Like A Hurricane

On Tuesday, February 17, I found myself silently singing the Neil Young song Like A Hurricane and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I decided to vaccinate myself by watching some version or other on YouTube in the hope that this would cure my problem.

It didn’t. It really didn’t.

Instead I found myself searching for the “best” version, and then I wondered if I could find a more recent version. Then I wondered if different bands made a difference.

All this and I don’t particularly like Neil Young. I do like this particular song though. Up to a point.

I started by watching Neil Young live at the Farm Aid concert with Crazy Horse, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on September 22, 2012. This turned out the longest version at an amusingly unnecessary 14 minutes 25 seconds.

I then went back in time to find the wildest, most over the top version. This came from 1986 and also featured Crazy Horse. It lasted a frantic, over-energised 8 minutes 46 seconds, and features mysterious floor robots and snacks.

Finally I found the most recent version, which come from July 2025 and features The Chrome Hearts. They have the legendary Muscle Shoals musician Spooner Oldham on keyboards that I could not hear at all.

Nice to see him there though.

You can find many more versions. You can find one with him playing with Promise Of The Real, for example.

But please don’t.

You’ll find that whole evenings and nights can slip past as you slide down a rabbit hole on your foggy trip, searching and searching for something somehow significantly different from the last few.

And at the end you will find that you’ve got the damn tune even more deeply embedded in your subconscious.