This day (November 12, 1945), in Toronto, Canada, is born Neil Percival Young simply known as Neil Young , Canadian musician, singer-songwriter, activist, member of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young before embarking in a long solo carreer
Tracklist :
1 . For What It’s Worth / Mr Soul (w/Buffalo Springfield)
2 . Down By The River (w/ Crosby, Stills & Nash, 1970)
3 . Old Man & Heart Of Gold (1971)
4 . Cowgirl In The sand (Japan, 1976)
5 . Like A Hurricane (MTV, 1977
6 . Cortez the Killer (Cow Palace, 1978)
7 . Wonderin’ (w/ The Shocking Pinks)
8 . Down by the River (w/ The International Harvesters)
9 . Hey Hey, My My (Farm Aid, 1985)
10 . Computer Age (w/ Crazy Horse)
11 . Southern Man (w/ Crosby, Stills & Nash, Oakland Coliseum Arena, 1988)
12 . Rockin’ In The Free World (SNL, 1989)
13 . Mother Earth (Farm Aid, 1990)
14 . Cinnamon Girl (1991)
15 . War of Man (1992)
16 . Pocahontas (MTV Unplugged, 1993)
17 . Change Your Mind (w/ Crazy Horse, Farm Aid, 1994)
18 . Long May You Run (Farm Aid, 1997)
19 . Powderfinger (Farmaid, 1998)
20 . Buffalo Springfield Again
21 . Imagine (9/11 TV Benefit, 2001)
22 . All Along the Watchtower (w/ Booker T & the MGs, 2002)
23 . This old guitar (2006)
24 . My Heart
25 . A Day in the Life (2008)
26 . The Needle And The Damage Done (Glastonbury, 2009)
27 . Love and War (Farm Aid, 2011)
28 . Changes (Farm Aid, 2013)
29 . Mr. Soul (w/ Metallica, 2016)
30 . Heart of Gold (2017)
31 . Ohio (2018)
32 . Heart of Gold (2019)
33 . Lookin’ For A Leader (2020)
Neil Young Top 10 :
Heart of Gold . Old Man . Harvest Moon . The Needle and the Damage Done . Southern Man . After the Gold Rush . Rockin’ in the Free World . Only Love Can Break Your Heart . Cinnamon Girl . Harvest .
PROLOGUE
Neil Young — before mobility becomes structured. Movement is not a consequence; it is an initial condition. Before music, before a stabilized childhood, there is motion: cities crossed, houses left, landscapes observed through temporary windows. Neil Percival Young is born in Toronto in November 1945 into a family already organized around writing, reporting, and circulation of information, yet this structure produces no lasting center. It produces stages.
The father, Scott Alexander Young, journalist and prolific author, works for the Canadian Press and Maclean’s. War sends him to England as a correspondent. He returns, joins naval reserves, leaves again, writes, covers events. Writing is a profession, not a vocation. It requires absence, attention to the outside world. The paternal figure exists intermittently, structured through language, unstable through presence.
Omemee, Ontario, becomes the first operative place. A declining industrial village along the Pigeon River, it offers slow repetition. The family house on King Street West establishes a rural childhood of fishing, canoes, quiet roads. Neil later describes it as “sleepy,” a matter of rhythm rather than nostalgia.
This apparent stillness is interrupted by the body. At seven, during the 1951 polio epidemic, Neil is hospitalized, partially paralyzed. The event produces no immediate narrative but triggers relocation. The family moves to New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
Another condition accompanies it: type 1 diabetes, requiring daily management. Health becomes constant parameter, not interpreted but handled.
New Smyrna Beach marks a transitional phase. From late 1951 into 1952, Neil attends local school, observes American roads, cars, and movement. Later, he associates this period with a lasting interest in automobiles. Memory attaches to motion.
Returning to Omemee restores routine without erasing the episode. Childhood continues, interrupted again by relocation to Pickering, Ontario. The family settles near Brock Road. Neil attends multiple schools without forming attachment. Music begins without plan.
The family structure fractures. In 1957, Scott Young leaves after extramarital relationships. Divorce follows in 1960. The father remains in Toronto with the older son; the mother moves to Winnipeg with Neil. The separation divides geography. Mobility becomes rule.
The first instrument is modest: a plastic ukulele, received in 1958. Neil experiments, moves through variations before reaching the guitar. Learning is empirical. He listens widely: rock’n’roll, doo-wop, country. Elvis Presley becomes a reference among others.
Winnipeg introduces a new context. A working-class environment, different climate, direct social interactions. At Earl Grey Junior High, Neil forms his first group, The Jades, with Ken Koblun. Music becomes collective.
In 1963, at seventeen, he performs his first documented concert in a Winnipeg country club. The event is precise but not decisive. It extends ongoing experimentation.
The body continues to impose conditions. In the mid-1960s, as musical activity increases, epileptic seizures appear. These are integrated alongside earlier constraints, not dramatized.
The maternal relationship remains stable reference. Neil later acknowledges consistent support, not idealized but functional.
Adolescence ends without stabilization. Groups follow one another: after The Jades, The Squires. Locations change. In 1964, during a tour, he writes “Sugar Mountain,” reflecting on youth as a regulated space. The song records transition without resolution.
No trajectory converges yet. Toronto, Omemee, Pickering, Winnipeg, Florida form a discontinuous map, reinforced by multiple schools, none lasting long enough to impose hierarchy or method. Education occurs through fragments and adjustments.
Music circulates as practical response to instability, not as declared vocation. Writing, lineage, illness, movement, temporary groups form a system where continuity is reconstructed in the short term.
The reader may identify recurring elements. The text does not prioritize them. It stops where movement remains open.