Neil Young and Bob Dylan are often compared, as both have become legends of Folk and Rock music over the decades and have been extremely prolific, releasing dozens of studio albums. They are both fans of each other’s work and had the chance to perform together multiple times. Bob has already praised the Canadian artist, even complimenting two of his songs in person.
2 Neil Young songs that Bob Dylan praised
“Cortez the Killer”
“(I’ve played Bob Dylan a couple of songs), I played him ‘Cortez (The Killer)’, he liked ‘Cortez’. I just played (the song live for him),” Neil Young said in an interview with Rick Rubin in 2023. Dylan has always been a big fan of Neil Young as a solo artist and also as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. He once praised him, saying he was talented and sincere. “Neil is very sincere, if nothing else.”
“He’s sincere, and he’s got a God-given talent, with that voice of his, and the melodic strain that runs through absolutely everything he does. He could be at his most thrashy, but it’s still going to be elevated by some melody. Neil’s the only one who does that. There’s nobody in his category,” Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone in 2007. “Cortez the Killer” was released by Neil Young on his seventh studio album “Zuma” (1975).
He wrote the song while studying history in high school in his hometown of Winnipeg. The inspiration comes from Hernán Cortés’s conquest of the Aztec Empire under Moctezuma II in the 16th century. However, the lyrics are not entirely accurate when compared to what actually happened.
Besides Neil Young, the song was recorded with Frank Sampedro (Guitar), Billy Talbot (Bass) and Ralph Molina (Drums). Although it became one of his fans’ favorite songs, “Cortez the Killer” has been played fewer than 500 times live by Neil Young.
“Hitchhiker”
“I mean, the guy (Bob) is so great, I just had to play these songs (for them). So I played this other song, called “Hitchhiker” and it’s a song about every drug I ever took. It tells the story of being straight, just everything, all the way through it, chronologically through this whole long story and at the end of the song he looks at me and he goes: ‘That’s a very honest song, Neil’. That was it, it wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, but it was honest! (laughs),” Neil Young said in the interview with producer Rick Rubin.
He believes it was Bob’s way of saying the song was not very inventive. “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, “he told Pitchfork in 2015.
Bob has been one of his biggest inspirations in life and he was lucky enough to have played with them a couple of times. “I love Bob Dylan, I think he is great. In the very beginning I knew he was great. I was walking on down the street and there is this guy in a Lincoln Navigator or continent. I can’t remember, was one of those black cars. He is in there and he is blasting ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and singing at the top of his lungs. It’s an afro-american guy sitting there, he is about 30 years-old in a suit, just rocking”.
Neil Young continued:
“I heard Bob’s voice and I went ‘This is Bob, you know, this is the essence of his feeling and everything. The moment that he was delivering that song is so powerful, you can’t keep that’. That comes and goes through you. You can’t strive to be that, there is no way you own it. I’ve heard Bob say that he doesn’t know who wrote, he doesn’t know the guy who wrote those songs anymore. I understand what he was saying, the feeling behind it. I look at it and I go ‘Well, I must been in a really different place doing that. But I was, I wrote those words, I sat down and I believe it,” Neil Young said in an interview with Charlie Rose (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) back in 2008, Neil Young talked about Dylan.