![]() “‘Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road,” he famously wrote of Harvest’s big single in the liner notes to his 1977 collection Decade, perhaps thinking of his album in the bins next to those by massive sellers by Cat Stevens and Carole King. ![]() “The Needle and the Damage Done,” recorded live in concert and solo, set a template for a certain kind of song about drug abuse: It’s beautiful, elegiac, precise-a focused lament written with a great deal of craft, like Elliott Smith’s “ Needle in the Hay” or U2's " Running to Stand Still." While he always excelled at this style, Young’s approach to songwriting was about to shift drastically. ![]() It was a song, in part, about guitarist, singer, and songwriter Danny Whitten, Young’s friend and a member of his frequent backing band, Crazy Horse, specifically Whitten’s addiction to heroin. Harvest had its share of wistful and breezy songs, but a number on the second side called “The Needle and the Damage Done” was a sign of things to come. ![]()
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