Cinnamon Girl

"Cinnamon Girl" is a song by Neil Young. It debuted on the 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, which was also Young's first album with backing band Crazy Horse. Released as a single the following year, it reached #55 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.



Contents
[hide]  *1 Performance notes  ==Performance notes[ edit] == Like two other songs from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River," Young wrote "Cinnamon Girl" while he was suffering from theflu with a high fever at his home in Topanga, California.[1] [2]
 * 2 Notable covers
 * 3 References
 * 4 External links

This song displays the very prominent role played by Danny Whitten in the sound of Young's early recordings. The vocals are a duet, with Whitten singing the highharmony against Young's low harmony. Young performed the song on his then-recently acquired Gibson Les Paul, "Old Black".

The song was written in double-drop D tuning (DADGBD). This tuning is used in several of his most famous songs, such as "The Loner", "The Old Laughing Lady", "When You Dance I Can Really Love", "Ohio", and "Cortez the Killer".[citation needed]  The music features a prominent descending bass guitar line.[3]

The lyrics have the singer daydreaming for a girl to love, singing that he waits "between shows" for his lover.[4]  Young has claimed that he wrote the song "for a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me through Phil Ochs' eyes playing finger cymbals. It was hard to explain to my wife."[3]  The city girl playing finger cymbals is a reference to folk singer Jean Ray.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-words_4-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[4]  Music critic Johnny Rogan described the lyrics as "exotic and allusive without really saying anything at all."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rogan_3-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[3]  Critic Toby Creswell describes the lyrics as "cryptic love lyrics" noting that they are sung "over the crunching power of Crazy Horse."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-creswell_2-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[2]  Critic John Mendelsohn felt the song conveyed a message of "desperation begetting brutal vindictiveness," hinted at by the "almost impenetrably subjective words" but carried strongly by the sound of Crazy Horse's "heavy, sinister accompaniment."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-creswell_2-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[2]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.399999618530273px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">It has no compositional relation to the 2004 song of the same name by Prince. ==Notable covers<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.399999618530273px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">"Cinnamon Girl" has been covered by many artists:


 * The Gentrys on their eponymous album for Sun Records (1970). Their version reached #52 on the Billboard chart, slightly outperforming Young's original. The Gentrys' version actually charted before Neil Young's did.<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height:1;white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed]
 * Hole used the song's main riff in the track "Starbelly", on their 1991 debut album Pretty on the Inside.
 * Type O Negative on their 1996 album October Rust.
 * John Entwistle of The Who recorded a version of the song as an outtake for his 1971 solo album Smash Your Head Against the Wall.
 * The Smashing Pumpkins released a version on the 2012 reissue of Pisces Iscariot.
 * Radiohead has performed a cover version at their live shows (Yokohama Arena, Santa Barbara Bowl - 2001).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[5]
 * Wilco and members of My Morning Jacket have performed the song at various stops on the 2013 Americanarama Music Festival tour.
 * Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs on their album, Under the Covers, Vol. 1 (2006)
 * Danish band Kashmir performed a cover version on their live CD/DVD The Aftermath.
 * Phish has covered the song a total of three times, once at Gallagher's in Vermont on 3/1/1989, and twice during their 1997 tours. <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-6" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[6]
 * The Dream Syndicate included a version on their 1986 album Out of the Grey.