana would be advisable.  Nasty beasts, those.

Pip's Invitation said:
I have also been tracking my list against a list Rolling Stone made in 2014 of their 100 greatest Neil songs. As you might imagine, there is more similarity at the top than at the bottom. 

101. Lookout Joe (RS unranked)
100. Ramada Inn (RS #47)
99. Look Out for My Love (RS #55)
98. Get Back to the Country (RS unranked)
97. Homefires (RS unranked)
96. This Old Guitar (RS unranked)
95. Slip Away (RS #86)
94. This Note's for You (RS #42)
93. Mansion on the Hill (RS unranked)
92. Grey Riders (RS unranked)
91. Motion Pictures (for Carrie) (RS unranked)
90. Downtown (RS unranked)
89. White Line (RS unranked)
88. Ride My Llama (RS unranked)
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I know you must be aware of this, but Rolling Stone is garbage.  I would trust your ranking well above anything they'd do.  Hell, I might even trust a Binky ranking above theirs.

 
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Pip's Invitation said:
sugarmtn.org, a website that keeps Neil setlists and other stats, estimates he has written 619 songs. He has 41 non-archival studio albums (not counting ones he did with Buffalo Springfield, CSNY and the Stills-Young Band, for which he contributed some songs) plus one live album, Time Fades Away (1973), that consisted entirely of previously unreleased songs and is thus treated in the "original album" category by the fanbase. He is an extraordinarily prolific writer and, especially in the '70s and '80s, cranked out enough material to fill tons of "lost albums." Many of these songs circulated on bootlegs over the years, and many have been subsequently released by Neil in recent years as part of his Archives project. 

The answer to your second question is yes.

To answer your third question fully would take hours to write and probably exceed the character count of a FBG post. The simplest answer is that no other major artist feels as REAL to me. Everything Neil does is passionate and, aside from a few years in the '80s when he was fighting with his record company and started to troll them, is the uncompromised product of his artistic vision. There is no bulls**t with him; not in his writing, not in his production, and certainly not in his performance. I too have a very low tolerance for bulls**t so that's one reason I feel a strong connection to him. His songwriting abilities are on par with Dylan, and he is capable of writing the most spine-tingling acoustic stuff and the most bone-rattling electric stuff. And IMO he is the greatest live performer in rock history -- and live music is very important to me. He gives everything at every show and is capable of stunning you on any given night. Even today. One of the best shows I ever saw was my last Neil concert in 2015, when he was 69 years old. 
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In this day and age where everyone is a critic, this is so refreshing.  This post makes me wish I had an absolute favorite musician.  And it inspired me to fire up Harvest Moon, a song my dad played a lot when I was a teenager.

 
shader said:
In this day and age where everyone is a critic, this is so refreshing.  This post makes me wish I had an absolute favorite musician.  And it inspired me to fire up Harvest Moon, a song my dad played a lot when I was a teenager.
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Thanks! HM was my dad's favorite Neil tune as well and I will have a lot to say about that when the time comes. 

 
Pip's Invitation said:
101. Lookout Joe (Tonight's the Night, 1975; written in 1972-ish; first performed in 1973)
This song appears on a concept album but isn't actually part of the concept; it was added when the record company decided to release Tonight's the Night after shelving it for 2 years. But it has the same worn-out, world-weary feel as the rest of the songs, and adds a bit of wistfulness as it addresses Vietnam veterans who are strugging to avoid addiction and hopelessness.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7exq-sK_7C0

Live version from Tuscaloosa archival release, from early 1973: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLVnLIqdVzo
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I finished the current playlist, and had to listen to this again. 

I ain't complaining bout it's ranking, but I'm liking it more and more. 

 
Man of Constant Sorrow said:
I finished the current playlist, and had to listen to this again. 

I ain't complaining bout it's ranking, but I'm liking it more and more. 
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Oh, I'm not expecting anyone to agree with my rankings. There is one that will shock people like krista's ranking of Come Together, and there are a few songs that people might expect to be on the list that aren't. 

 
krista4 said:
I know you must be aware of this, but Rolling Stone is garbage.  I would trust your ranking well above anything they'd do.  Hell, I might even trust a Binky ranking above theirs.
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Oh yes. Though I was a regular reader back when there were many fewer options for that kind of content. At least they have treated Neil mostly fairly, unlike any band in the prog or SoCal rock genres, for example. 

