“Tonight's The Night” by Neil Young

Neil Young opened his 1975 album Tonight's the Night with its title song and then closed it with a second version, so the record starts and ends at the same wake. He wrote it about his roadie Bruce Berry, who died of a heroin overdose, and it begins with Young repeating the title again and again, eight times in all, in a voice critic Nigel Williamson heard as fragile and edging toward panic, with only guitar, bass and piano behind him.

Then comes Berry's story: how drugs wrecked his hunger for life, how he'd pick up Young's guitar after hours and sing, and the chill that ran through Young when word came that he'd died. Young plays piano, with Ben Keith on steel guitar, Nils Lofgren on guitar, Billy Talbot on bass and Ralph Molina on drums, Keith and Molina adding voices.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.