Editing Harvest (Neil Young album) (section)

==Writing==
In a post on his website, Young shares that much of ''Harvest'' "was written about or for [[Carrie Snodgress]], a wonderful actress and person and Zeke Young's mother."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://images.ctfassets.net/2okapnzdylk2/3R1ZG4ptkKS2HNyuOOcvbJ/bfa630d631a35620b37f3ce2d1afa6c0/Large_NYATC_right_aotw-harvest.png|format=PNG|title=Photographic image of magazine review|website=Images.ctfassets.net|access-date=24 December 2021}}</ref> In a radio interview, Young specifically cites "[[Heart of Gold (Neil Young song)|Heart of Gold]]", "[[Harvest (Neil Young song)|Harvest]]" and "[[Out on the Weekend]]" as being inspired by his then blossoming love.<ref>{{cite AV media|people=Neil Young|date=February 1, 2022|publisher=Sirius XM|title=Neil Young Radio}}</ref>

"[[A Man Needs a Maid (song)|A Man Needs a Maid]]" was also inspired by Young's budding relationship with Snodgress, whom he contacted after seeing her picture in a magazine. At a Philadelphia concert in October 2014, Young shared that the song was also inspired by a light switch in a hotel he stayed at while touring with CSNY: {{blockquote|Now maid is a word that's been hijacked. It doesn't mean what it means anymore. Now it's like a derogatory thing. It's something bad. Someone working. Sometimes I tell a little story here about something. Kinda tears it for people a little bit. So a while ago a long time ago I was in a band and we were playing in London. I was in this hotel and there was this light switch on the wall. I walked over to it but it wasn't a light switch. I was surprised to see two buttons. The top one you pressed a MAN and the second one you pressed MAID. I immediately went to the piano. That's how it happened.<ref>Comments to the audience, October 9, 2014. Academy of Music, Philadelphia</ref>}}

"[[Heart of Gold (Neil Young song)|Heart of Gold]]" has become Young's signature song and was his only number 1 hit in the United States. In 1974, he would tell a journalist that its composition was influenced by French song "[[L'amour est bleu|Love Is Blue]]."<ref>Neil Young in Amsterdam. Constant Meijers. Muziekkrant Oor. September/October 1974. Blues Online. Accessed October 29, 2023. http://bluesonline.weebly.com/the-loner.html.</ref>

"[[Are You Ready for the Country (song)|Are You Ready for the Country?]]" was written shortly before being recorded for the album. It, like "Words" and "Alabama", was recorded to provide contrast to the acoustic songs on the album. Young explains in a post on his website: "Are You Ready for the Country?" was written at the ranch shortly before the barn sessions happened. It's a simple song based on an old blues melody that has been used many times. I thought it would bring some welcome relief from the other songs."<ref>August 24, 2018. Neil Young Archives. neilyoungarchives.com</ref>

"[[Old Man (song)|Old Man]]" was inspired by Louis Avila, the caretaker of the Northern California ranch Young had recently purchased. He explains to an audience in January 1971: "This is a new song that I wrote about my ranch. I live on a ranch now. Lucky me. There's this old man who lives on it, that uh, he came with the place when I bought it. Ranches have foremen you know usually that sort of like stay there with the cows, no matter who owns it."<ref name="ReferenceA">Comments to the audience, January 19, 1971. Massey Hall, Toronto.</ref> He further describes Avila in his 2015 memoir, ''Special Deluxe'': {{blockquote|Louis and Clara were each about sixty years old and Louis had a very leathery face from being out in the sun working the land his whole life. His hair was full and white and he talked slowly in a friendly way. Clara, his wife of about forty years, was a very nice, soft-spoken lady. They were very much in love and lived in a little house about two hundred yards from my cabin, just on the other side of the beautiful little lake. They were there the day I first saw the place. Louis stood a little off-center due to an injury he sustained while walking through a field one day when he stepped in a deep hole and put his back out. He never got it fixed. He just soldiered on. His manner was always casual, country.<ref>Young, Neil. 2015. ''Special Deluxe''. New York, New York: Plume, An Imprint Of Penguin Random House Llc.</ref>}}

"Alabama" is "an unblushing rehash of '[[Southern Man (song)|Southern Man]]'";<ref>So characterized by Jim Miller in ''Rolling Stone''; quoted in Inglis, Sam (2003), ''Harvest'', pp. 93-94. The Continuum International Publishing Group. {{ISBN|0-8264-1495-8}}.</ref> to which American [[southern rock]] band [[Lynyrd Skynyrd]] wrote their 1973 hit "[[Sweet Home Alabama]]" in reply, stating "I hope Neil Young will remember, a southern man don't need him around, anyhow". Young later wrote of "Alabama" in his autobiography ''[[Waging Heavy Peace]]'', saying it "richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don't like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue."<ref>{{cite book |last=Young|first=Neil |title=Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream|year=2012|publisher=Penguin Books|location=New York, New York |isbn=978-0-14-218031-0 |page=417|chapter=Chapter Fifty-seven}}</ref>

"[[The Needle and the Damage Done]]" was inspired directly by an overdose by bandmate [[Danny Whitten]], who would later succumb to his addictions.<ref>Henke, James. "Interview: Neil Young." ''Rolling Stone''. June 2, 1988. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/interview-neil-young-79380/.</ref> The song was also inspired by several artists Young had seen fall to heroin, as he explained to a January 1971 audience: {{blockquote|I got to see to see a lot of great musicians before they happened. Before they became famous. When they were just gigging. Five and six sets a night. Things like that. I got to see a lot of great musicians who nobody got to see for one reason or another. But strangely enough the real good ones that you never got to see was because of heroin. And that started happening over and over. And then it happened to some that everybody knew about.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>}}

"Words (Between the Lines of Age)", the last song on the album, featured a lengthy guitar workout with the band. In his 2012 memoir ''Waging Heavy Peace'', Young reveals that the song "Words" was inspired by Young's growing fame, and the first cracks in his relationship with Snodgress: {{Blockquote|"Words" is the first song that reveals a little of my early doubts of being in a long-term relationship with Carrie. It was a new relationship. There were so many people around all the time, talking and talking, sitting in a circle smoking cigarettes in my living room. It had never been like that before. I am a very quiet and private person. The peace was going away. It was changing too fast. I remember actually jumping out the living room window onto the lawn to get out of there; I couldn't wait long enough to use the door! Words - too many of them, it seemed to me. I was young and not ready for what I had gotten myself into. I became paranoid and aware of mind games others were trying to play on me. I had never even thought of that before. That was how we did ''Harvest'', in love in the beginning and with some doubts at the end.<ref name="Young, Neil 2012">Young, Neil. 2012. ''Waging Heavy Peace''. Penguin Publishing Group.</ref>}}