"After the Gold Rush" is widely known as an environmentalism song, with its chorus, "Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s" (changed to "in the 21st century" once the '70s ended). The song is actually far stranger than that, though. In the book Shakey, Jimmy McDonough summarizes that strangeness as well as anybody when he says, "Accompanied by a mournful French horn, Young tickles the ivories and sings a tale of time travel that culminates in an exodus to another planet."
The song is structured to take listeners through time. The first verse in set in the Middle Ages, the second in the time it was written in, and the third in the future. In 1992, Young explained it thusly: "[It's] about three times in history: There's a Robin Hood scene, there's a fire scene in the present and there's the future... the air is yellow and red, ships are leaving, certain people can go and certain people can't... I think it's going to happen."
After The Gold Rush is an acoustic album that led to many other confessional singer/songwriter works in the early '70s (James Taylor, Carole King, etc.). Young had injured his back lifting a slab of polished walnut and standing up to play his electric guitar was impossible. In addition, he had dropped Crazy Horse as his backing band so he prepared an album of acoustic songs.
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