Homegrown

Album: American Stars 'N Bars (1977)
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Songfacts®:

  • This short acoustic track is a double entendre; Young's biographer Johnny Rogan described it tactfully as a tribute to "rural farmers and those members of Young's audience who prefer to cultivate their own weed." >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England
  • "Homegrown" is about marijuana. Young makes little attempt to beat around the bush about this (pun intended).

    Homegrown is a good thing
    Plant that bell and let it ring


    Since at least the 1960s, "home grown" is common parlance for weed that a person grows and harvests at home (or on land they own).
  • The song is the title track of an album Young recorded in 1974 and 1975 in the midst of parting ways with Carrie Snodgress, the mother of his first child. Young later likened the experience to making a record in the middle of war-time Vietnam. It was so painful that he didn't release the album until 2020, nearly 50 years after recording it.

    Along with "We Don't Smoke it No More," "Homegrown" is one of two songs on the album that have nothing to do with Young's breakup with actress Snodgress; both songs unambiguously deal with marijuana. Nearly every song on the album is marked by Young's feelings of love, loss, and pain regarding Snodgress. "Homegrown" and "We Don't Smoke it No More" are the exceptions.
  • Young recorded another version of the song in November 1975 that he released as the last track on the 1977 album American Stars 'n Bars. This version was recorded with Crazy Horse and is much more aggressive than the original Homegrown version. At 2:20, it's the shortest song on the album.
  • American Stars 'N Bars was released in favor of the shelved and more musically eclectic Chrome Dreams. While the record never saw release, Neil eventually put out a spiritual successor to it, 2007's Chrome Dreams II.

Comments: 3

  • Tom from Los Angeles, CaOne of those hidden gems of tossed-off genius from Canada's great idiot savant. There's no double entendre and it's not acoustic, so those are interesting or interestin song facts. I always went back and forth between bell/ring and pill/rain when he says "plant that ______" and let it _________. If this song didn't have such pace and brevity it would rival "Willin'" as a druggie anthem.
  • Andy from Glen Burnie, Mdacoustic track? er, uh, OK...in the key of A? THAT was a surprise--great clip though
  • Jim from Long Beach, CaGotta love this. I remember when I heard this on the radio in '76. Very f--king cool...
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