Powderfinger

C/G (3x2010) is the signature chord — C shape with G in the bass, creates a descending feel in the verse. Bm and Bm7 share the same shape minus one finger — the Bm sequence in the pre-chorus is where the tension builds before D explodes.

Crazy Horse plays this raw — straight, driving down strums. Verse pattern is loose and loping. Drive pattern for the pre-chorus (Bm sequence) as tension builds. Don't over-pick it; let the open strings ring and get out of the way.

Written by Neil Young in 1975 and originally offered to Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were reportedly interested in recording it. They died in a plane crash in October 1977 before they had the chance. Young released it himself on Rust Never Sleeps (1979) with Crazy Horse.

The song is a first-person narrative told from the perspective of a young man — just turned 22, home alone — who watches an armed gunboat approach and decides to pick up his daddy's rifle. He fires, is shot, and dies. Whether it's a Vietnam allegory, a frontier myth, or simply a story about the violent cost of impulse, Young has never explained it. The ambiguity is the point.

Rust Never Sleeps (1979) is one of the great rock records — half acoustic, half electric, recorded partly at the Boarding House in San Francisco and the Cow Palace. The album opens with 'My My, Hey Hey' and closes with its electric counterpart. Powderfinger sits at the emotional center, the longest and most cinematic track on the record.