Tell Me Why Neil Young & More
On The Acoustic
This Tell Me Why Neil Young page is section two of two Neil Young sections. See section one here. One this page you can view twelve great tunes for the acoustic guitar with my free samples, chord sheets and other information.
Full lesson tutorials are also available for all artists for a small fee.
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Tell Me Why Neil Young & Other
Chords, Demos, PDF's, Tutorials
1. Like A Hurricane
From the album "American Stars N Bars" from 1977, this song was a single but only charted in the UK at #48.
- Drop D Tuning: No
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: down up stop up down up stop up
- Picking: Yes in the rhythm
- Chords: Am, G, Fmaj7, Em, C, F
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2. Long May You Run
This song is credited to the Stills Young band of 1976 as CSNY were on separate career paths with David Crosby and Graham Nash working together and Young and Still on separate projects.
Long May You Run was recorded during the summer of 1976 and released in the fall. After 9 dates on tour with Stephen Stills, Neil Young dropped out of the duos tour to promote the album. The song was released ahead of the album and peaked at #71 in the UK.
I'm giving credit as a CSNY song as the four of them have performed the song many times together.
- Drop D Tuning = No
- Capo = No
- Rhythm = root down root up down up and repeat
- Picking = Yes
- Chords = D, Dmaj7, G, Bm, A7, A7sus, A, A#, C
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3. Ohio
This song was a protest song written by Neil Young after seeing photos in Life Magazine of the May 1970 Kent State shootings in which four university students lost their lives. They rushed the recording and had the song on the airwaves by June of 1970.
Some radio stations refused to play song and the Nixon Administration were not too happy about the recording. It was the only single from the "So Far" album and peaked at #14 in the US.
- Drop D Tuning: Yes
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: root down root up down up
- Picking: a few riffs
- Chords: D, F/G, C, Gm, Dm
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4. Old Man
James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt both sang backup on this track after both appearing on the Johnny Cash Show, along with Neil.
- Drop D Tuning: No but guitar tuned down 2 frets
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: down down up down up will work
- Picking: a few riffs
- Chords: D, C(add11)/D, F, G, Am7, Em
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5. Out On The Weekend
This song was not a single from the 1972 "Harvest" album but is the opening track from the album.
One critic said the song would have been a hit had it been released as a single.
- Drop D Tuning: Yes
- Capo: 2nd fret
- Rhythm: down down up down up and repeat
- Picking: Yes within the rhythm
- Chords: Am, D, Bm, E7, G, Dsus
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6. Powderfinger
This song hails from the 1979 album "Rust Never Sleeps".
Even though the song was never a single, in 2014 Rolling Stone said in their opinion, it was Neil Young's greatest song.
- Drop D Tuning: No
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: down down down up down up
- Picking: No
- Chords: E, A, B, Abm
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7. Sugar Mountain
Neil Young wrote this song when he was 19 yrs old and the song originally had 126 verses. He managed to bring it down to four eventually but even tho his first demo was in 1965 and the the first recording was back in 1968 along with "The Loner", it never appeared on an album until 1977 which was the "Decade" album.
The song did not chart as a single.
- Drop D Tuning: No
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: root down root up down up or ... use a root up down up root up down up
- Picking: Yes within the rhythm
- Chords: D, C, G, Fmaj7, Dm
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8. Tell Me Why
Neil Young released the album "After The Goldrush" in 1970. This song was performed by CNSY live a few times before the album release during that year.
Nils Lofgren and Neil play acoustic guitars only on this track with every string tuned down a whole step.
Norah Jones and Radiohead have covered this song.
- Drop D Tuning: No
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: root down root up down up and repeat
- Picking: Yes within the rhythm
- Chords: G, C, D, Am, Gmaj7, Em, Bm
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9. The Loner
Neil Young made his debut album in 1969, released four singles including this song, and non of them charted.
In fact in Neil Young's long solo career, he only had one #1 song in Canada and the US and it was "Heart Of Gold".
- Drop D Tuning: No
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: down down up and repeat - this one has a few choppy parts and downstrokes and some shuffle strumming in parts
- Picking: No
- Chords: F, G, C, D, Gm, Am, Dsus
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10. The Needle & The Damage Done
This number appeared on the "Harvest" album from 1972 and on other albums later on.
Our Lady Peace, Duran Duran and The Pretenders have all covered this song.
- Drop D Tuning: No
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: Im using 1-2-3 arpeggio up down up down up and repeat
- Picking: a few riffs
- Chords: D, C, D/B, D/A+, F, Esus, E
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11. Tonight's The Night
This was Neil Young's sixth studio album which was released in 1975 but mostly recorded in 1973.
No singles were released from the album.
- Drop D Tuning: Yes
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: down strokes with muted strings
- Picking: Yes and a few riffs
- Chords: D, C
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12. When You Dance I Can Really Love
This song is found on the 1970 album "After The Goldrush". There was a title misprint and someone swapped the I for the word You.
The song peaked at #93 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971.
- Drop D Tuning: No
- Capo: No
- Rhythm: down up pause down down up down up with downstrokes also mixed in
- Picking: a few riffs in the rhythm
- Chords: D, C, G, A#, Dm, F, Am
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Thanks for stopping by my Tell Me Why Neil Young page. I hope you found the info here useful and helpful.
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