The mystery of Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl”

Neil Young’s second solo album, 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, marked the first time he made an album with Crazy Horse as his backing band. Created in a rush of musical output from Young, concurrent with his work with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, it set the stage for the type of sound Young wanted to make as a solo artist: stripped back, without any fancy studio-created bells and whistles. Three of the songs on that album were written while Young had a fever from the flu, and one of them, “Cinnamon Girl,” led to Young earning the nickname “The Godfather of Grunge” decades later when bands like Nirvana embraced the the innovative way he downtuned his guitar. But who is the subject of this gritty, hypnotic tune? Find out in this episode of Behind The Song.

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