This is a new song about, ummm ... it's about a ... it's a broadway musical. Some people look at their life and say, "well, my life's like a movie." And then they talk about what scenes went down. In some movies there's tunes, you know. This is like a show tune from my movie. Neil Young Massey Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada January 19, 1971, Early Show

This is another new song. It's called A Man Needs A Maid. It doesn't really mean what it says. It's just the idea that anyone would think enough to say something like that would show that something else was happening. So don't take it personally when I say it. I don't really want a maid. Neil Young Music Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, USA January 21, 1971, Early Show

This is another new song. I wrote a lot of new songs. I don't know what happened, I wrote 10 new songs. I'm going to have to put out another album now. The song - we're going to record - we're going to rent an opera house in Los Angeles. And we're going to rent the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Jack Nitzsche, a friend of mine, is writing a chart for the Philharmonic to play. I'm going to play it on the piano and they're going to play with me. I'm going to sing it live and they're going to record it with no audience just using the theater as an echo chamber. So anyway, now you know that. Neil Young Macky Auditorium - University Of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA January 26, 1971

Here's a song. Of all the songs that I have, I have two or three that I categorize as weird songs. This is the newest weird one that I have. It's funny - I started singing it at the beginning of the tour in Vancouver because I wrote it just a couple of days - I wrote most of it just a day or two before I left. People didn't understand it at first because they never heard it before. Sometimes they started to laugh because couldn't understand what I was singing. So I put some more words on the front of it and I put some more words on the end of it. [before singing Man Needs A Maid for the first time with the "My life is changing in so many ways" verse at the beginning and the "When will I see you again?" concluding line.] Neil Young Royce Hall - UCLA, Westwood, California, USA January 30, 1971

I'm going do another sad song folks. I'm finding it hard to - oh it's two of these - dual BBC cups. In America you know they do things to cars. I don't know if you about...the reason I said dual BBC cups. Here's your thing for between the shows when you advertise - "Don't miss it, don't miss it". Ha! On American television, they you know. This kind of TV over here isn't the same as American TV. American TV they give you a lot of commercials. They don't know that you know what's on. They take it for granted that you don't know anything. Start from there and work down. So I was talking about American cars. When you turn sixteen in America you get your drivers license. That makes you a man at sixteen. Well really it's a huge masculine symbol I guess. In American a man's car is his whole trip sometimes. They have mufflers and everything. They get them and they them and they put stuff in the back in the trunk to make them this high off the ground. So they look like they're going fast even when they're not even turned on. "That guy sure must be far out. He's got such a far out car." And then they put aerials on them. One on each side. And mufflers coming out the back. And they change the lights on the back and make them big and red. But I got dual BBC cups on my grand piano. 1957 Buick piano. Here's something else that's happening with me ... Neil Young BBC TV Studios, London, England February 23, 1971

I recorded this with the London Symphony Orchestra. Some people thought this arrangement was overdone but Bob Dylan told me it was one of his favorites. I listened closer to Bob. Robin Hood loved a maid long before women's liberation. Neil Young Decade liner notes 1977

It was just, you know, me and the London Symphony. I sat down and played the piano, had a little trouble getting the rhythm together at first, but the song ... Jack Nitzsche was there and he helped me. We did it five or six times and got it. Neil Young Greater London Radio interview with David Hepworth November 1, 1992

Then, a few weeks later, I was in London and recorded “A Man Needs a Maid” and “There’s a World” with the London Symphony Orchestra, produced and arranged by Jack Nitzsche. After hearing the playback in Glyn Johns’s truck, where the pieces were recorded outside the Barking Town Hall, Jack said, “I think it’s a bit overblown.” We knew it was over-the-top, but we had done it and we loved it. Neil Young Waging Heavy Peace Sept 2012

So I was playing with a band once which will go unnamed. Too many names in it. I was staying in a hotel, like we always do, back then. Now I never do. I was in this hotel in London. The band was playing a gig over there. I was walking around in my room and I saw this light switch and it had 2 little dots on it - just round dots you know, very old. One said, Man. The other one said, Maid. It wasn't my idea. A couple sometimes get a little nervous when I do that. A little edgy. "What's he saying, what does that mean, what does that mean? What about Robin Hood? he had Maid Mariann, right. she was beautiful. That's what Robin Hood thought." Anyway, that unnamed band did a lot of songs that were very good and relevant during its time. Neil Young Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA October 8, 2014

You people seem a little more receptive to that song. Now maid is a word that's been hijacked. OK. It'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. I think some of you were here last night, especially the loud ones. So I don't have to tell that story anymore. That's over. (Audience protesting) So you weren't here last night. I'm glad that we're talking now. So a while ago a long time ago I was in a band and we were playing in London. Staying in a hotel, which we usually do, which I don't do anymore. But we used to do all the time. I got tired and now I like to stay in a motorhome now. You know where everything is. You know it works. But anyway, 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 2 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. Neil Young Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA October 9, 2014