I wrote this after quitting the group in '67 due to one of many identity crisis'. Joined up again soon enough to cut this one through. Took over 100 takes to get it. Had a lot of help from our engineer, Jim Messina. Neil Young Decade liner notes 1977

NY: We did “Broken Arrow” in sections. Each verse, one at a time. A hundred takes of all of the pieces—they were all crossfaded. Could’ve been better. Well, maybe I’m not bein’ fair when I say that. Could’ve been more of a group record. The only reason Jack and I didn’t do it is I got back in the group. Too bad. It woulda been fuckin’ great. JM: Why did you dedicate the song to Ken Koblun? NY: He tried to make it, but it didn’t work out. He didn’t fit into the Buffalo Springfield like Bruce did. Very tough—tough for all of us—but that’s growin’ up. That’s what it’s all about. You find out a lotta things. Nothing is forever. NY: To me, “Broken Arrow” was the end of something—and the beginning. Transition. From one struggle to another. Some kind of milestone. The sign of peace at the end of an Indian war. “Now we can talk.” Arafat and Rabin—they could’ve broken the arrow. See, I wrote “Broken Arrow” right after I quit Buffalo Springfield, right? So there’s the end of something right there. Neil Young "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough 2002

Yeah, the basic track took one hundred takes. I just wanna say that it took Elvis over one hundred takes to get "Hound Dog" right, so let's not forget that. Neil Young Rockline Radio Interview November 23, 1981

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

I wrote the first verse of Broken Arrow right away but I couldn't get a refrain, the part that goes 'Did you see them in the river?' I finally got to it by borrowing from another song I've written a year and a half ago, Neil said. Then I mixed it up and came out with the refrain. I had a two-minute song with no repetition, so I figured the only way to make it work would be to turn it into a six-minute song, repeat the refrain three different times and take it into three different movements. Neil Young Hit Parader 1967-1968

This is a new song that I'm going to do for you now. Actually, it's not really new, but as a song, as a total thing, it's new. Part of it was written over four years ago - part of it was written two years ago and part of it was written two weeks ago. It just kind of falls in together. It takes in about four years. It's called Country Girl. I've written three songs now that go together - this one here is the third of three of three. The first one was Broken Arrow. The second one was Down By The River and this is the third one. I don't know if there'll be another one or not. You may think that this sounds a little like Broken Arrow - you're right. That's because I wrote this part of it before I wrote Broken Arrow. This is where Broken arrow came from. In other words - at the time, Broken Arrow seemed better than this and now it seems the other way around, as time changes - even though four years ago it wasn't. Neil Young The Canterbury House, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA October 16, 1969