Down by the River

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Down by the River is a song composed by Neil Young in 1969. It was first released on his 1969 album with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Young has since frequently performed the song live. Live performances vary from (comparatively) short solo acoustic performances, as on the Crosby Stills Nash & Young release Down by the River' to nearly twenty minutes long, as on the Live at the Fillmore East release featuring Crazy Horse. At the Rock Am Ring in Germany in 2002, Neil Young, backed by Booker T Jones, Donald "Duck" Dunn and Frank Sampedro, played Down By The River for over 27 minutes.

The lyrics suggest that the protagonist tricks a woman, who he is involved with romantically, into taking him down to the riverside, where he betrays her trust because he 'shot his baby dead'.

On the liner notes of his 1977 anthology album Decade Neil Young states that he wrote Down by the River, Cowgirl in the Sand and Cinnamon Girl while lying in bed in Topanga Canyon with 103° fever.

Guitarist Roy Buchanan recorded a cover version of Down by the River on his 1978 album You're Not Alone The Indigo Girls also cover this song.