NY: Well, on the new album, I play on about five songs and sing on three... EB: Three different from the five or three out of the five? NY: No, three of the five... and the ones that I play on we mostly recorded live. Like my two songs, "Helpless" and "Country Girl," I did the lead vocal while I was playing, all at the same time, so the drums and bass, guitar and piano were all going at once, and I was singing the lead, so my things sound different, from overdubbing, you know. I mean, I probably could have played on all of them, 'cause you know, I can make up lines and put 'em down... Neil Young Rolling Stone by Elliot Blinder April 20, 1970

I think that Crosby, Stills and Nash made great records. Crosby, Stills, & Nash is better than Déjà Vu. “Country Girl” is overblown. It’s overdone. It’s my fault … parts of Déjà Vu are as good—but they’re the parts that I’m not on. Neil Young "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough 2002

When I was about fourteen years old I used to go out to coffee houses at night. And listen to folk music. And they used to all sing terribly long songs. And I could never understand what they were about. And I wasn't really into that shit anyways. So I'm going to do one of those for you now. Neil Young Falkonercentret, København, Denmark January 11, 1970

I used an organ on Country Girl and I've Been Waiting For You also a long time ago. That was in Glendale. A huge organ in a church building. I recorded it there. Neil Young WTF Podcast with Marc Maron #717 June 20, 2016

This is a new song that I'm going to do for you now. Actually, it's not really new, but as a song, as a total thing, it's new. Part of it was written over four years ago - part of it was written two years ago and part of it was written two weeks ago. It just kind of falls in together. It takes in about four years. It's called Country Girl. I've written three songs now that go together - this one here is the third of three of three. The first one was Broken Arrow. The second one was Down By The River and this is the third one. I don't know if there'll be another one or not. You may think that this sounds a little like Broken Arrow - you're right. That's because I wrote this part of it before I wrote Broken Arrow. This is where Broken arrow came from. In other words - at the time, Broken Arrow seemed better than this and now it seems the other way around, as time changes - even though four years ago it wasn't. Neil Young The Canterbury House, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA October 16, 1969 [Down By The River seemed out of place in the list of related songs. In a 2021 NYA letter to the editor Neil corrected his 1969 intro quote] Letter: During your Canterbury performance in 1969 you say that Broken Arrow, Down by the River and Country Girl are connected with each other. Musically Broken Arrow and Country Girl are a pair, but Down by the River is something completely different. In which aspect are (or were) these three songs a trilogy for you? NY: I meant ‘Down Down Down’ Neil Young NYA Letters To The Editor August 31st, 2021