Neil Young was as much a juggler as he was a recording artist in the late 60s and early 70s. The Canadian rock legend was just beginning his storied career at the time. But he was being pulled in several different directions by a variety of projects.
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Ultimately, his first US Top 40 hit came out of this chaos. Typical of this era for him, a member of one of his bands inspired it, and he recorded it with a completely different unit.
Young’s Projects
You think you’re busy? When Neil Young left Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he pursued a number of different lanes. First, there was a solo career, which he launched with a self-titled solo album that same year. Young truly made it a DIY effort, playing most of the instruments and making the songs happen via overdubs.
A year later, his sophomore album came with the band Craxy Horse in tow. The backing band allowed Young to capture a more raucous rock sound. And he very nearly managed a Top 40 single hit out of this LP (Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere) when “Cinnamon Girl” made it as high as No. 55 before petering out.
Young’s exposure on the music scene truly skyrocketed when he was invited to join Crosby, Stills & Nash. That trio’s 1969 debut album had been a massive hit. The arrival of Young for live shows (including Woodstock) and a studio album (Déjà Vu) pushed this unit to another level of popularity.
A Solo Struggle
When Déjà Vu arrived in early 1970, spun off a series of hits, and sold like gangbusters, the public craved more from CSNY. Internal squabbles were already tearing the quartet apart. But each embarked upon a solo album to take advantage of their newfound clout in the industry.
Considering that he’d already done a pair of solo records by that time, Young should have had an edge. But he struggled with writer’s block. It only opened up when he read an unproduced screenplay that helped him write the song “After The Gold Rush”. The floodgates opened after that, leading to the album of the same name.
Young couldn’t quite decide if he wanted more of a Crazy Horse or CSNY vibe for the album as a whole. He chose more of a catch-as-catch-can approach, using different tactics and backing players for each track. On the song “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”, Nils Lofgren, known at the time as a guitar prodigy, played piano. His insistent chords ended up being the defining musical characteristic of Young’s first-ever Top 40 hit in the US.
A Smooth Break
Neil Young has never quite committed to explaining the exact origin of “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”. A few different people have come forward over the years to say that Young wrote the song specifically for them.
However, the most commonly held assumption is that Young penned the song as consolation for Graham Nash. Nash was reeling over his breakup with Joni Mitchell. Considering that Young and Nash were in such close proximity when the song would have been written, this seems like a safe bet.
In any case, the mournful ballad made its way to No. 16 in the US in 1970. More importantly, it helped establish Young as a radio act. That development greased the way for “Old Man”, which would become Young’s only chart-topping pop song in 1971.
Photo by Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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