Rust Never Sleeps

Young reunited with Crazy Horse for the first album credited to the band since Zuma. Most of it was recorded live and overdubbed in the studio. The acoustic side comes from ten solo sets at The Boarding House in San Francisco between 24 and 28 May 1978, and the electric side from the Crazy Horse tour of October 1978. Four of the eight songs date from the Zuma sessions: Pocahontas, Ride My Llama, Powderfinger and Sedan Delivery. Young wrote Ride My Llama on the same day as Cortez the Killer. Pocahontas was recorded solo in August 1976 during the Hitchhiker session, and Sail Away was recorded at Triiad, with the band overdubs added in November 1977.

The album's title phrase came from Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, who added the words rust never sleeps to the song Young was working on, and the line about burning out rather than rusting was borrowed from a song by Jeff Blackburn, Young's bandmate in The Ducks. Young said he had written the first line of Powderfinger in 1967 and finished it in 1975. The album peaked at 8 on the Billboard 200, and Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) reached 79 on the Hot 100. Paul Nelson of Rolling Stone wrote that it told him more about his life, his country and rock and roll than any music he had heard in years. It was voted second best album of 1979 in the Pazz and Jop poll, and the concert film was shot at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on 22 October 1978.