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Neil Young - Down By The River (Lyrics) Royce Hall

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"Down by the River" Live At Royce Hall 1971.

"Down by the River" is a song composed by Neil Young. It was first released on his 1969 album with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Young explained the context of the story in the liner notes of his 1977 anthology album Decade, stating that he wrote "Down by the River," "Cinnamon Girl" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" while delirious in bed in Topanga Canyon with a 103 °F (39 °C) fever

The lyrics tell the story of someone who killed his lover by shooting her after feeling unable to continue from the emotional highs of their relationship. Young himself has provided multiple explanations for the lyrics. In an interview with Robert Greenfield in 1970, a year after the song was released, Young claimed that "there's no real murder in it. It's about blowing your thing with a chick. It's a plea, a desperate cry." Later, when introducing the song in New Orleans on September 27, 1984, Young said that the song depicts a man "who had a lot of trouble controlling himself" who catches his woman cheating on him, then meets her down by the river and shoots her. According to Young, the local sheriff comes to the man's house and arrests him a few hours later.

Live performances vary from shorter solo acoustic performances, as on the Crosby Stills Nash & Young release Four Way Street, to twelve minutes long, as on the Live at the Fillmore East release featuring Crazy Horse. At the Rock Am Ring in Germany in 2002, Young, backed by Booker T Jones, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Frank Sampedro, played "Down by the River" for over 27 minutes. At Farm Aid 1998, Young joined Phish—who headlined that year's festival—during the band's jam out of "Runaway Jim", leading them into a 20-minute version of "Down by the River". Neil Young and Promise of the Real played a 20-minute version of this song at Desert Trip. In 2016, Neil Young and Promise of the Real played a 36+ minute version of the song to open their set at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee.

A CSNY performance of the song from September 1969 was included in the 1971 documentary Celebration at Big Sur.

Young performed it with CSNY on the ABC TV show the Music Scene in 1969.
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