No one ever captured the pain, the agony and the hopelessness of addiction as accurately, or as sensitively, as Neil Young in this song from his landmark album Harvest, released in early 1972.

The mournful acoustic guitar frames a heartbreaking lyric and Young’s high, lonesome vocal, teetering on the edge of cracking, perfectly articulates the tragedy of his lost friends, notably Crazy Horse ‘s own Danny Whitten.

The lyric, intensely personal and autobiographical, combines sadness and anger without recrimination, telling of Young’s journey from Canada to a California music community ravaged by heroin addiction: “I hit the city and I lost my band / I watched the needle take another man.” And then the final heart-stopping coup-de-grace: “Every junkie’s like a setting sun.”

Here he is on The Johnny Cash Show in 1971, unveiling the song for perhaps the first time. I’m not sure he’s ever sung it better.