I happened to stumble upon their list when I was doing research for a writeup (well after I had made my list), and I thought it would be amusing to compare. 

If you really want me to 🤓 it up, I could compare my rankings with the overall rankings of the Neil song draft I did. 

 
I should probably say something about where I got the anecdotes about writing/recording history, Neil's attitude toward things at a given time, etc. Some of them you won't see corroborated online. I have read various books and articles about Neil over the years, and corresponded with a number of people who are even more die-hard about Neil than I am. A lot of this stuff comes from that. Here's a list of what material has been burned into my brain; the first two sources should be considered the most definitive. 

Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream by Neil Young (Neil's autobiography)
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography by Jimmy McDonough (the only biography that Neil has ever cooperated with, though he disavowed some of it later on, which is standard for him whenever a major interview of his comes out)
A Dreamer of Pictures: Neil Young -- The Man and His Music by David Downing
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Visual Documentary by Johnny Rogan
Neil Young: The Visual Documentary by John Robertson
Numerous Rolling Stone articles and interviews, most memorably "The Ego Meets the Dove," an account of the 1974 CSNY reunion tour by Ben Fong-Torres. A lot of these are collected in Neil Young - The Rolling Stone Files: The Ultimate Compendium of Interviews, Articles, Facts, and Opinions from the Files of "Rolling Stone"
The Rust List, an e-mail list for fans of Neil Young. I was active on it from 1998 to 2005-ish. It's not very active anymore, I presume Reddit killed it. 

Live performance history comes from sugarmtn.org, some of which is based on a book called Ghosts on the Road (which I have not read). 

I have added this info to the first post as well. 

 
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Pip's Invitation said:
I should probably say something about where I got the anecdotes about writing/recording history, Neil's attitude toward things at a given time, etc. Some of them you won't see corroborated online. I have read various books and articles about Neil over the years, and corresponded with a number of people who are even more die-hard about Neil than I am. A lot of this stuff comes from that. Here's a list of what material has been burned into my brain; the first two sources should be considered the most definitive. 

Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream by Neil Young (Neil's autobiography)
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography by Jimmy McDonough (the only biography that Neil has ever cooperated with, though he disavowed some of it later on, which is standard for him whenever a major interview of his comes out)
A Dreamer of Pictures: Neil Young -- The Man and His Music by David Downing
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Visual Documentary by Johnny Rogan
Neil Young: The Visual Documentary by John Robertson
Numerous Rolling Stone articles and interviews, most memorably "The Ego Meets the Dove," an account of the 1974 CSNY reunion tour by Ben Fong-Torres. A lot of these are collected in Neil Young - The Rolling Stone Files: The Ultimate Compendium of Interviews, Articles, Facts, and Opinions from the Files of "Rolling Stone"
The Rust List, an e-mail list for fans of Neil Young. I was active on it from 1998 to 2005-ish. It's not very active anymore, I presume Reddit killed it. 

Live performance history comes from sugarmtn.org, some of which is based on a book called Ghosts on the Road (which I have not read). 
 
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Thnx. 

I gotta admit, this is all new to me. I love Neil's music, but know very little bout his story. 

I checked a wiki, and discovered that the 1 time that I saw him live was at the Live Aid '95 in Louisville. 

Blew me away! 

The closest that I can come to knowledge on an artist is Jimi Hendrix. 

Maybe I'll one day do a thread on him. 🤔

👍

 
Pip's Invitation said:
I should probably say something about where I got the anecdotes about writing/recording history, Neil's attitude toward things at a given time, etc. Some of them you won't see corroborated online. I have read various books and articles about Neil over the years, and corresponded with a number of people who are even more die-hard about Neil than I am. A lot of this stuff comes from that. Here's a list of what material has been burned into my brain; the first two sources should be considered the most definitive. 

Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream by Neil Young (Neil's autobiography)
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography by Jimmy McDonough (the only biography that Neil has ever cooperated with, though he disavowed some of it later on, which is standard for him whenever a major interview of his comes out)
A Dreamer of Pictures: Neil Young -- The Man and His Music by David Downing
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Visual Documentary by Johnny Rogan
Neil Young: The Visual Documentary by John Robertson
Numerous Rolling Stone articles and interviews, most memorably "The Ego Meets the Dove," an account of the 1974 CSNY reunion tour by Ben Fong-Torres. A lot of these are collected in Neil Young - The Rolling Stone Files: The Ultimate Compendium of Interviews, Articles, Facts, and Opinions from the Files of "Rolling Stone"
The Rust List, an e-mail list for fans of Neil Young. I was active on it from 1998 to 2005-ish. It's not very active anymore, I presume Reddit killed it. 

Live performance history comes from sugarmtn.org, some of which is based on a book called Ghosts on the Road (which I have not read). 

I have added this info to the first post as well. 
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I have this Neil Young autobiography. Picked it up on clearance at B&N a couple years back. Haven't read it yet.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399172084/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_FwPeFbG3K4SZS

 
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86. Albuquerque (Tonight's the Night, 1975; written and first performed in 1973)
This is what Harvest-style country rock sounds like after a tequila bender. Bonus points for showing up in Phish setlists occasionally.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwnFCri0zD0&feature=youtu.be

Live version from the Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live archival release, from a fall 1973 tour which was supposed to precede the release of TTN (which then was shelved until 1975): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwnFCri0zD0&feature=youtu.be

Live acoustic version from 1999 solo tour. He mentions he's playing the guitar from "This Old Guitar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXH0MX5aQ-c

Phish cover. This one is from when they played at Neil's Bridge School benefit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxY2c-RjFt8

 
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85. Everybody's Alone (Archives Vol. 1, 2009; written and first performed in 1969)
Back in the '90s, someone gave me a tape with various unreleased Neil songs on it. This was one that called to me. It's got an insistent melody and profound lyrics such as "But when I'll learn to be free, I wonder if I'll miss the pain." It appears to date from his first material with Crazy Horse, and the version included on the first Archives box set sounds like it could have fit in well on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.
There are only four documented live performances, three of which were in 1969-70 and one of which was a surprise bustout on the 1997 HORDE tour.

Archives box set version (electric with the Horse): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL9lcBQh95I&feature=youtu.be

Acoustic demo that was on the tape I received in the '90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz03vtoTieQ&fbclid=IwAR1gMfhJYeE2zoj3JOl1gejwl1kgjg1XxYwIF2XKKxIItDsHy4U2MuJqgrA

 
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Pip's Invitation said:
86. Albuquerque (Tonight's the Night, 1975; written and first performed in 1973)
This is what Harvest-style country rock sounds like after a tequila bender. Bonus points for showing up in Phish setlists occasionally.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwnFCri0zD0&feature=youtu.be

Live version from the Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live archival release, from a fall 1973 tour which was supposed to precede the release of TTN (which then was shelved until 1975): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwnFCri0zD0&feature=youtu.be

Live acoustic version from 1999 solo tour. He mentions he's playing the guitar from "This Old Guitar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXH0MX5aQ-c

Phish cover. This one is from when they played at Neil's Bridge School benefit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxY2c-RjFt8
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I selected this one in the Songs with Food draft.  :bowtie:

ETA:  "Breakfast" category

 
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84. I've Been Waiting for You (Neil Young, 1969)
Fuzzed-out bliss. The "ahs" between the guitar blasts at the beginning are a nice touch. One of the few tracks from Neil's solo debut that wasn't done in by overproduction/bad mixing. Confusingly, Neil did not perform this live much around the time of its release; all that's documented before 2001 is three acoustic performances in the late '60s. Since 2001 it has appeared 53 times. Bonus points for being covered by David Bowie, the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6TYpTSEjYo&feature=youtu.be

Live acoustic version from the Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 archival release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo3xtG3_mtA

Live electric version with Crazy Horse from 2001: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJgrAbYvRmM

Live electric version with Promise of the Real from 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lH2MrFlOzs

