"Cinnamon Girl" is a song by Neil Young. It debuted on the 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, which was also Young's first album with backing band Crazy Horse. Released as a single the following year, it reached No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.
Songwriting
Music
Like two other songs from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River", Young wrote "Cinnamon Girl" while he was suffering from the flu with a high fever at his home in Topanga, California. This song displays the very prominent role played by Danny Whitten in the sound of Young's early recordings. The vocals are a duet, with Whitten singing the high harmony against Young's low harmony. Young performed the song on his then-recently acquired Gibson Les Paul, "Old Black". The NME named "Cinnamon Girl" an example of "proto-grunge from 1969". The song was written in double drop D tuning. This tuning is used in several of his most famous songs, such as "The Loner", "The Old Laughing Lady", "When You Dance I Can Really Love", "Ohio", and "Cortez the Killer". The music features a prominent descending bass guitar line. The song's "one note guitar solo", consisting largely of a repeating, sharply played jangling D note, has often been singled out for praise. According to Young "people say that it is a solo with only one note but, in my head, each one of those notes is different. The more you get into it, the more you can hear the differences.”
Lyrics
The lyrics have the singer daydreaming for a girl to love, singing that he waits "between shows" for his lover. Young has said that he wrote the song "for a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me through Phil Ochs' eyes playing finger cymbals. It was hard to explain to my wife." The city girl playing finger cymbals is a reference to folk singer Jean Ray. Music critic Johnny Rogan described the lyrics as "exotic and allusive without really saying anything at all." Critic Toby Creswell describes the lyrics as "cryptic love lyrics" noting that they are sung "over the crunching power of Crazy Horse." Critic John Mendelsohn felt the song conveyed a message of "desperation begetting brutal vindictiveness," hinted at by the "almost impenetrably subjective words" but carried strongly by the sound of Crazy Horse's "heavy, sinister accompaniment." Introducing the song at a performance associated with Writer's Week at Whittier College in April, 2015, Los Lobos co-founder Louie Perez said that when he first heard "Cinnamon Girl", he was sure it was about a Mexican girl. According to his autobiography, "Cinnamon Girl" was the first record played by the now-legendary British DJ "Whispering Bob" Harris on his BBC Radio 1 debut.
Legacy and influence
British music publication NME ranked "Cinnamon Girl"'s opening chord progression at No. 47 on its "50 Greatest Guitar Riffs Of All Time". In an interview with Q, singer Beck named the "Cinnamon Girl" riff as his all-time favourite, equal with Black Sabbath's "Supernaut".
Danish band Kashmir performed a cover version on their live CD/DVD The Aftermath.
Phish has covered the song a total of four times, once at Gallagher's in Vermont on 3/1/1989, twice during their 1997 tours, and once at Madison Square Garden on 07/29/2017.
The Dream Syndicate included a version on their 1986 album Out of the Grey.
Andy Curran covered the song on the Neil Young tribute album .
Radiohead is known to have played the song live on several occasions and bootlegs are common on YouTube.
Foo Fighters covered this song live at their first of two Toronto, Ontario, Canada shows on July 8, 2015
The Madison, Wisconsin-based noise rock band Killdozer covered this song for their 1985 album Snake Boy.
