25. Neil Young, “I Believe In You” (After The Gold Rush, 1970)
While the arrangement is a little too CSN-friendly for some folks, it’s hard to call this a Hallmark card when the message is “I don’t think I love you as much as you love me, and it’s killing me.” Neil’s rarely sounded so drained, like he’s finally confessing after hours of tearful hemming and hawing, and at one point this probably would have been top ten. I’m distanced enough from this kind of scenario now that yeah, those “la la la“‘s are kind of programmatic. But when Rick Rubin talked about having to pull over when this song came on once, I got it.
