(Credits: Alamy)
Sat 17 January 2026 19:51, UK
Neil Young, undeniably one of the most influential musicians of all time, is intimately familiar with the culinary cliché that to make an omelette, one must break a few eggs. His unwavering dedication to his craft and vocal advocacy for righteous causes have often led him to clash with notable figures throughout his career.
Of course, Young’s most famous spat was with his old CSNY bandmate and former Byrd, David Crosby. A man who ran a profitable side hustle annoying his most prominent peers, from Graham Nash to Joni Mitchell, and he also had some choice words for his old bandmate. While he noted that the ‘Cinnamon Girl’ songwriter was well within his rights to be mad at him for insulting his wife, actor Daryl Hannah, he also had something more personal to say about the nature of Young.
Speaking to The Guardian in 2021, Crosby called Young “probably the most self-centred, self-obsessed, selfish person I know. He only thinks about Neil, period. That’s the only person he’ll consider. We haven’t talked for a couple of years,” the moustachioed folk hero added. “And I’m not going to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to him. I’m not happy with him at all. To me, that’s all ancient history, man.”
While Crosby was typically enigmatic about his motivations for such intense words, it does give a flavour of how Young’s unwavering dedication to his craft and perhaps personal life have infuriated those around him at points. He would sometimes even use his music to surprisingly attack other musicians, with his outspoken nature inherent to everything he does.
Young’s unbreakable concentration on his craft and stubbornness to change his creative process has led him to be the target of more than a few troubled bandmates. While Crosby and Young may have exchanged the odd barb, it would take decades for Young to realise another of his musical companions had some issues with his personality.
In 2011, when performing ‘A Child’s Claim to Fame’ from 1967’s Buffalo Springfield Again alongside former bandmate Richie Furay, who penned the track, the penny dropped for Young. During the performance, Young realised, after nearly 50 years, that Furay had written the song when he was “frustrated” about his communication skills.
“We did ‘Child’s Claim to Fame’ on the reunion tour in 2011,” Furay explained to Uncut. “We were playing Santa Barbara, there’s 5,000 people out there, and Neil stops. ‘Hold up, hold up!’ he says. ‘Richie, did you write this song about me?’ That’s Neil for you. Yeah, when I wrote it, I was frustrated with the guy, but that’s how we communicated with one another.”
It is telling that the revelation came mid-song, in front of 5,000 people, rather than in some backstage clearing of the air. With Young, the music has always been the meeting place, the arena where subtext finally becomes text. What Furay describes is not just a bandmate being difficult, but a working method where feelings get filed into verses and left there, waiting for the right night to be understood.
That is also why Young inspires both devotion and fatigue in equal measure. His tunnel vision can look like selfishness from the outside, but it is the same narrow beam that produces his best work, the refusal to dilute an instinct just to keep the room calm. Buffalo Springfield, like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young after them, were never built for smooth consensus. They were built for sparks, and sometimes the only way those men could say what they meant was to put it in a song and let time do the translating.
While the best communication is done face to face, when two of those faces are musicians, and one is considered one of the greatest songwriters in the world, you’d expect some issues.
Listen to ‘A Child’s Claim to Fame’ below.
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