“Comes a Time” by Neil Young

"Comes a Time" is the title song of Neil Young's ninth studio album, released on Reprise in October 1978, and it's where Young, after years of dodging the sentimental-troubadour image that Harvest hung on him in 1972, walked right back into romantic folk and country. He wrote it, sings it with Nicolette Larson harmonizing alongside, and produced it with Ben Keith and Tim Mulligan.

This is no bare campfire strum, though. The credits read like a small town's worth of pickers: eight acoustic guitars counting Young's own, a string section, Rufus Thibodeaux's fiddle, Keith's steel guitar, Rita Fey on autoharp, Spooner Oldham on piano, Joe Osborn on bass, Karl T. Himmel on drums and J.J. Cale on electric guitar. All that layering was a change for a man who usually liked to cut things live; Young said at the time that he wanted to truly craft an album, and it shows.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.