67. Long May You Run (Stills-Young Band's Long May You Run, 1976; written and first performed in 1974)
One of Neil's most sentimental and most quoted songs, this one means a lot of things to a lot of people. But it's actually about a car. Neil loves cars.
It's also the only song from Neil's duo album with Stephen Stills that really holds up. The rest of it is not A-grade material from either of them, and has a lot of the "layered b------t" production of the time that Neil hated. Not surprisingly, live acoustic versions are often where this song shines the most.
I got two interesting reactions when I posted this on the other sports/music geek site:
Person A: It will be interesting to me to see what 66 songs you put ahead of this iconic one.
Person B: It's fun seeing the different reactions - mine was 67? This song made the top 100?!? I'm admittedly biased since I consider this album to be one of Neil's worst - if not his absolute worst - LP in his extensive discography.
Studio version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVM8_jAL86w&feature=youtu.be
Live version from Unplugged:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QhcSmvF6Ag
Live version with Willie Nelson from Farm Aid 1997:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQH-L78clJw
Live version from 2012 on pump organ (I think it works really well this way):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6K-mhKZRY
Live version with CSNY from 1991:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRSyW-qs2mc
Live version with Promise of the Real from 2019:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnZSHoO7OhA
Emmylou Harris cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5wnvnQ3bc
Nils Lofgren cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dHRgEdtEeY
Stephen Stills cover with Neil's wife Pegi on harmony vocals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Mz8WBIV6k