‘Zuma’: How Neil Young Led Crazy Horse Back To The Light

The album opens with the brief, simple rocker Don’t Cry No tears, a song the Canadian Young started writing when he was in Kelvin High School, Winnipeg. Side One of the album’s original vinyl also includes Danger Bird, whose lyrics allude to the breakup of his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgrass. Pardon My Heart is a tender acoustic ballad, which features veteran session man Tim Drummond on bass, and Lookin’ For A Love, a song of hope about finding a new relationship, was recorded at Broken Arrow Ranch, a property of about 1,000 acres near La Honda, California, which Young bought for cash in 1970. Barstool Blues, a maudlin, disconcerting song that is a favourite of Norah Jones, closes the opening side of Zuma.

“Cortez represented the explorer with two sides”

After Stupid Girl and Drive Back comes Cortez The Killer, the seven-and-a-half-minute masterpiece, with a stirring guitar solo from Young, that is at the core of Zuma. Young also began writing Cortez The Killer while he was a student. In a 1995 interview with Mojo magazine, Young said the song was a combination of imagination and knowledge about the Spanish conquistador’s bloody arrival in the New World. “What Cortez represented to me is the explorer with two sides, one benevolent, the other utterly ruthless,” he revealed. “I mean, look at Columbus! Everyone now knows he was less than great, and he wasn’t even there first. It always makes me question all these other so-called ‘icons’.” The song ends with a fade-out because a power surge caused the original recording to stop before an additional final verse was captured. Young was sanguine about the hitch, remarking that he “never liked that verse anyway”.

Frank Sampedro later said he could not recall much about the missing lyrics. “Briggs got the power back on. We listened to where it dropped out and then punched back in right in the right place,” he said. “We did lose the third verse. Something about ‘a rocky grave’. Neil never sang it again.”

“Dylan and I talked about the similarity in the paths we had taken”

One day at the house, Young looked out of the window of the dining room and saw a van parked in the driveway, “with a guy listening to us”. When they went to investigate, they found out the mystery visitor was Bob Dylan. In his autobiography Waging Heavy Peace Deluxe: A Hippie Dream, Young said that Dylan came inside and sang a blues tune with the band, adding, “On a break, Bob and I took a walk around the neighbourhood, talking about the similarity in some of the paths we had each taken. It was the first time we had ever really talked. I liked him.”

Young made his name in Buffalo Springfield, and his fellow band member Stephen Stills, who was also part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, played bass and sang backing vocals on Through My Sails, Zuma’s closing track. For this lovely song, Young also brought back David Crosby and Graham Nash to sing backing vocals. They were all joined by congas player Russ Kunkel.

The memorable dreamlike cover image for Zuma, which features the images of birds, snow-capped mountains and a cactus-strewn desert, was based on a pencil sketch by artist James Mazzeo. “The album Zuma is the first album we made with Crazy Horse after Poncho joined the band. It’s one of my favourites. The cover is by Mazzeo and came out of a conversation we had on a day trip from the ranch to Zuma,” said Young. Zuma was chosen by Lou Reed as one of his favourite albums of 1975. It remains dear to the hearts of Neil Young fans.

Check out our best Neil Young songs to find out which ‘Zuma’ track continues to back in sun.