Heart of Gold (song)

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"Heart of Gold" from the 1972 album Harvest is Neil Young's only number one hit single in his long musical career. The song, on the surface, seems to be a plea for the redemption of all-conquering love. The addition of James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt singing backup helped propel the song to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song continues to be among the most requested and performed in concert.

The song is one of a series of soft, acoustic pieces which were written partly as a result of a back injury. Unable to stand for long periods of time, he could not play his electric guitar and so returned to his original folk genre, which he could play sitting down.

The song received huge publicity when Young performed it on a variety show taped in Nashville, Tennessee and hosted by Johnny Cash. Ronstadt and Taylor were in Nashville at the time and sang backup for Young on the program.

Originally, this song was meant to segue with the song "A Man Needs a Maid", and was therefore played on piano. It was played in this manner during Young's solo shows in 1971, but he abandoned this approach midway through the tour and began to play it acoustically as it is now known. Additionally, one line that was cut when the two songs became separate entities was "Afraid/A man feels afraid" (Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, Jimmy McDonough). An example of the segued version appears on his Live at Massey Hall 1971 release.

Young wrote in the liner notes of his compilation album Decade: "This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch". This statement was in response to the mainstream popularity that he gained as a result of "Heart of Gold"'s number-one status.

The song has been covered by Matchbox Twenty, Tori Amos, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Richard Lloyd, Sheryl Crow, Bettye Lavette, Zakk Wylde (with Black Label Society), Boney M, Carla Cook, Lawrence Gowan, Stereophonics, Rockapella, Roxette, Backburner, Hanah, Ossifar, the James Last Orchestra, Five for Five, Sally Dworsky, Channeling Owen and as a Karaoke backing track.