Neil Young's 20 best songs, ranked

7 July 2025, 13:39

Neil Young has released well over a thousand songs... here are his very best.

There are few artists in pop history who are as prolific as Neil Young over such a long period.

He's released well over a thousand songs on more than 40 albums – and keeps putting out "lost" albums too packed with previously unreleased music.

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Hacking down the best part of a life's work to just 20 songs is an impossible task, but we've given it our very best shot.

From his early folky days and worth with Crosby, Stills and Nash to his grungier later albums, we've rounded up and ranked Neil Young's greatest music.

Read on for a perfect intro to Neil Young.

1. Southern Man

   

   Southern Man

   It's not quite Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us' or even John Lennon's 'How Do You Sleep?' but Young's 'Southern Man' from After The Gold Rush did spark a bit of kerfuffle.

   A pretty direct attack on the racism of the southern states, along with 'Alabama' from Harvest, it raised the hackles of southerners Lynyrd Skynyrd.

   Feeling that Young's sentiments about the south were unfair, they wrote 'Sweet Home Alabama' in response.

   As it goes, Young though the criticism was fair enough and was even a big fan of that song. "They play like they mean it," Young said "I'm proud to have my name in a song like theirs." He even covered 'Sweet Home Alabama' himself..

   Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant wore a Tonight's the Night T-shirt in concert sometimes and Young reciprocated with a Skynyrd T-shirt.

2. F*!#in' Up

   

   Neil Young - F!#*in Up (Video)

   Neil Young's influence on grunge was much more direct than the heavier sounds and drop D tuning of some of his 1970s work.

   As the scene was in the process of bursting though at the start of the 1990s, Neil Young was right there in the middle of it with Ragged Glory, recorded as many of the songs on this list were, with Crazy Horse.

   More than just "his best album since...", it's a towering achievement all on its own, and the raucous, self-flagellating 'F*!#in' Up' is its punchiest moment.

3. Don't Let It Bring You Down

   

   Neil Young - Don't Let It Bring You Down (Live at the BBC)

   In the early 1970s, Neil Young was doing his own thing as well as playing with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

   This song featured on his own After The Gold Rush as well as the CSNY live album 4 Way Street in 1971.

   The studio album was recorded at Neil Young's home studio in Topanga, California.

4. On The Beach

   

   On the Beach (2016 Remaster)

   Even more morose than 'Don't Let It Bring You Down', Neil Young's whole On The Beach album is maybe his most melancholy.

   The only single from the album was the 'Walk On' / 'For the Turnstiles' double header but its finest moment is this side two opener that just rips you apart as you listen.

   Old pal Graham Nash even dropped in to play electric piano.

5. Words (Between The Lines of Age)

   

   Neil Young - Words (Between the Lines of Age) [Official Audio]

   Arguably Neil Young's most masterful of masterpieces, it was hard not to put down every single song from this 1972 classic on this list.

   The album was packed with special guests: not just Nash, but also Stephen Stills and David Crosby, as well as James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and on a couple of tracks, the London Symphony Orchestra.

   It was just Neil and his band (Ben Keith, Jack Nitzsche, Tim Drummond and Kenny Buttrey) on this gorgeous, swooning side one closer.

6. Harvest Moon

   

   Neil Young - Harvest Moon [Official Music Video]

   Sometimes artists struggling to recapture former glories flail around with a poorly conceived "sequel" to their best work.

   That wasn't the case with Neil Young, who was riding a critical and commercial wave in the early 1990s as the Godfather of Grunge.

   So it was from a position of strength that he made Harvest Moon, a 20-years later sequel to Harvest that saw the return of Ben Keith, Tim Drummond and Kenny Buttrey, as well as Jack Nitzsche and other alumni from that album.

   The whole thing works, and especially this title track, featuring Linda Ronstadt.

7. Winterlong

   

   Winterlong (2017 Remaster)

   Originally intended for the Tonight's The Night album (it even appeared on some acetate pressings), 'Winterlong' didn't make the cut but surfaced on 1977 compilation Decade, and thank heavens for that.

   A melding of country, folk and swooning soft rock, it was later covered by Pixies on 1989 Neil Young tribute album The Bridge, which also featured the likes of The Flaming Lips, Nick Cave and Sonic Youth.

8. Down By The River

   

   Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Down By the River (Official Audio)

   There's a single version, but you want the full nine minute plus epic from the Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere for Neil Young and Crazy Horse at their storming, swirling best.