Bowie cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNgsCmcIYKo

Pixies cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5oY9mXB1Oo

Dinosaur Jr. cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot0xLoY_Z2w

 
83. Winterlong (Decade, 1977; written in 1969; first performed in 1970)
This dreamy ###-kicker is like a minimalist Wall of Sound. That probably makes no sense, but that's Neil for you. It likely dates from the earliest Crazy Horse material and was first played on his 1970 tour with them. A studio version finally appeared on the Decade anthology in 1977; all we know about the age of that version is that it was recorded at the same session as Walk On, which appeared on 1974's On the Beach, so sometime between 1969 and 1974. I have seen this live twice (2000 and 2007).
This is the second song in a row that was covered by the Pixies. I did not arrange it that way on purpose.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6r66n3TFI&feature=youtu.be

Electric live version from Crazy Horse at the Fillmore 1970 archival release (which is a MUST for anyone into electric Neil): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGYLKQ4SunI

Acoustic live version from 2003: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQVNC3f9PfU

Live version from Red Rocks 2000 DVD with the Music in Head band*: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpTlEamo2no

Rehearsal with Promise of the Real. It was in some of their 2015 and 2016 setlists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVxq-0q0rAA

Pixies cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWWjMgzhbu4

* - featuring legends Duck Dunn, Jim Keltner, Spooner Oldham and Ben Keith, plus Neil's wife Pegi and sister Astrid. I'll have more to say about this tour, which I saw in Camden, later. 

 
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82. Sail Away (Rust Never Sleeps, 1979; written in the mid-70s; first performed in 1977)
Here's another song from Rust Never Sleeps that is brilliant but pales next to what surrounds it. Unlike the rest of the album, it is not a live recording with the audience noise stripped out, but a studio outtake from the Comes a Time sessions. It features nature and road imagery that he employed often, and some gorgeous harmonies from Nicolette Larson. Oddly, it first surfaced in the setlists of his rough-and-tumble Ducks project.

In the mid-70s, Neil went on a kick where he deliberately wrote songs named after existing songs. This one is named after a song by Randy Newman.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECU0AliS_cU&feature=youtu.be

Live version from Farm Aid 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGXaDW6Hj20

The only live version with the Ducks on Youtube is in the middle of a larger clip. It starts at 4:50: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mdUctCR6KM

Next up: The song I never heard until last month!

 
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81. Vacancy (Homegrown, 2020; written in 1974)
I made this list in May. In June, Neil put out an archival release with a song I'd never heard before. I've become obsessed with it and have decided to rank it at No. 81, making this list a top 101.
As I mentioned before, Neil wrote a bunch of songs in 1974 as a result of a major breakup. He recorded a whole bunch of these and other songs and prepared some of them for release on an album to be called Homegrown. Then he shelved the album in 1975 in favor of Tonight's the Night. Unlike some of Neil's lost albums, Homegrown never surfaced as a whole, but some of its songs (and others recorded at those sessions) ended up on other albums or made their way into live sets. Vacancy never did. It was a complete mystery, its existence only known to fans through a list of the songs recorded at the sessions, until Neil released Homegrown last month as part of his Archives series.
It is incredible. I am floored every time I hear it, and constantly send messages to a fellow music-geek friend about it. Honestly, the only reason it's as low as 81 is to guard against irrational exuberance. (Also, putting it at 81 allows me to preserve a narrative from entry 80.) If I'd waited to make this list until next year, this song could very well have been vastly higher. 
And I have so many questions. But the main two are:
1. How can you write and record a song this great AND THEN KEEP IT UNDER WRAPS FOR 45 YEARS? Neil has said the Homegrown material was too personal, but he let people hear Pardon My Heart and Homefires, which are much more intimate than this, so that's not a good enough excuse.
2. How can you not retry this song with Crazy Horse at some point in the last 45 years? They could turn it into a massive stomper live. Neil salvaged the title track of Homegrown, reworked it for the Horse and released it on American Stars N Bars 2 years after the original album was abandoned. Last month revealed that the original version was far better than the Horse version. This would have been a MUCH better alternative for them to work up.
Perhaps the issue was that the lyrics describe a situation that must have been particularly awkward for Neil. He is not addressing his ex but someone whom he may have tried to replace her with.
"I look in your eyes and I don't know what's there
You poison me with that long, vacant stare
You dress like her and she walks in your words
You frown at me and then you smile at her"
and:
"You come through in the weirdest way
You copy her with the words that you say
I need that girl like the night needs the day
I don't need you getting in my way"
Holy hell.
The music merges the best of Neil's hard-rock and country-rock impulses and wouldn't sound out of place on a Buffalo Springfield or CSNY record. The ending solo sounds straight out of a jam from a CSNY tour, and the transitions into and out of the verses are to die for. There's even a riff pulled from World on a String, which Neil probably figured was shelved for good in 1974.
If I ever get to see Neil in concert again, I am going to be that guy who annoys him by calling for this song all night.

