by Neil Young
A lot of the character of this song comes from its use of the double drop D tuning. Both your 6th and 1st strings need to be tuned down to D. You can either do this by ear using the open 4th string as a reference, or you can use a chromatic tuner. This tuning enables you to play heavy sounding one finger power chords on the bass strings, and also gives you a droning high D note which gives a lot of extra colour to the open chords in the song.
More than ever with this song it’s important to listen closely to the original recording as it’s near impossible to explain or to notate all the little nuances of feel that you hear on the record. Take my lesson as a guide, then feel free to vary the rhythms and picking patterns as you see fit. I split the teaching of the song up into 5 main sections: main riff, verse, bridge, solo and ending. Learn each of these bits separately and then try and piece together the entire track yourself. Here’s my transcription of the track:
