5 Neil Young Songs Only True Fans Will Appreciate

There's so much to love in the Neil Young songs that made his name, but "Heart of Gold" and "Harvest Moon" are just the beginning of the trip, barely scratching the surface of his monumental output. Dig deeper into his folk, rock, and country-inflected catalogue, and you find songs that only true fans appreciate. These less-heralded gems complete the picture of this prolific artist's work, showcasing his creative range, experimentation, invention, and constant, fascinating evolution.

Dig through albums ranging from 1973's "Time Fades Away" to 2012's "Psychedelic Pill" and beyond, and you find decades of songs that will always beguile and blow fans' minds. True fans unearth parts of Neil Young's tragic real-life story in songs like "Don't Be Denied" or "On the Beach." The deeper you delve into his records, the more treasures emerge for the true connoisseurs, and the fuller the picture of this enigmatic Canadian singer-songwriter gets.

The trove of treasured deep cuts is boundless — Young's production since the '60s has been workmanlike, steady, and basically unparalleled. In putting together this list, we focused on Young's solo efforts (including with Crazy Horse) and excluded songs he did with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. There are surely tons we've missed, but here are five songs sure to be catnip to Young obsessives, completists, and fanatics. And even if you don't have a faded T-shirt or favorite live recording, they still highlight everything we love about him.

Things were rocky for Neil Young when he recorded "On the Beach." You can hear it on the 1974 album's title track, which encapsulates the melancholic, introspective aura of the whole LP. "The world is turnin' / I hope it don't turn away," Young laments over a groove that undulates like waves crashing. The album came together during an especially dark period for the songwriter, clouded by a disintegrating marriage to actor Carrie Snodgress and the drug-related death of guitarist Danny Whitten of backing band The Stray Gators. The generous amounts of "honey slides" — a strong cannabis-infused honey concoction — consumed by Young and the band during recording sessions no doubt accentuated the heavy vibe. 

Coming after the massive success of 1972's "Harvest," "On the Beach" seems to be the product of Young grappling with fame: "Though my problems are meaningless / That don't make them go away," goes the second verse. "I need a crowd of people / I can't face them day to day." The song nails that complex love-hate relationship that develops between a rock star and his fans: The loneliness atop Neil Mountain. "Every one of my records, to me, is like an ongoing autobiography," Young told Rolling Stone in 1975. "On the Beach" gives you a glimpse of just how desolate things could get. "I follow the road though I don't know where it ends," he moans on what could be the world's saddest beach song — treasure buried in the sand.

"Ramada Inn," off the "Psychedelic Pill" album released in 2012, proves that the rolling of the years has only made Neil Young's insight and imagery keener. With sprawling walls of fuzzy guitars, a splashy but minimal arrangement, and a steady mid-paced groove, the song is epic in length. Running nearly 17 minutes, it'll give you a bang for your buck at the juke box (though to really get your money's worth, the album also features sprawling psychedelic opener "Driftin' Back," which is over 27 minutes long). With achingly sweet harmony vocals in the chorus, the song is tragically beautiful and also kind of a bummer — a descriptor that applies to many of Young's songs.

Lyrically, Young moves from autobiography to social observation critique: This time, he's more of a novelist or critic than a memoirist. The song describes an older couple having dinner at an inn en route to a reunion, drinking heavily and drifting apart. "Seems like lately things are going south / A few drinks now and she hardly knows him," goes the final verse. "He just looks away and checks out / When she says it's time to do something." The ragged but lovely harmonies of the chorus, which alternates between "he loves her so" and "she loves him so," perfectly capture the tragedy of love that's been deadened or damaged over the years. "Ramada Inn" is as powerful and heartbreaking as anything Young and Crazy Horse pulled off.

"Powderfinger" tells the story of a young man tasked with taking up arms and dying in war. Off the "Rust Never Sleeps" album released in 1979, it has the feel of Neil Young's protest anthems like "Ohio" (performed with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young) or "Rockin' in the Free World" but is more steeped in blood and tragedy. "Raised my rifle to my eye / Never stopped to wonder why," the speaker explains. "Then I saw black and my face splashed in the sky." In the final verse, he's enraged at the needless loss of life: "Shelter me from the powder and the finger / Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger." Fittingly, "Powderfinger" ends the dead soldier longing for his love and being lowered into the ground.

The title "Rust Never Sleeps" was a phrase lifted from an advertisement by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh, a collaborator on Young's "Human Highway" film. Young's sound always evolved, and new influences always trickled in. Featuring the iconic "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)," the album moves from being predominantly acoustic on side A to all-out electric by the end of side B. Leading off the B side, "Powderfinger," like the album as a whole, showcases the synergy Young had with Crazy Horse and built with the Nashville-based rhythm section of bassist Joe Osborn and drummer Karl T. Himmel. What they created together is mournful and angry in equal measure — top-shelf political Young.

Maybe the coolest thing about "I'm the Ocean," off the 1995 album "Mirror Ball," is that you can hear Neil Young being shaped by artists that he shaped himself. On the rockier end of his sound, the song and album wear their grunge influences on their flannel sleeves: Sonically, it's closer to REM or Soundgarden than, say, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. It's like a grandpa learning new skate tricks from his grandkids, except he also happens to have invented skateboarding. The mutual admiration between Pearl Jam and Neil Young flowered when they toured together in 1993, and the acts joined up for raucous versions of "Rockin' in the Free World" at the end of some shows. And on the album "Mirror Ball" and its song "I'm the Ocean," you can hear this collaboration spill into the studio to dazzling effect. 

But what's also cool about this album is that it's barbed with scathing social commentary while also being about letting go. The lines depict a kind of helplessness in the face of the ceaseless motion of society and history. "I'm not present / I'm a drug that makes you dream / I'm an Aerostar / I'm a Cutlass Supreme," Young sings in the final verse before basically pushing the self into the sea. The repetition of the title "I'm the ocean" at the end of the song becomes haunting — no single person can overcome the pull of tides, the oceanic drag of history. Young reminds us that sometimes the best you can do, and perhaps all you can do, is go with the flow.

Off the 1973 live album "Time Fades Away," "Don't Be Denied" basically sets Neil Young's origin story to song, turning it into a cautionary tale. Bullied at school in Winnipeg, Canada, the speaker starts a band, dreams big, plays out, and gets sucked into the music industry, becoming the toast of LA's Sunset Strip. "The businessmen crowded around / They came to hear the golden sound," he croons, but this is no grind-set fairy tale. "Well, all that glitters isn't gold," the musician realizes, as he's left "a pauper in a naked disguise." It's always been tough for Canadians in show business.

"Time Fades Away" is the first of the "Ditch" trilogy, or the three post-"Harvest" albums that came out in the early '70s. It's a ramshackle live album that Young recorded over the course of a grueling 1973 tour while playing new material to audiences that just wanted to hear his big "Harvest" hits. There were also problems with his backing band, the Stray Gators. Drummer Kenny Buttrey left in the middle of the tour, and pianist Jack Nitzsche's drinking was heavy and problematic. "'Time Fades Away' was a very nervous album. And that's exactly where I was at on the tour," Young remarked in his 1975 interview in Rolling Stone. It's not his favorite. But if "Time Fades Away" is a little rough overall, the battered edges make "Don't Be Denied" a diamond. Like the best of Neil's work, it's the perfect combination of nostalgic, sardonic, and sad.