Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

It was the first record Young made with Crazy Horse. Guitarist Danny Whitten, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina had already been working together as the Rockets. The songs were largely recorded live without overdubs, and for the first time Young sang his lead vocals while he played. The first sessions took place in late January 1969 at Wally Heider Studios in Hollywood and produced Down by the River, Cowgirl in the Sand and the title song, whose lead vocal was a scratch take recorded through the talkback microphone and kept. Cinnamon Girl, The Losing End and Running Dry followed there on 20 March, and Round and Round was cut on 23 March at Sunwest with the singer Robin Lane.

Young wrote Cinnamon Girl, Down by the River and Cowgirl in the Sand in a single day while he had the flu and a fever of 103 degrees. He said the band had been together only six or seven days when Down by the River was cut, and that everyone in the band listened to Whitten. The album reached 34 on the Billboard 200 in August 1970 and has been certified platinum. Greg Kot of Rolling Stone called it raw, rushed and energised, and Pitchfork's Mark Richardson wrote that it was a sort of big bang for Young. Rolling Stone ranked it 208 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums.