November 28, 2025      —–     Chart #326

Hello Music Friends,

Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Chart of the Week. Some songs make you want to roll the windows down, ease off the gas, and let the world go by at about the speed of a Sunday afternoon golf cart. Long May You Run is one of those — Neil Young in his wistful-poet mode, humming along like a man who’s thinking about old friends, old roads, and a car that probably shouldn’t have been legally registered.

This song is Neil at his gentlest. No distortion pedal, no buffalo roaming, no angry falsetto threatening a microphone. Just a mellow groove, a little nostalgia, and enough harmonic sunshine to make even a Canadian winter seem romantic.

The Backstory

Long May You Run comes from the 1976 album of the same name — credited to The Stills-Young Band, the short-lived super-duo formed when Stephen Stills and Neil Young decided to reunite, make a record, and then immediately remember why they don’t usually do that.

The title track is a love letter to Neil’s beloved 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse, named “Mort” (as in… dead). Seriously. Most musicians write breakup songs about people. Neil writes heartfelt ballads about cars he used to own.

Mort hauled more amps, guitars, and broke-musician dreamers across Canada than most Greyhound buses. When it finally died — somewhere on the east coast — Neil eulogized it the only way a songwriter can: with a beautiful, melancholy tune that somehow makes you miss a hearse you never met.

The Recording

The album was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, which at the time was the epicenter of the “laid-back rock but with tropical humidity” sound. Criteria attracted everyone from the Eagles to Clapton to the Bee Gees. If you wanted a hit in the ’70s and didn’t mind sweating through your denim shirt, you recorded in Miami.

Players included:

• Neil Young – vocals, acoustic guitar
• Stephen Stills – harmony vocals, guitar, piano
• Joe Lala – percussion
• Jerry Aiello – organ
• George “Chocolate” Perry – bass
• Joe Vitale – drums

Basically: a perfectly brewed Neil/CSN cocktail, shaken lightly, served over Miami ice cubes.

Chart Performance

Long May You Run wasn’t a giant smash, but it did fine:

• Reached #71 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100
• Much bigger in Canada (naturally) — Top 20 and still treated like a national treasure
• Became one of Neil’s most enduring “happy” songs, which is saying something, because happy Neil Young songs are not exactly a crowded genre

Fun Facts

• The original recording included Crosby and Nash singing harmonies… until Stills and Young had a fight and erased them. (If you’re thinking “Yep, that sounds like CSNY,” you’re correct.)
• Neil has performed this song at countless major events — including the closing ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics — proving that Canadians can turn literally anything into a moment of national pride.
• “Mort,” the hearse in question, reportedly died in Blind River, Ontario. Neil has written about Blind River more times than most people write about their parents.

What’s It About?

At first glance: it’s about a car.
Underneath: it’s about every friendship that runs hot and cold, every chapter that closes, every moment you wish you could go back and relive — just once, on a good day, with the radio working and the transmission not smoking.

The line “We’ve been through some things together” hits like a warm breeze if you’ve got any miles on you. Which, at age 66 with lifetime miles that include SMU, IBM, kids, grandkids incoming, entrepreneurial adventures, and several guitars that have been your “Mort,” you’ve definitely earned.

Playing the Song

Acoustic-friendly, singable, and built for the kind of lazy strum that makes you think you sound better than you do. Neil uses alternate tunings all the time (he changes tunings like most of us change socks), but you can play this easily in standard tuning with a few friendly chords.

And yes — it sounds good on your Martin DC Aura or your Taylor 414ce. It also sounds especially good on a porch with a cold Bradshaw Brewhaus creation nearby.

Why It Lasts

Because it’s about loyalty.
Because it’s about the things — and people — that carried us farther than they should have.
Because we’ve all had a “Mort” in our lives, even if ours had four legs, four wheels, or a four-letter name.

And because nobody does heartfelt-with-a-smirk better than Neil Young.

Long may you run, Mort.
And long may we all keep singing about the things that got us here.

Keep Rockin’,

Stan Bradshaw