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

Ordinary People, here with the Bluenotes, is a big song that I think was written on an ocean voyage to Hawaii, aboard the WN Ragland, a Baltic trader renamed after my grandfather when it was rebuilt in the mid 70’s. Neil Young NYA - Album of the Week - Chrome Dreams II Sept 18, 2019

This song was written on my boat as we crossed the Pacific between California and Hawaii. Neil Young NYA Letters To The Editor March 29th, 2020

Ok, I'm sorry, this song's too long to be on the radio, it's too long to be a video and is probably too long to be on a record. And we keep feeding it and it keeps growing and growing. And we brought it here tonight to show it do you. Neil Young Community Center Theater, Sacramento, California, USA October 29, 1988

[After hearing a request for Ordinary People] She calls out for a song I sang twice like ten years ago that's got 400 verses. You're an obscure crowd. Neil Young HORDE Festival Tent Show Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA July 29, 1997