As of now, the Homegrown version is the only version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL_bqx4h6lU

 
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80. When You Dance I Can Really Love (After the Gold Rush, 1970)
From this point on, we are dealing with songs that I knew would make the top 100, it was just a question of where they would fall. So I guess you can say I have 80 favorite Neil songs. This is one of the few rockers on After the Gold Rush, and it's delightful.

Fun fact: When Rolling Stone reported in 1974 that CSNY had reunited and was rehearsing for a tour, Graham Nash was quoted as saying that they were going to open their sets with this song. It was not played on that tour even once. 

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnyuYPth5Q&feature=youtu.be

Live version from Live Rust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiuJ2vpeZxA

Live version from Year of the Horse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYMNcILqQV4

Live version from 2016 with Promise of the Real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQrnXIjQcDU

 
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Pip's Invitation said:
Neil doesn't do many covers and to my knowledge he has never covered Springsteen. 

However, he does have an unreleased song called "Born to Run." In the '70s he went on a kick of writing songs with the same titles as songs that already existed. Some of them will be in this countdown. 
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The main Neil/Springsteen connection I'm aware of is Neil unfairly losing the Grammy to Springsteen for their respective contributions to the Tom Hanks' film Philadelphia. IMHO, Neil's "Philadelphia" is far superior to Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia".

 
zamboni said:
The main Neil/Springsteen connection I'm aware of is Neil unfairly losing the Grammy to Springsteen for their respective contributions to the Tom Hanks' film Philadelphia. IMHO, Neil's "Philadelphia" is far superior to Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia".
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I agree, though I’m biased because I’m a huge Neil fan and don’t really care for Springsteen. (One Neil song was left off this countdown for sounding too much like Springsteen.)

 
Pip's Invitation said:
I agree, though I’m biased because I’m a huge Neil fan and don’t really care for Springsteen. (One Neil song was left off this countdown for sounding too much like Springsteen.)
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Agreed - love Neil and don't like Bruce, which is definitely part of it. But still, Neil's title track song is just so damn haunting, particularly the way it's used at the end (sorry for any spoilers).

 
Pip's Invitation said:
81. Vacancy (Homegrown, 2020; written in 1974)
I made this list in May. In June, Neil put out an archival release with a song I'd never heard before. I've become obsessed with it and have decided to rank it at No. 81, making this list a top 101.
As I mentioned before, Neil wrote a bunch of songs in 1974 as a result of a major breakup. He recorded a whole bunch of these and other songs and prepared some of them for release on an album to be called Homegrown. Then he shelved the album in 1975 in favor of Tonight's the Night. Unlike some of Neil's lost albums, Homegrown never surfaced as a whole, but some of its songs (and others recorded at those sessions) ended up on other albums or made their way into live sets. Vacancy never did. It was a complete mystery, its existence only known to fans through a list of the songs recorded at the sessions, until Neil released Homegrown last month as part of his Archives series.
It is incredible. I am floored every time I hear it, and constantly send messages to a fellow music-geek friend about it. Honestly, the only reason it's as low as 81 is to guard against irrational exuberance. (Also, putting it at 81 allows me to preserve a narrative from entry 80.) If I'd waited to make this list until next year, this song could very well have been vastly higher. 
And I have so many questions. But the main two are:
1. How can you write and record a song this great AND THEN KEEP IT UNDER WRAPS FOR 45 YEARS? Neil has said the Homegrown material was too personal, but he let people hear Pardon My Heart and Homefires, which are much more intimate than this, so that's not a good enough excuse.
2. How can you not retry this song with Crazy Horse at some point in the last 45 years? They could turn it into a massive stomper live. Neil salvaged the title track of Homegrown, reworked it for the Horse and released it on American Stars N Bars 2 years after the original album was abandoned. Last month revealed that the original version was far better than the Horse version. This would have been a MUCH better alternative for them to work up.
Perhaps the issue was that the lyrics describe a situation that must have been particularly awkward for Neil. He is not addressing his ex but someone whom he may have tried to replace her with.
"I look in your eyes and I don't know what's there
You poison me with that long, vacant stare
You dress like her and she walks in your words
You frown at me and then you smile at her"
and:
"You come through in the weirdest way
You copy her with the words that you say
I need that girl like the night needs the day
I don't need you getting in my way"
Holy hell.
The music merges the best of Neil's hard-rock and country-rock impulses and wouldn't sound out of place on a Buffalo Springfield or CSNY record. The ending solo sounds straight out of a jam from a CSNY tour, and the transitions into and out of the verses are to die for. There's even a riff pulled from World on a String, which Neil probably figured was shelved for good in 1974.
If I ever get to see Neil in concert again, I am going to be that guy who annoys him by calling for this song all night.

