Wrote this with 103° fever in bed in Topanga. Long live Crazy Horse. Neil Young Decade liner notes 1977

JM: How important are lyrics? NY: Well, it depends on the song. JM: What about an abstract song like “Cowgirl in the Sand“? NY: The words to “Cowgirl in the Sand” are very important because you can free-associate with them. Some words won’t let you do that, so you’re locked into the specific fuckin’ thing the guy’s singin’ about…. This way it could be anything. NY: The thing is, as long as there’s a thread that carries through it, then when you imagine what it’s about, there’s gonna be a thread that takes you to the end, too. You can follow your thought all the way through if you happen to have one—or if you don’t, you realize it doesn’t matter. Neil Young "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough 2002

RB: Songs like "Down By The River" and "Cowgirl In The Sand", which feature extended instrumental breaks, how many takes were cut in the studio? NY: Maybe three or four overall and the final version was usually an edited take. So, you know, maybe what you hear on the record would be take one, but with a couple pieces of something else in there. I could look it up. We have all the track sheets. All that information could be made available through "Archives" updates. We could make it so you could go in and figure out exactly what take you're listening to of a specific song. Neil Young Guitar World/Richard Bienstock October 2009

This is a song I wrote about beaches in Spain. I've never been to the beaches in Spain. It's sort of my own idea of what it's like over there. Neil Young Royal Festival Hall, London, England February 27, 1971

This is a song I wrote about a dream I had. Neil Young Music Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, USA January 21, 1971, Late Show

These songs - some of them are like they're antiques like me and the rest of us. But they're really just about people like you and me - and feelings. And you only feel it for like a second and then you write it down. After that you don't walk with that all the time. That's why the songs live. Some of them live longer than others. Neil Young United Palace, New York City, New York, USA December 18, 2007

A few weeks before the people who would found Crazy Horse (as yet unnamed), Danny, Billy, Ralphie, and me, got together in my Topanga living room, I had been sick with the flu, holed up in bed in the house. Susan was bringing me soup and good stuff, but I still felt like shit. I was delirious half the time and had an odd metallic taste in my mouth. It was peculiar. At the height of this sickness, I felt pretty high in a strange way. I had a guitar in a case near the bed—probably too near the bed in the opinion of most of the women I had relationships with. I took it out and started playing; I had left it in a tuning I was fond of, D modal, with the E strings both tuned down to D. It provided a drone sound, sort of like a sitar, but not really. I played for a while and wrote “Cinnamon Girl.” The lyrics were different from how the song eventually ended up, but all those changes happened right there, immediately, until the song was complete. Then I took the guitar out of D modal and kept playing. At the time, there was a song in E minor on the radio that I liked, “Sunny” or something like that. I remembered hearing it in the drugstore at Fairfax and Sunset while I was shopping for something to ease the flu. The song kept looping in my head, endlessly, like some things do when I’m sick and maybe a little delirious. So I started playing it on the guitar, and then I changed the chords a bit—and it turned into “Down by the River.” I was still feeling sick, but happy and high. It was a unique feeling. I had two brand-new songs! Totally different from the last album! Then I started playing in A minor, one of my favorite keys. I had nothing to lose. I was on a roll. The music just flowed naturally that afternoon, and soon I had written “Cowgirl in the Sand.” This was pretty unique, to write three songs in one sitting, and I am pretty sure that my semi-delirious state had a lot to do with that. Neil Young Waging Heavy Peace Sept 2012

That’s what was so great about Crazy Horse in those days—Danny understood my music, and everyone listened to Danny. He understood what we were doing. A really great second guitar player, the perfect counterpoint to everything else that was happening. His style of playing was so adventuresome. So sympathetic. So unthoughtful. And just so natural. That’s really what made “Cowgirl in the Sand” and “Down by the River” happen—Danny’s guitar parts. Nobody played guitar with me like that—that rhythm. When you listen to “Cowgirl in the Sand,” he keeps changing—plays something one and a half, maybe two, times, and he’s on to the next thing. Billy and Ralph will get into a groove and everything will be goin’ along and all of a sudden Danny’ll start doin’ somethin’ else. He just led those guys from one groove to another—all within the same groove. So when I played these long guitar solos, it seemed like they weren’t all that long, that I was making all these changes, when in reality what was changing was not one thing, but the whole band. Danny was the key. Neil Young "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough 2002

Spin: When so many love you, is it still the same? NY: Well, when I became very popular in the music scene and I had what was possibly my first rush with popularity, around the time of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, I think at that time I was pretty innocent about that stuff, so if somebody seemed to really dig me, I was always wondering if they really liked me or did they like my songs? Did they like me because I’m famous? How could they like me this much when they just met me? NY: And if there are a lot of girls, it makes you very weary. It doesn’t happen very much, but that one time in my life it did, over a period of about a month of two. I wrote that song [“Cowgirl in the Sand”] and “Cinnamon Girl” and “Down by the River” all in one afternoon. I had 104 temperature and I was sick in bed. Neil Young Spin Magazine June 1988

This is a song I wrote about a dream I had. And it was snowing outside. And it was the kind of snow that sticks on you when it comes down - on your nose. Anyways, I had a dream. Neil Young Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford, Connecticut, USA January 22, 1971

I'd like to sing about a few very choice - probably some of the most remarkable people in the world. I learned the chord structure of this song from Alan-a-Dale. He's probably the best English guitarist to ever come out of England. Just nobody really got on to him back then. He's better than Clapton - he is - I wouldn't put you on. This is a song about a few women I've known. A very choice group. Neil Young The Riverboat, Toronto, Ontario, Canada February 7, 1969