Neil Young‘s catalog is fairly groundbreaking–both as a solo artist and as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The folk icon’s work is universally considered era-defining. And though Young is fairly blasé about the inevitable low moments in his career, even he can’t escape regret fully.
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One of the only songs he has ever been vocal about disliking is CSNY’s “Woodstock.” His distaste for the song lies less in the composition and more so in the final arrangement, the supergroup came up with.
Apparently, Young has a Yoda-like approach to music-making. “You shouldn’t try,” Young once told Howard Stern. “I think you should just let it be.” While making “Woodstock,” Young felt he abandoned that approach.
The rock-tinged song features the group’s titular overdubbed vocals. Though it’s nothing too out of the ordinary for CSNY, Young feels they tweaked the song to death.
“You ought to have heard [Stephen] Stills’ original vocals,” Young continued in the same interview. “It was amazing. We were just hung up on making everything perfect, so we all thought we had to [record] it again, but we didn’t. His overdub vocal is great, but the original vocal was funky like the guitar was funky.
“It was going so fast,” he continued. “We finished the record. I didn’t realize [our mistake] until later on when I heard the original vocals again. I thought, ‘Oh, we screwed up. We were trying to be good.'”
To all of us who haven’t heard Stills’ original vocal, “Woodstock” sounds pretty stellar. Despite Young’s qualms, this track remains a staple in CSNY’s discography.
Though Young has expressed his distaste for this song, his track record remains pretty unmarred–at least in his eyes. One of the only other songs he has been vocal about regretting is “Southern Man.” In hindsight, he felt the song about racism in the South to be “accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, too easy to misconstrue.”
We know Young’s opinion, but what do you think? Revisit “Woodstock”, below.
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images for Autism Speaks)