As of now, the Homegrown version is the only version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL_bqx4h6lU
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Great write-up and really interesting.  I'm not as enamored of the song as you are, but it could be because I'm listening on my computer right now.  I find the song at #80 leaps and bounds better.

Pip's Invitation said:
80. When You Dance I Can Really Love (After the Gold Rush, 1970)
 

Fun fact: When Rolling Stone reported in 1974 that CSNY had reunited and was rehearsing for a tour, Graham Nash was quoted as saying that they were going to open their sets with this song. It was not played on that tour even once. 
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Love this fun fact.

 
zamboni said:
The main Neil/Springsteen connection I'm aware of is Neil unfairly losing the Grammy to Springsteen for their respective contributions to the Tom Hanks' film Philadelphia. IMHO, Neil's "Philadelphia" is far superior to Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia".
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I saw Neil Young at Jones Beach in the late 80s (the live acoustic version of Rockin' in the Free World was recorded at that show) and Bruce came out for the encore and played "Down By the River" with him.

 
Dr. Octopus said:
I saw Neil Young at Jones Beach in the late 80s (the live acoustic version of Rockin' in the Free World was recorded at that show) and Bruce came out for the encore and played "Down By the River" with him.
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Hearing Bruce sing "I shot my baaaaby" would probably ruin my night. 

 
79. Lotta Love (Comes a Time, 1978; written and first performed in 1976)
"It's gonna take a lotta love to change the way things are" -- these words have never been truer than they are now.
This is one of the few Neil songs where someone else's version is better known than his own. It was a major hit for Nicolette Larson, who sang backup on much of the Comes a Time album but, oddly, not this track. Like Look Out for My Love, this was recorded with Crazy Horse, while the rest of the album was recorded with Larson and Nashville session players. When I posted this on Facebook, two of my friends, both of whom are quite knowledgeable about music and somewhat knowledgeable about Neil, said they only knew this as a Nicolette Larson song and had no idea Neil wrote it and recorded his own version. 

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5mLgLI4814&feature=youtu.be

Live version from Live Rust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ww5u2ePfc

Nicolette Larson cover (RIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80PTNnrwUO8

 
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Neil hated the kind of production that typified what we now call yacht rock, so he wasn't willing to go the slick route or include a flute solo like Larson did. But there is a Neil song with a flute! Performed by Neil! 

ETA: Two Neil songs with flute! Though the second one might be a synth flute. 

