Helpless (feat. Neil Young) - Concert Version

As told in Neil Young: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History, this song is about the town of Omemee in Ontario. In 1949, Neil's parents moved there with him when he was just four years old. Young describes it as "a nice little town. Sleepy little place... Life was real basic and simple in that town. Walk to school, walk back. Everybody knew who you were. Everybody knew everybody."

More so than any other song, "Helpless" touches on Young's earliest childhood memories. Young came down with polio by age six, prompting his parents to spend a year in Florida hoping the warmer weather would speed his cure. Ten years after this came the Young's divorce, from which Neil stayed with his mother while his father kept his brother Bob and later remarried. So, typical for Neil Young, the memories represented here are bittersweet. Speaking of his family, most people forget that Neil's father, Scott Young, was a celebrity in his own right! Scott Young was a career journalist and writer, who started out in the Winnipeg Free Press and writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also wrote books - over three dozen, in fact - mostly boy's adventure/sports stories. And to round that out, his was a familiar face on Canadian TV. So it came as a surprise to him that his son's fame would eclipse his own to such an extent; he was happy with it anyway.

"Helpless" first appeared on the 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album Déjà Vu and was later released by Young on his 1977 Decade compilation. In the liner notes to the 1991 CSN boxed set, Young gave this succinct analysis: "Recorded in San Francisco about 4 a.m. when everyone got tired enough to play at my speed."