Chicago Music Exchange | 4 years ago

This Full Band Friday, the CME House Band takes a look at their lives through the lens of the Neil Young classic, “Old Man,” from the Canadian-American artist’s 1972 masterpiece, Harvest.

The song was written for the caretaker of the Northern California Broken Arrow Ranch, which Young purchased for $350,000 in 1970. The song compares a young man's life to an old man's and shows that the young man has, to some extent, the same needs as the old one. James Taylor played six-string banjo (tuned like a guitar) and sang on the song, and Linda Ronstadt also contributed vocals.

In the film Heart of Gold, Young introduces the song as follows:
About that time when I wrote ("Heart of Gold"), and I was touring, I had also—just, you know, being a rich hippie for the first time—I had purchased a ranch, and I still live there today. And there was a couple living on it that were the caretakers, an old gentleman named Louis Avila and his wife Clara. And there was this old blue Jeep there, and Louis took me for a ride in this blue Jeep. He gets me up there on the top side of the place, and there's this lake up there that fed all the pastures, and he says, "Well, tell me, how does a young man like yourself have enough money to buy a place like this?" 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.

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Watch Neil Young play the song live at BBC Television Theatre in 1971: https://youtu.be/An2a1_Do_fc

Check out more Full Band Fridays
"Red House" - Jimi Hendrix - https://youtu.be/fRrFE0we4aM
"Miss You" - The Rolling Stones - https://youtu.be/_xdwMCxz70s
"Song 2" - Blur - https://youtu.be/5aVWl54MT_A

Featuring Nathaniel Murphy, Alex Chadwick, Dave Piscotti, Mike Larsen and Josh Dugue.

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