 
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Pip's Invitation said:
86. Albuquerque (Tonight's the Night, 1975; written and first performed in 1973)
This is what Harvest-style country rock sounds like after a tequila bender. Bonus points for showing up in Phish setlists occasionally.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwnFCri0zD0&feature=youtu.be

Live version from the Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live archival release, from a fall 1973 tour which was supposed to precede the release of TTN (which then was shelved until 1975): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwnFCri0zD0&feature=youtu.be

Live acoustic version from 1999 solo tour. He mentions he's playing the guitar from "This Old Guitar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXH0MX5aQ-c

Phish cover. This one is from when they played at Neil's Bridge School benefit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxY2c-RjFt8
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Top 15 for me.  Actually had never heard the Phish cover until now, great stuff.

 
zamboni said:
Pip's Invitation said:
I agree, though I’m biased because I’m a huge Neil fan and don’t really care for Springsteen. (One Neil song was left off this countdown for sounding too much like Springsteen.)
Click to expand...
Agreed - love Neil and don't like Bruce, which is definitely part of it. But still, Neil's title track song is just so damn haunting, particularly the way it's used at the end (sorry for any spoilers).
Click to expand...
I'm a bigger fan of Springsteen for reasons that have more to do with 40 years ago than anything rational.

But my son is named Neil, not Bruce.

 
Pip's Invitation said:
79. Lotta Love (Comes a Time, 1978)
"It's gonna take a lotta love to change the way things are" -- these words have never been truer than they are now.
This is one of the few Neil songs where someone else's version is better known than his own. It was a major hit for Nicolette Larson, who sang backup on much of the Comes a Time album but, oddly, not this track. Like Look Out for My Love, this was recorded with Crazy Horse, while the rest of the album was recorded with Larson and Nashville session players. When I posted this on Facebook, two of my friends, both of whom are quite knowledgeable about music and somewhat knowledgeable about Neil, said they only knew this as a Nicolette Larson song and had no idea Neil wrote it and recorded his own version. 

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5mLgLI4814&feature=youtu.be

Live version from Live Rust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ww5u2ePfc

Nicolette Larson cover (RIP): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80PTNnrwUO8
Click to expand...
Neil's original is decent, but I do think Nicolette's version is better.  

 
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78. I Believe in You (After the Gold Rush, 1970)
One of many, many gorgeous acoustic songs from After the Gold Rush, Neil's greatest contribution to the singer-songwriter movement that was all the rage around this time. This one has particularly vexing lyrics, even by Neil's standards, but it's more or less about trying to make love endure amidst change and chaos.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhMHPQH4a8g&feature=youtu.be

Live version (solo piano) from 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhMHPQH4a8g&feature=youtu.be

Linda Ronstadt cover (she dipped into his songbook a lot in the '70s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVA2Yj28ZjE

Gillian Welch cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl6y0Pno784

 
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77. Through My Sails (Zuma, 1975; written in 1973)
How did a CSNY song end up on a solo album that was otherwise the epitome of the powerful sound of Crazy Horse? Only Neil knows. Neil brought this to an informal 1973 CSNY session; it was one of six songs they worked up at that time and likely would have appeared on the planned reunion album, Human Highway. After attempts to finish that album imploded in 1974, Neil decided to keep this, one of his gentlest songs, for himself, appending it to an album of electric mayhem. The gorgeous harmonies and aquatic imagery somehow make the perfect denouement to Cortez the Killer.
This song had never been performed live ... until this year, when Neil played it at one of his virtual fireside sessions.

Studio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvI3voBGaH8&feature=youtu.be
 

 
76. LA (Time Fades Away, 1973; written in 1968-ish)
Time Fades Away was about as ragged as Neil got, but shining moments of grace peek through on this one -- some of Ben Keith's steel guitar licks, the harmonies. It's about the apocalypse coming to Los Angeles, so this is a good year to revisit it. The song had been around for a few years before Neil unveiled it on the tour from which TFA was taken; it may have been considered for his debut solo album.
TFA, a live album that consisted of nothing but previously unreleased songs, most of which were taken from his early 1973 tour which devolved into a complete trainwreck, is the beginning of a very important period for Neil. It is the first record of what is called his "ditch trilogy," which also includes On the Beach and Tonight's the Night. Extended screed on that later. The short-term upshot was: All those people who latched on to Neil because of CSNY, After the Gold Rush and Harvest? Most of them HATED Time Fades Away. That was by Neil's design. 

TFA version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHRWR_G_5Ww&feature=youtu.be

Acoustic version from TFA tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPkW6J_E2vI

2015 version with Promise of the Real (whoever filmed this had AWESOME seats): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N9KJozxsHM

 
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