Being the constant companion as a Neil Young fan is a Herculean task, says Warwick McFadyen. Photo: GETTY IMAGES

A few days ago a friend texted me: “If you had to pick the best Neil Young song of all time, what would you pick? It depends a little on mood I guess, but right here, right now, what would it be?”

Straight away I sat on it for a while. It took me a couple of days to think about it, which of course destroys the whole point of the exercise.

Perhaps though, for a long-time fan, it shows the gravity (we fans can be somewhat serious creatures) of the task. The best ever? That’s a big call, even between friends via text. At first, I thought Ohio, but hesitated to reply. Ohio? Really? It would be in a top 12, but the best?

I know it had one of the biggest impacts on me of any Young song. Its passion and the fury at the shooting deaths of Kent State students by the National Guard brought together outrage and art. “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming…”

But the trouble with nominating the best is in the definition. You can measure it by objective parameters. Yes, the chordal structure is fabulous, the harmonies sublime, the melody unforgettable, the virtuosity to play the piece jaw-dropping.

But equally, maybe you can’t. With a shrug of the shoulders and a cold sneer, you can dismiss all of the above. If it doesn’t move you, how great is it? Not much.

This isn’t to say criticism doesn’t have a place. The best hopefully will provide an insight into the work in question. Of course, you can measure an artist’s output against itself. The album On the Beach versus Trans? No contest.

At one level the only one who can say what their best piece is the creator. But with the advantage of being removed from the process and the result there is also the argument that the beauty of art is in the eyes of the beholder. And that’s why there are lists upon lists. Rolling Stone magazine recently published a list of Young’s 100 best songs. Coming in at No.1 was *(… read on).

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For what it’s worth, for mine, here are a few that would be fighting in the captain’s tower to claim ascendancy:

Hey Hey My My (Into the Black)
On the Beach
Ambulance Blues
The Needle and the Damage Done
Cortez the Killer
Last trip to Tulsa
Don’t be Denied
Last Dance
Ordinary People
Helpless
Will to Love
Ohio.

Without writing a thesis on why each one is there, let’s go with this: they resonate within.

For an artist who famously prefers driving into the ditch than driving down the main road, being the constant companion as a fan is a Herculean task.

When the muse seems a bottomless well there comes a time when what you sip just isn’t to your taste (and this from a lad who had a poster of Young in Indian beads on his wall). There are periods I can take or leave, as with Bob Dylan.

With Young, the Trans, Everybody’s Rocking phase, and then the early 2000s, lost me. It was just a fork in the road. Perversely I liked the little-acclaimed Landing on Water time.

And with such artistic longevity, the vaults are bulging, and every so often sonic gems emerge. Young is meticulous at this. The latest, to be released at the end of June, is the album Early Daze, consisting of his early work with Crazy Horse.

Will I buy it? Will any of the songs force their way into a top 10 or dozen? No. But then, that’s never been the point of Neil Young. Whatever one’s view of him, he’s never going to fade away.

*No.1 was Powderfinger. The magazine wrote: “Young’s greatest song contains just about everything that makes Neil Young great. It’s a monster Crazy Horse guitar anthem that has the coming-of-age poignancy of his bittersweet acoustic ballads, channelling themes that have shown up in his work for decades (the myth of the West, the individual’s lonely struggle, mortality, freedom, American violence, and community) into music that’s at once rousing and devastating. Lyrically, Young manages to cram a two-hour Western into a five-minute song.”