Neil Young - hitchhiker, 1975

"Hitchhiker" dates from 1975, from the sessions for Zuma. The song chronicles various life changes and drug experiences of Young's life up until that point. Young jokes in a contemporary interview that "if it was a TV show, it would be called The Drug Chronicles, T.M.I.", or too much information. Young memorably recalls performing the new song for Bob Dylan and hearing his reaction in Special Deluxe: "One night, Dylan came by and I played him a couple of new songs, "Hitchhiker" and "Cortez the Killer." When he heard "Hitchhiker," a confessional about the progressive history of drugs I had taken through my life, he told me, 'That's honest.' That moment still crosses my mind. It makes me laugh every time I think of it because Bob's humor is so wry. I think it was his way of saying kindly that the song was not very inventive as far as creating a story goes, just that I was following a history and not making up anything new. It's still funny to me, at any rate, the way he put it." Young would revise the song and add a new verse during the sessions. He explains in Waging Heavy Peace: "We hit a groove and recorded "Love and War" and "Peaceful Valley Boulevard," two songs written in Hawaii, and an older song called "Hitchhiker" that I hadn't cut yet. The previous night I had added a couple of new verses and changed some words to make it more relevant to me now, and it was "a good 'un," as Ben used to say. I did that song on Old Black through some amps Daniel had set up, and it sounded rockin'!" An acoustic take of the song from August 1976 would later be released in 2017 on Hitchhiker."