   Supposedly written at the same time as 'Cinnamon Girl' and 'Cowgirl in the Sand' while he was battling a heavy fever, this murder ballad is one of the best examples of Neil Young's less is more approach to guitar solos, where it doesn;'t matter how many notes you're playing, just how you play the few notes you do play.

9. Cinnamon Girl

   

   Cinnamon Girl (2009 Remaster)

   While Neil Young was adept at protest and power, he can also knock out a beautiful, if somewhat oblique, love song with relative ease.

   With its double drop D tuning and crunchy riff, 'Cinnamon Girl' was grunge decades before grunge, but also a gorgeous loved up thing.

   It also featured Crazy Hose man Danny Whitten's vocals nice and high in the mix. Whitten would sadly die a couple of years later of a drug overdose, aged just 29.

10. Ordinary People

    

    Ordinary People

    Forget about sequel albums. In 2007, Neil Young released Chrome Dreams II, a follow up to an album that didn't even exist (at least at the time).

    The original Chrome Dreams was binned in 2007 in favour of American Stars n' Bars but gained mythic status in its absence.

    Chrome Dreams II didn't just trade off that history but was a late era masterpiece in its own right, with its own history.

    Some of the songs dated from the 1980s. 'Beautiful Bluebird' and 'Boxcar' were recorded for previous albums but left off the running order and were re-recorded for CDII.

    The album's most epic moment was the EIGHTEEN MINUTE 'Ordinary People', which was actually recorded back in 1988 during the Freedom sessions, but, built around just a few chords, it fits in perfectly here.

    As it goes, the original Chrome Dreams received a belated release to critical acclaim in 2023.

11. Cortez The Killer

    

    Cortez the Killer (2016 Remaster)

    A very different epic, the seven-and-a-half minute 'Cortez the Killer' from 1975's Zuma is all wandering, exploring guitar lines and hazy vibes.

    Apparently it would have been even longer, but apparently the last verse was lost when a mixing console broke down.

    It's loosely insured by Hernán Cortés's conquest of the Aztec Empire, though takes a few historical liberties.

12. Rockin' in the Free World

    

    Rockin' in the Free World

    In February 1989, Neil Young found out that his planned tour in the Soviet Union wasn't going to happen.

    Frank "Poncho" Sampedro told Neil, "we'll have to keep on rockin' in the free world" and Young got the lyrics together the following day.

    There were references to George H W Bush (Neil would later record 'Let's Impeach The President' about his son George W Bushon 2006 Iraq-inspired album Living With War), as well as Jesse Jackson and Ayatollah Khomeini, who was still the Supreme Leader in Iran despite his ill health.

    It was one of the biggest songs of Young's later career, and has been used by political parties of all persuasion in the US (Young gave his blessing to the DNC, but not the Trump campaign, naturally).

13. Cowgirl in the Sand

    

    Cowgirl in the Sand (2009 Remaster)

    Another of his Topanga fever songs, 'Cowgirl in the Sand' has that similar epic feel (it clocks in at over ten minutes), and its dense, accusatory lyrics are open to all sorts of interpretation.

    You can try to pick them apart, or just let the waves of guitar and Neil's voice wash over you.

    It's a monster of a track that has popped up on most of Neil's best ofs in the years since, and was also covered by The Byrds and Elvis Costello.

14. Ohio

    

    Neil Young - Ohio [Live At Massey Hall 1971] (Video)

    On May 4, 1970, four unarmed students at Kent State University were killed by the Ohio National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam war.

    Neil Young wrote this powerful protest song having seen photos of the incident, but despite the specificity of the lyrics, its power hasn't diminished over the years.

    Released as a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song, the studio version of Ohio didn't actually appear on a CSNY album until 1974's So Far compilation, four years after its release as a single.

15. After The Gold Rush

    

    After the Gold Rush

    "'After The Gold Rush' is an environmental song," Neil said in 2012, of the song that suggests "Mother nature's on the run".

    "I recognise in it now this thread that goes through a lotta my songs that’s this time-travel thing... When I look out the window, the first thing that comes to my mind is the way this place looked a hundred years ago."

    Clocking in at under four minutes, it's a musically sparse track (just Neil on piano on vocals and Bill Peterson on flugelhorn) but lyrically dense piece that rewards repeated listening.

    It's one of his most covered tracks, being interpreted by Prelude, Patti Smith, Thom Yorke, k.d. lang and, in 1999 a country supergroup of Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt.

16. Old Man

    

    Neil Young - Old Man (Live) [Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition] (Official Music Video)

    One of Harvest's many highlights, 'Old Man' isn't just an idle letter to another generation but was actually inspired by a real incident, being written for the caretaker of Northern California Broken Arrow Ranch, which Neil had just bought.

    In the Heart of Gold movie, Neil described himself as a "rich hippie" who was challenged by Louis Avila, who took him for a ride in his Jeep.

    "Well, tell me, how does a young man like yourself have enough money to buy a place like this?" Avila asked Neil.

    "And I said, 'Well, just lucky, Louis, just real lucky'. And he said, 'Well, that's the darnedest thing I ever heard'. And I wrote this song for him."

    The track features James Taylor on a six-string banjo and backing vocals from Linda Ronstadt.

17. Like A Hurricane

    

    Like a Hurricane (2003 Remaster)

    "All it is is four notes on the bass. Billy [Talbot] plays a few extra notes now and then, and the drumbeat’s the same all the way through," Neil Young told Uncut years after 'Like A Hurricane' was recorded

    "Sometimes it does sound as if we’re really playing fast, but we’re not. It’s just everything starts swimming around in circles."

    The abrupt start came when Frank "Poncho" Sampedro was noodling with the song on the synth and Neil Young liked what he heard and started playing along. The engineer just (about) pressed record in time.

    Originally destined for Chrome Dreams, it survived the cull to appear on American Stars n' Bars.

    Again, you'll want the full eight plus minutes, not the single edit, and when he plays it live (which he almost always does), Neil will swim round in even bigger circles, stretching the song to breaking point.

18. The Needle and the Damage Done

    

    Neil Young - Needle And The Damage Done [Unplugged]

    "I got to see a lot of great musicians who nobody ever got to see for one reason or another," said Neil Young introducing this song at Massey Hall in 1971

    "But, strangely enough, the real good ones that you never got to see was... 'cause of heroin. And that started happening over and over. Then it happened to someone that everyone knew about. So I just wrote a little song."

    One of of those people was Crazy Horse's Danny Whitten, who would later tragically succumb to his addictions.

    The song is a powerful, sparse, heartbreaking lament.

19. My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) / Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)

    

    My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) (2016 Remaster)

    Freedom was bookended by (live) acoustic and (studio) electric versions of 'Rockin' in the Free' World', but while the stripped back version is obviously great, the electric version is the keeper.

    Neil Young's previous acoustic/electric bookending on 1979's Rust Never Sleeps gave us two songs that are both so good in their own way that we can't split the difference between them.

    The acoustic 'My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)', featured just Neil on vocals, guitar and harmonica, having apparently yoinked the lyric "it's better to burn out than to fade away" from Jeff Blackburn, who Neil had played with in The Ducks.

    

    Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) (2016 Remaster)

    That line was quoted by Kurt Cobain in his suicide note, but even without that heartbreaking resonance, the song is a stunning treatise on fame and rock and roll, touching not just on the then-recent death of Elvis Presley but also the rise of the Sex Pistols with a nod to Johnny Rotten.

    The song has a surprising genesis, coming from Young's unlikely collaboration with Devo, who had hooked up with Neil for his Human Highway movie in 1977.

    They recorded the song together and Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh came up with the phrase "rust never sleeps, before he brought it to Crazy Horse.

    The closing 'Hey Hey, My My' was recorded live in concert (and would later appear in almost identically form on Live Rust) with just a bit of light studio tweaking to have it fit on the album. It's truly electric in every sense of the word.

20. Heart of Gold

    

    Neil Young - Heart of Gold (Live) [Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition] (Official Music Video)

    Sprawling 18 minute epics. Protest songs about the National Guard gunning down students. Dense and impenetrable love songs.

    We've not even touched anything from his 1983 albums Trans and Everybody's Rockin', which got Neil Young in trouble at Geffen for making records that didn't sound enough like Neil Young.

    But Neil Young could also sometimes strip everything away for the most beautiful, deceptively simple moments of pure melody.

    Another track from Harvest, the country-tinged 'Heart of Gold' actually got Neil Young all the way to the top of the US singles chart, with a little bit of help from guest backing vocalists James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.

    "This song put me in the middle of the road," Young later mused about the incredible success the song brought.

    "Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there."

    The fame may have brought its issues, but you can't argue with the song itself.