100 favourite songs: #53: "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" - Neil Young

The charm of this song really defies words. A woozy slowed-down waltz, plinking and kerplunking to an up and down rhythm which evokes the inevitable passing of the days, both musically and lyrically it’s an odd and wonderfully effective commingling of the allusive and the direct. There’s a sense of gentle sadness to it, but also an air of something like acceptance — a kind of compassionate wisdom or at least a sort of hard-won clear-sightedness. Simple, unaffected and universal, songs like this one are rare and precious.

I have a friend I’ve never seen,
He hides his head inside a dream,
Someone should call him and see if he can come out,
Try to lose the down that he’s found —

But only love can break your heart,
Try to be sure right from the start…