I found myself listening to this today. Stills on piano during the tracking with my live lead vocal, then again on guitars as overdubs on the track. Nash’s singing is beautiful to me, all the way through the oohs and then Crosby’s part under ‘Blue Blue windows’. They are exceptionally poignant to me now. I noticed in the mix that the chorus comes in pretty loud the first time, maybe disturbing the reflection in the water. Soon that is gone and the voices find a place. The reflection returns. Greg Reeves on bass. Dallas Taylor on Drums. In the groove. Bill Halverson at the board. Neil Young NYA Times-Contrarian June 2, 2018

Wrote this in New York, 1970. I'd like to send it out to Tim Hardin. Recorded in San Francisco about 4 A.M. when everbody got tired enough to play at my speed. Neil Young Decade liner notes 1977

NY: Well, on the new album, I play on about five songs and sing on three... EB: Three different from the five or three out of the five? NY: No, three of the five... and the ones that I play on we mostly recorded live. Like my two songs, "Helpless" and "Country Girl," I did the lead vocal while I was playing, all at the same time, so the drums and bass, guitar and piano were all going at once, and I was singing the lead, so my things sound different, from overdubbing, you know. I mean, I probably could have played on all of them, 'cause you know, I can make up lines and put 'em down... Neil Young Rolling Stone by Elliot Blinder April 20, 1970

Well, it's not literally a specific town so much as a feeling. Actually, it's a couple of towns. Omemee, Ontario, is one of them. It's where I first went to school and spent my 'formative' years. Actually I was born in Toronto... "I was born in Toronto"... God, that sound like the first line of a Bruce Springsteen song (laughs). But Toronto is only seven miles from Omemee. Neil Young Mojo/Nick Kent December 1995

JM: Young and the Horse cut “Everybody’s Alone,” “Oh Lonesome Me,” “Wonderin’,” “I Believe in You,” “Birds,” an exquisite version of Whitten’s “Look at All the Things,” as well as an epic ballad called “Helpless” that failed to make it to tape. We were doing it live, everybody playing and singing at once, and we did about an eight- or nine-minute version of it … with a long instrumental in the middle,” Young told writer Jean-Charles Costa. “And the engineer didn’t press the button down. It was much more free than anything I’ve done onstage. Neil Young "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough 2002

See, the way I used to work then - this would be the summer of 1969 we're talking about now - I'd usually go in and record with Crazy Horse at Sunset Sound Studios every morning. Then I'd go to CSN&Y rehearsal in the afternoon through to the evening. Then I'd go home, crash out, get up the next morning and do the same routine all over again. That's when "I Believe In You", "Oh Lonesome Me", "Wonderin'" ... a couple of others on After The Goldrush - all those songs were conceived there and recorded there. That's where I first cut "Helpless", by the way, and the only reason the Crazy Horse version didn't come out is because the engineer didn't record the perfect take, so ... bam, that was lost. Neil Young The Dark Stuff - Neil Young and The Haphazard Highway That Lead To Unconditional Love by Nick Kent 1993