Neil Young sings of a longing for love on this Harvest number, which he recorded at Nashville's Quadrafonic Sound Studio's in April 1971. He laid it down with a group of country session musicians, which he christened the Stray Gators.
The songs on the Harvest album often shift perspective and vary in degree of melancholy, making them difficult to grasp at times. Young offered some insight on this song when he explained in the book Zero To Sixty that this song isn't necessarily a sad one, as the singer is disguising his happiness. Regarding the lines: Can't relate to joy He tries to speak and Can't begin to say Young said: "That just means that I'm happy so that I can't get it all out. But... the way I wrote it sounds sad."
Not everyone was impressed by the play of the Stray Gators. John Mendelsohn, writing for Rolling Stone (March 30, 1972), opined, "The Stray Gators, pale miserably in comparison to the memory of Crazy Horse, of whose style they do a flaccid imitation on such tracks as 'Out on the Weekend,' 'Harvest' and 'Heart of Gold.' Where the Crazies kept their accompaniment hypnotically simple with a specific effect in mind (to render most dramatic rhythmic accents during choruses and instrumental breaks), the Gators come across as only timid, restrained for restraint's sake, and ultimately monotonous."
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