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Hear Neil Young’s Song About Breaking Up With Crosby, Stills & Nash

Take a look at a previously unreleased performance of ‘Thrasher’ before the release of his box set ‘Archives Vol. III (1976–1987)’

Edna Gundersen,

AARP

Published August 28, 2024

Neil Young backstage at The Boarding House in San Francisco

Joel Bernstein

Neil Young’s 1979 tune “Thrasher” — which premiered exclusively for AARP readers on Aug. 28 — embodies his gift for poetry, sublime melody and intriguing meditations, and how he felt about the bandmates he was leaving: “So I got bored and left them there / They were just dead weight to me.” The track is one of 121 previously unreleased live cuts on the 198-track limited deluxe edition of Neil Young Archives Vol. III (1976–1987), out Sept. 6.

Watch Neil Young perform “Thrasher” by clicking on the video player above.

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“Thrasher” was plucked from Young’s fabled shows recorded in 1978 at San Francisco’s 300-seat Boarding House. In a tan sport coat, white cowboy shirt and suspenders, he performs the solo acoustic version on a 12-string guitar and harmonica, stalking the stage with a mix of menace and wariness.

Though “Thrasher” is beloved by fans, Young didn’t perform it for three and a half decades after a critic’s savage review stung him, even though most of his reviews in major publications at the time were positive. At a 2014 show, he told the audience, “I haven’t done it that much in my life because at a very vulnerable moment I read something about it. Just like the worst [expletive] review I’ve ever read. So for all you reviewers, if you feel like your words don’t mean anything, you’re probably right, but in that case, in that case they were damaging.”

Young wrote “Thrasher” while in Taos filming the comedy Human Highway with Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper. He explained that the lyrics came to him while traveling with his Native American friend Carpio. “Driving through the magnificent beauty of New Mexico, the words just kept coming to me. I saw the eagles circling, the deep canyons, the road ahead, reflecting on my journey through recent years, and thankful to be where I was.”

Don’t miss this: Listen to Neil Young’s ‘Lady Wingshot’ from his ‘Archives Vol. III (1976–1987)’

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When he turned 50 in 1995, he told Mojo magazine’s Nick Kent, “ ‘Thrasher’ was pretty much me writing about my experiences with Crosby, Stills & Nash in the mid-’70s.” The lyrics about blades and crystals harming the band’s heavenly heights may refer to drug problems, particularly Crosby’s with cocaine:

There’s an ancient river bending
Through the timeless gorge of changes
Where sleeplessness awaits
I searched out my companions
Who were lost in crystal canyons
When the aimless blade of science
Slashed the pearly gates

Crosby, who died at 81 in 2023, eventually overcame his addiction. He admitted, “Man, I did everything wrong,” and apologized to Young for some of the things he said. In 2018, Crosby said he’d gladly play with Young again, but didn’t expect to. “He doesn’t need us,” he told critic Dave DiMartino. “Why would he bother? He’s playing as good as I’ve ever seen him play, ever.”

Young told Kent his song didn’t mean that he thought Crosby, Stills and Nash were dead — each and all succeeded without him — it was the burden of being in the band that he needed to shed. “At that point, I felt like it was kind of dead weight for me. Not for them. For me. I could go somewhere and they couldn’t go there. I wasn’t going to pull them along; they were doing fine without me. It might have come off a little more harsh than I meant it, but once I write I can’t say, ‘Oh, I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings.’ Poetically and on feeling it made good sense to me and it came right out.”

The "Neil Young Archives Vol. III" box set.

Courtesy Warner Records

The limited deluxe edition of Neil Young Archives Vol. III (1976–1987), available at neilyoungarchives.com for $449.98 starting Sept. 6, holds 17 CDs and five Blu-rays, plus a 160-page book and a poster. (That’s $2.15 per tune or movie; there’s also a 17-disc CD box set of only the music for $240.) It spans 11 studio albums, including country/folk Comes a Time, grunge prototype Rust Never Sleeps, rockabilly detour Everybody’s Rockin’ and Kraftwerk-influenced electronic Trans.

Edna Gundersen, a regular AARP music critic, was the longtime pop critic for USA Today.

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