Neil Young – Like a Hurricane

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week the theme is to find a song related to a weather condition such as cyclones, floods, hurricanes, rainfall, storms, tornadoes, typhoons, or winds. 

I first heard this song in band practice back in the late 80s. The guitar started to play it and I thought it was an original. I told him I loved his song…he said “if only” it was mine! I learned about a lot of songs that way. I don’t know how I missed this one through the years. It’s now one of my favorite Neil Young songs. 

Neil Young’s playing style is unique and electrifying. He’s not Clapton, Page, Van Halen, or Hendrix—but they’re not him, either. His approach is all about feeling, and he uses volume and feedback like few others can. Watching him play is thrilling, you always think the wheels are about to come off, but somehow they never do. Together with Crazy Horse, Neil captures the raw spirit of rock better than just about anyone.

Like a Hurricane was on the American Stars ‘n Bars album in 1977. A single version was released that was edited down to under 4 minutes but it only charted in the UK at #48. The album version is the one known now.

Neil’s songs are so well written and detailed but they come out sounding so loose like he is improvising on the spot…cause most of the time while recording he is more interested in getting the right feel than anything technical. it works really well. For me, that is the best way to record and I wish more artists would do this. 

Neil Young: “I wrote it on a piece of newspaper in the back of (his friend) Taylor Phelps’s 1950 DeSoto Suburban, a huge car that we all used to go to bars in. As was our habit between bars, we had stopped at Skeggs Point Scenic lookout on Skyline Boulevard up on the mountain to do a few lines of coke; I wrote Hurricane right there in the back of that giant old car. Then when I got home, I played the chords on this old Univox Stringman mounted in an old ornate pump-organ body set up in the living room. I played that damn thing through the night, I finished the melody in five minutes, but I was so jacked I couldn’t stop playing.”

Neil Young: “When ‘Runaway’ goes to ‘I’m a walkin’ in the rain,’ those are the same chords in the bridge of ‘Hurricane’ – ‘You are…’ It opens up. So it’s a minor descending thing that opens up – that’s what they have in common. It’s like ‘Runaway’ with the organ solo going on for 10 minutes.”

Rock Critic Dave Marsh: “an eight-minute tour de force of electric guitar feedback and extended metaphor (Smokey Robinson meets Jimi Hendrix on Bob Dylan’s old block).” 

Like a Hurricane

Once I thought I saw you in a crowded hazy bar
Dancing on the light from star to star
Far across the moonbeam I know that’s who you are
I saw your brown eyes turning once to fire

You are like a hurricane
There’s calm in your eye
And I’m gettin’ blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays
I want to love you but I’m getting blown away

I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream
You could have been anyone to me
Before that moment you touched my lips
That perfect feeling when time just slips
Away between us on our foggy trip

You are like a hurricane
There’s calm in your eye
And I’m gettin’ blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays
I want to love you but I’m getting blown away, blown away

You are just a dreamer, and I am just a dream
You could have been anyone to me
Before that moment you touched my lips
That perfect feeling when time just slips
Away between us on our foggy trip

You are like a hurricane
There’s calm in your eye
And I’m gettin’ blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays
I want to love you but I’m getting blown away

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

56 thoughts on “Neil Young – Like a Hurricane”

  1. oh man, the story of my life…such an honest guy, he’s never held back, always meant whatever he said, no matter who he pissed off….Ohio I think is my fave, and the Live Rust movie and album……and this is the guy that has wrtten so much, Nicolette Larson’ Lotta Love, Cinnamon Girl, Only Love Can Break Your Heart….don’t know if you watched the doc about Laural Canyon, but Steven Still’s story about the drug bust is hallarious for so many reasons, but especially about Young decided to stand up to the cops….and him driving to LA in a hearse and running into Stills. A legend

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    1. I agree with everything you said!
      Yes he is Warren. You are a musician…do you like his guitar playing? I personally think he is one of the best at just keeping you wondering if it will all fall apart…but it doesnt! It is exciting…it’s like driving near an edge of a cliff and then pulling back.

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      1. I think you mentioned the last waltz a while ago…that stupid look on his face before he starts Helpless, and if you get a chance, the jam at the end of the finale with Claption, Wood, Robertson and then Stills, and all the playing he did with Stills s pure Young and you can see why the grunge players all followed in his foot steps, it’s just his style, weather it’s a country thing or folk or rock a billy….while me and my friends always wanted to play like Page, Blackmore or Clapton, Young didn’t have that blues or R&B influence or even like Randy Bachman, he plays like a gunslinger…I remember watching a flamenco player, Oscar Lopez, Young could be like that, all over that fret board in one song, making every note count…it’s like the two versions of My My Hey Hey, the acoustic, and then the crunch of the electric…and his voice is significant too….a unique.

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      2. Yes there is nothing I can add to that. I’m a fan of his voice. It’s one of those voices like Cat Stevens, Janis Joplin, where you know who is singing right away.
        So true about the grunge players…he feels every note he plays and keeps you on edge.

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    1. Down By The River is another. He has every style of music covered as well. I got to see him once when he was on a country music kick…he came through Nashville.

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  4. I looked up the dates, my brother-in-law and I saw him and the International Harvesters at the Addington Showgrounds in Feb 85. He put on a damn fine show- loud and rollicking but not ramshackle. Funny thing was, as soon as he stepped on the stage half the crowd in front of us lit up! Helped us enjoy the atmosphere though. He can grab you with something as fragile as ‘Till The Morning Comes,’ to something as quietly angry as ‘Pocahontas’ to something stompy like ‘Psychedelic Pill.’ And all are great.

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    1. Nothing like a free contact high!
      He does have everything to throw at you. I saw him in the 80s as well…a couple of years after you did but all he played was country…no Like A Hurricane. It was still great though.

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      1. It was seriously funny, he stepped on stage and it was as if it was a signal to the folk in front of us to go for it. I had to giggle, and that was before they had exhaled!

        I’d have to look at the set list now, but he played a lot of rockier stuff, pretty sure ‘Like A Hurricane’ but I can’t be totally sure as of now.

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      2. Neil = it’s now party time.
        I think this one is one of his staples under normal circumstances. When I saw him he was promoting a country album…so no distortion was allowed.

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  15. Great choice, Max and it has been way too long since I last listened to this classic song.  Neil Young wrote this after failing to win the heart of a girl he spotted across a “crowded hazy bar” on a particularly wild night in the mid-1970s.  I wonder how this song would have turned out if he actually ended up going home with this woman named Gail.

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    1. It probably wouldn’t have been written like it is anyway. It seems like loss and want make more powerful songs…sometimes no…but they seem to reach down more.

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  16. Great pick! I had forgotten about this Neil Young gem. I am always fascinated to see him perform because his body and demeanor nevery matched his sweet voice. I think someone said it here. You just know instantly that it is Neil Young singing. His voice is unique. ☺️💕

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  18. You picked one of my all-time favorites of Neil Young’s grungy songs. His guitar-playing is intriguing, especially on the electric. As you said, Neil doesn’t have the chops of Clapton, Page, Van Halen or Hendrix. His playing is kind of crude and at times even somewhat sloppy, and yet I find it amazing. I haven’t heard any other electric guitarist who sounds like Neil.

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