"Cinnamon Girl" | ||||
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Single by Neil Young and Crazy Horse | ||||
from the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere | ||||
B-side | "Sugar Mountain" | |||
Released | April 20, 1970 | |||
Recorded | March 20, 1969 | |||
Studio | Wally Heider Recording, Hollywood | |||
Genre | Rock [1] | |||
Length | 2:58 | |||
Label | Reprise | |||
Songwriter(s) | Neil Young | |||
Producer(s) |
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Neil Young and Crazy Horse singles chronology | ||||
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Official audio | ||||
"Cinnamon Girl" (2009 Remaster) on YouTube |
"Cinnamon Girl" is a song by Neil Young. It debuted on the 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere , which was also Young's first album with backing band Crazy Horse.
Like two other songs from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River", Young wrote "Cinnamon Girl" while he was suffering from the flu with a high fever at his home in Topanga, California. [2] [3]
This song displays the very prominent role played by Danny Whitten in the sound of Young's early recordings. The vocals are a duet, with Whitten singing the high harmony against Young's low harmony. (The 45 rpm single mix of the song, in addition to being in mono and cutting off the guitar outro, features Whitten's vocal more prominently than the album version.) Young performed the song on his then-recently acquired Gibson Les Paul, "Old Black". The NME named "Cinnamon Girl" an example of "proto-grunge". [4]
The song was written in double drop D tuning (DADGBD). This tuning is used in several of his most famous songs, such as "The Loner", "The Old Laughing Lady", "When You Dance I Can Really Love", "Ohio", and "Cortez the Killer". [5] The music features a prominent descending bass guitar line. [6] The song's "one note guitar solo", consisting largely of a repeating, sharply played jangling D note, has often been singled out for praise. [7] According to Young "people say that it is a solo with only one note but, in my head, each one of those notes is different. The more you get into it, the more you can hear the differences.” [8]
The lyrics have the singer daydreaming for a girl to love, singing that he waits "between shows" for his lover. [9] Young has said that he wrote the song "for a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me through Phil Ochs' eyes playing finger cymbals. It was hard to explain to my wife." [6] The "city girl playing finger cymbals" is a reference to folk singer Jean Ray. [9] Music critic Johnny Rogan described the lyrics as "exotic and allusive without really saying anything at all." [6] Critic Toby Creswell describes the lyrics as "cryptic love lyrics" noting that they are sung "over the crunching power of Crazy Horse." [3] Critic John Mendelsohn felt the song conveyed a message of "desperation begetting brutal vindictiveness," hinted at by the "almost impenetrably subjective words" but carried strongly by the sound of Crazy Horse's "heavy, sinister accompaniment." [3]
Introducing the song at a performance associated with Writer's Week at Whittier College (California) in April 2015, Los Lobos co-founder Louie Perez said that when he first heard "Cinnamon Girl", he was sure it was about a Mexican girl. [10] Fans and news outlets have also speculated whether or not the song referred to Jim Morrison's common-law wife, Pamela Courson. Jim and Pamela were part of the Topanga community around this time, and Pamela had red-brown hair reminiscent of cinnamon. Young has denied, however, that the song refers to her. [11]
"Cinnamon Girl" was released as a single in 1970, where it reached No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100. [12] The song peaked at number 34 in Australia. [13]
British music publication NME ranked "Cinnamon Girl"'s opening chord progression at No. 47 on its "50 Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time". [4]
In an interview with Q , singer Beck named the "Cinnamon Girl" riff as his all-time favorite, next to Black Sabbath's "Supernaut".[ citation needed ]
According to his autobiography, "Cinnamon Girl" was the first record played by the now-legendary British DJ "Whispering Bob" Harris on his BBC Radio 1 debut in August 1970. [14]
"Cinnamon Girl" has been covered by numerous artists:
Decade is a compilation album by Canadian–American musician Neil Young, originally released in 1977 as a triple album and later issued on two compact discs. It contains 35 of Young's songs recorded between 1966 and 1976, among them five tracks that had been unreleased up to that point. It peaked at No. 43 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, and was certified platinum by the RIAA in 1986.
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Crazy Horse is an American rock band best known for their association with the musician Neil Young. Since 1969, fifteen studio albums and eight live albums have been billed as being by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. They have also released six studio albums of their own between 1971 and 2009.
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is the second studio album by Canadian-American musician Neil Young, released in May 1969 on Reprise Records, catalogue number RS 6349. His first with longtime backing band Crazy Horse, it emerged as a sleeper hit amid Young's contemporaneous success with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, ultimately peaking at number 34 on the US Billboard 200 in August 1970 during a 98-week chart stay. It has been certified platinum by the RIAA.
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Danny Ray Whitten was an American guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with Neil Young's backing band Crazy Horse, and for the song "I Don't Want to Talk About It", a hit for Rod Stewart and Everything but the Girl.
"Down by the River" is a song composed by Neil Young. It was first released on his 1969 album with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Young explained the context of the story in the liner notes of his 1977 anthology album Decade, stating that he wrote "Down by the River," "Cinnamon Girl" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" while delirious in bed in Topanga Canyon with a 103 °F (39 °C) fever.
"Beast of Burden" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, featured on their 1978 album Some Girls. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song No. 435 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
"Blue Yodel no. 8, Mule Skinner Blues" is a classic country song written by Jimmie Rodgers. The song was first recorded by Rodgers in 1930 and has been recorded by many artists since then, acquiring the de facto title "Mule Skinner Blues" after Rodgers named it "Blue Yodel #8".
"Heat Wave" is a 1963 song written by the Holland–Dozier–Holland songwriting team. It was first made popular by the Motown vocal group Martha and the Vandellas, who issued it as a single on July 10, 1963, on the Motown subsidiary Gordy label. The single reached number one on the Billboard Hot R&B chart—where it stayed for four weeks—and peaking at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Crazy Horse is the debut album by Crazy Horse, released in 1971 by Reprise Records. It is the only album by the band to feature Danny Whitten recorded without Neil Young, and it peaked at No. 84 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
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"Cowgirl in the Sand" is a song written by Neil Young and first released on his 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Young has included live versions of the song on several albums and on the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album 4 Way Street. It has also been covered by The Byrds on their self-titled album. Like three other songs from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, "Cinnamon Girl", "Down by the River" and the title track, Young wrote "Cowgirl in the Sand" while he was suffering from the flu with a high fever at his home in Topanga, California.
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"Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" is a song written by Neil Young that was originally released as the title track of his 1969 album with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. The song was written earlier, and a different version was originally considered for Young's 1968 solo debut album Neil Young.