"Actually", said Neil, "I just took the riff from Satisfaction, changed it a little bit and added a minor fifth harmony on top, which changed the sound. I felt like what the lyrics say, so I am sat down and wrote them. Neil Young Hit Parader 1967-1968

Recorded by the original Springfield in atlantic's new york studio after a gig at "Ondene's". Shortly after this Bruce Palmer, bassist, was busted & deported to Canada. Eventually we got him back to U.S. but made many records without him. Broke Stills' heart and mine too that he wasn't on all our records. Neil Young Decade liner notes 1977

Caller: I was wondering why you decided to redo your "Mr. Soul" on your "Trans" album? NY: Back in about 1980 or 1981 we were thinking about getting the Springfield together, and as a joke, I made an audition tape for myself so that they'd know I was still kicking. I made Mr. Soul, but I never did play it for them. That's what I started doing. I made that tape at home with the drum machine and all that, as a sort of joke, as an audition to get in the group. But we never did get together again. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job on that one, I don't know. Neil Young Rockline Radio Interview August 18, 1986

The best take of it and the best mix of it and the best version of it is somewhere in the Atlantic vault. The one we're listening to here, is one where we got away from it, and we kept overdubbing and overdubbed guitar parts and added things over top of the original stuff and lost some of the original stuff. We took it too far. We didn't have anybody to tell us to go home or that had experience to tell us what to do. We lost a lot of the great stuff that we had on tape in the first place, or we never got a lot of it on tape at all. Neil Young The Fresh Air Interview with Terry Gross 1992

NY: “Mr. Soul” takes me through all those times—the Springfield era. It really typifies the end without really being near the end or knowing what the end was about. That’s a song that is somehow semiprophetic and semiretro. It seems to make more sense the more I play it. I don’t know where it came from, but it really tells the story of my life at that time, and strangely enough, it still seems to be true. NY: I remember bein’ up in the middle of the night writing it—I don’t know why. * I wrote that on the floor in my little cabin. With a felt-tip pen. On the floor on newspapers in the bathroom, smokin’ some bad grass. That’s what I really like, writing on newspapers. It’s so easy and it looks so good. You write in black on top of it, and it’s hidden because of the black-and-white background. The words can’t come out and assert themselves that way. They lay in there, so you’re not intimidated by seein’ them so clearly. Even if you glance at them, they’re not that clear. They’re in there. If you wanna spend time findin’ them, they’ll be there, but you don’t read it instantaneously. They’re, like, a fuzzy thing. JM: Was the Stones riff your idea of a little joke? NY: Never even entered my mind, really, that it was that similiar to “Satisfaction”—until it was pointed out to me and I went, “Yeah, it is, you’re right.” But I wasn’t gonna change it because of that. So then I guess I kind of exaggerated it. If it’s there, you gotta go with it. JM: Who’s Mr. Soul? NY: Everybody has their own Mr. Soul. So even if I could—which I don’t think I can—point out to you who Mr. Soul is to me, it defeats the purpose. JM: Is there a coldness about “Mr. Soul“? NY: I don’t think so. JM: Sometimes I hear a deal with the devil in it. NY: Maybe—but I don’t think so. I mean, there’s nothin’ you can say about the song—the song is a combination of the lyrics and the beat and the sound of it when it’s bein’ sung. Breaking it down any more than that takes away from its meaning. It’s basically a guy talkin’ to himself— talking to his conscience. JM: What does the guy singing this song want? NY: He wants to be heard. JM: “Out of My Mind,” “Mr. Soul”—they seem like the darker side of the sixties. NY: Well, that was sort of like still not feeling I was part of it. Outside looking in. I was groovin’ on it—it wasn’t like I was bummed or anything. It was just a part of growing up, those songs. Growing up in a band that people knew about, playing in front of audiences … NY: You take things very heavily when you’re that age. You don’t realize you’re gonna live through it. Of course, sometimes you don’t live through it. Neil Young "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough 2002

NY: Stills didn’t like the “Mr. Soul” that came out as much as the original, and he was RIGHT. The way we did it in New York was the best recording Buffalo Springfield ever made—because it was done by somebody who knew what the fuck they were doing. Then I did overdubs in L.A. and ruined it. Some stupid dickhead with too much time on his hands got a chance to do something, and I had to play the role. I completely fucked it up. NY: I can’t find the original tape. The only copy I have of the original session is a scratchy fuckin’ acetate—you can barely hear it—but it’s still the one. So that’s that. Either I find it or I don’t. And if it’s the only one I can find, I’m gonna put it out. I don’t give a shit how fucked up it is. JM: What do you think about when you hear that demo? NY: I think about how you can lose it when you already got it. NY: I worked all night on “Mr. Soul.” We did it all in one day. What did I do after that? I fucked it up—so what did that teach me? It teaches me that WHAT YOU DO FIRST IS THE RIGHT FUCKin’ THING AND JUST MOVE ON. NY: Don’t start until you’re sure you can finish. Whatever it is you wanna do makin’ a record, DO IT. Stay right on it. Don’t change your head. That’s what comes from “Mr. Soul.” Neil Young "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough 2002

Well, Mr. Soul I wrote in my little cabin in Laurel Canyon where I was living ... and I wrote it on a newspaper ... felt tip marker I think. And it covered the whole paper. I was getting ready to use it as a kitty litter, but, you know, then I wrote the song on it. Neil Young Don't Be Denied documentary/BBC October, 2008

I now had a house/cabin at the top of Ridpath Avenue near Utica Drive, way up at the end of the road at the top of Laurel Canyon. It was a crazy place up there, with a main house, a garage, and a little cabin. The shingles were all curved and mystical like a witch’s castle. Wonderful. I was renting a cabin at the top of a flight of stairs, maybe one to two hundred–plus steps. Below it, the garage was down on Utica, and a drummer, John Densmore of the Doors, lived there. The garage was constructed with the same mystical shingle work. An astrologer, Kiyo Hodel, was my landlord. She lived in the main house of the whole compound and was very cosmic. The little cabin was made of knotty pine, very rustic, and I loved it. I had a llama rug on the floor. [...] In that little cabin, I wrote “Mr. Soul,” “Expecting to Fly,” “Broken Arrow,” and a few other songs. I would listen to acetates of the mixes with my friends often there, too. (Acetates were records that you could make fast and play only a few times before they wore out and lost their sound. They would make them to take home and listen to right after we cut a song at Gold Star Studios in a little room where a lathe was set up. I still remember that acetate smell. The acetate would go in a little record sleeve and a Gold Star label would be typed up and stuck on it. Neil Young Waging Heavy Peace Sept 2012

This is the original Mr. Soul, recorded at Atlantic in NYC... just as it was that night we first finished... before the overdubs done for 'Buffalo Springfield Again' were added in Hollywood, My bad. should have left it alone. This copy is a recording of the original acetate we got at Atlantic in NYC right after we first mixed it. Work with Stephen on this one as a great co-effort. Love Stephen. He is great. This is the one. We lost the master it was cut from. [Neil referring to the January 9, 1967 recording session] Neil Young NYA Song Of The Day July 17, 2018