I was in the middle of the ocean. I was sailboat sailing to Hawaii. This was two years ago when I wrote the song and I just received word that the video for "This Note's For You" was not going to be played. I'd just finished making it and I had a copy of it on the boat. I'd been out at sea almost 10 days - about halfway over there. I hadn't seen anybody for about 8 days - no planes, no other boats - just the horizon. So I was pretty spacey out there by then. In one night I wrote three songs: "Ordinary People, "Sixty To Zero" and "Days That Used To Be". And "Days That Used To Be" was sort of like an answer to - it was kind of the way I felt - kind of lost. I was wondering whether what I was thinking was even relevant about "This Note's For You" and the whole thing. I thought it was hilarious and then it turned out that it wasn't - that they thought it wasn't funny. You know, I still kill myself every times I look at that video. I was rolling around the floor of the boat - on the deck. It's just a moment in time. I don't wander around feeling that way all the time. As a matter of fact that song almost didn't make the album because it doesn't really fit with all the other songs. Neil Young Ragged Glory World Premier radio broadcast Broken Arrow #41 transcription September 5, 1990

KL: There's a song on this new record where you're talking about an old friend you can't talk to because the things you used to say are so hard to say now - and just relate to that now. NY: A lotta people think that is what that was, but I wrote that song out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I was ten days out. And I hadn't seen any land for like ... ten days. Eight days since I saw ... KL: Was this an accident? NY: No - I was cruising - going across the water to Hawaii. I got a sailboat. So I'm out there with my friends and we're cruising. And we got this ship-to-shore radio. We'd just done the This Notes For You album and the video and everything and then I took off. Everything's done - great. I'm gonna go take a rest. You know the video's ready. I was in the program. We were great. We had this ... we thought it was a great record, you know. I still think it was a great record. NY: But then I found out that MTV wasn't going to play the video. And I went...I thought that was the funniest damn video I ever saw in my life. Am I that far out of touch? I know I'm probably the oldest guy on MTV ... but I still ... I'm connected. I know what's happening. [laughing] And then I started thinking, well - you don't know what happening. And that's what the song's about. That's what the song's about. People say. "Don't rock the boat. Don't do that. Don't sing about all these guy's sponsors and all that stuff." That is what I getting at. I thought it was hilariously funny and that everyone would be cracking up on it. And then I found that it wasn't funny at all. They weren't even going to play it. [chuckle] KL: And then on the other hand, MTV turned around and gave you the Best Video of the Year award. NL: Right. I don't know. There's a moral to that story. KL: Wonder what it is? NY: I don't know. Neil Young MTV Interview with Kurt Loder November, 1990

I usually shy away from this kind of song. I was in the middle of the ocean on my boat. Halfway between here and there, and had been there for about 10 days. No airplanes. No other boats. No noise. But I did see a couple of humpback whales. The song came to me. Neil Young Shreveport Journal/John Horn February 8, 1991