Crucial Track for January 26, 2026

"Harvest Moon" by Neil Young

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#365songs (26 / 365)

The first song I'm writing about because I don't like it very much. I never really got on with Neil Young's voice and still don't, and I think the lyrics of this are pretty insubstantial and bad, but though I might have felt annoyed about it at the time I do fondly remember complaining about this when my mom put it on in the car or whatever when I was a teenager. I was not a rebellious teen and never really thought my parents' taste in music was uncool (in part, perhaps, because it was rarely uncool) so having so strong a difference of opinion was kind of exciting to me. Plus when I found out that Neil Young is revered as a guitar god, it was hard to reconcile with this song, so that kind of started to introduce me to the pleasing ways in which musicians can contain multitudes. To this day I still love it when musicians cut hard against what I perceive to be their usual grain. Uh, no pun intended.