You'd would never know ... I mean, you'd literally never know that it wasn't all done at once, And that it wasn't done by a huge orchestra. All that really was left from the original session was the drums. Because we didn't like the bass or the rhythm guitar ... that it had a good feel. And eventually we erased the bass from one track and the rhythm guitar from another track and we did them over again just playing along with the drums. And did it over again, and just built it right from the bottom up.
Neil Young
CBC Radio Interview with Robert Fulford
February 1969
EB: Except for one song, which is great: "I've Been Waiting For You."
Yeah, yeah, that's the only one that sounds like it got off, but you know all those things were played at different days, every instrument. On that cut, isn't it incredible... you see that's how it can work, every once in a while. Because when I put on the lead guitar I was really into it that day, you know, and all the moods I was in at all the times that I put those things on. See, what I do is... in the beginning, we put down acoustic guitar and bass and drums, that's the smallest track that I ever did, one guitar, bass and drums... and then the acoustic guitar had a bad sound and the bass wasn't playin' the right notes and was a little out of tune, so we did both of these over again; so then we have only one original thing that I'd done before and Jimmy Messina, who played the bass on it, played the bass part over, and then he made up a different bass part so we took off the first one completely and played a whole new one... and then we dropped the acoustic guitar, 'cause it didn't fit with the other things that I put on... so then there was nothing left except for the drums. The pipe organ was put on.... Part of these things were done in different cities....
Neil Young
Rolling Stone/Elliot Blinder
April 20, 1970
According to Briggs, the psycho guitar noises featured on both “The Loner” and “I’ve Been Waiting for You”—where it sounds like Young is sticking the instrument into a garbage disposal and shredding the strings—were made by “putting Neil’s guitar through an organ Leslie, not even through an amp, just the Leslie into the board
Jimmy McDonough
"Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough
2002
I had met Briggs, and we were planning my first solo record. The songs were gathered from the past and the future, mostly dreams, nothing concrete; they were mostly created as vehicles for record-making, like “Here We Are in the Years,” or personal expression and longing, such as “I’ve Been Waiting for You.” Some of them were stream-of-consciousness, like “The Last Trip to Tulsa,” with no preconceived thought behind them. They were just songs. There was no big pressure on me at that time to top anything I had already done. That came later. The sky was the limit. I had no idea what was coming my way.
Neil Young
Waging Heavy Peace
Sept 2012
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