"Unknown Legend" is a song written by Neil Young that was first released on his 1992 album Harvest Moon. Although it was not released as a single, it reached #38 on the ''Billboard Magazine''

Mainstream Rock Tracks Mainstream Rock is a music chart in ''Billboard'' magazine that ranks the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations in the United States, a category that combines the formats of active rock and heritage rock. The chart was launched in Ma ...

chart.

Music and lyrics

Although "Unknown Legend" was not released until 1992, it was written earlier, closer to the release of Young's 1978 album '' Comes a Time'', and several critics have noted a similarity between the style of "Unknown Legend" and the material on ''Comes a Time'', particularly the song "Motorcycle Mama." Allmusic critic Matthew Greenwald describes the song as being based on a "simple, folksy guitar riff and

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

." As with several other songs on ''Harvest Moon'',

Linda Rondstadt Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American Mu ...

provided backup vocals in the

refrain A refrain (from Vulgar Latin ''refringere'', "to repeat", and later from Old French ''refraindre'') is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in poetry — the "chorus" of a song. Poetic fixed forms that feature refrains include the vi ...

s. Ben Keith plays pedal steel, in a performance that Young biographer Jimmy McDonough describes as providing "proud but sad" accents. The lyrics describe a woman who had worked in a diner and rode a Harley Davidson, but now is raising two children. The lyrics were inspired by multiple people. Nigel Williamson feels that the lyric about how the woman used to work in a diner was inspired by Young's first wife Susan Acevedo and that the lyrics about an "unknown legend" who is raising two kids but still has "the far away look in her eyes" were inspired by his later wife Pegi Young, and music critic Johnny Rogan agrees that the character described by the lyrics seems to be a combination of the two. Young biographer Glen Boyd similarly sees a portrait of Pegi in the lyrics about working in a diner and raising two kids, as well as in a line about "her long blonde hair flowin' in the wind." Nonetheless, Young has described his inspiration as being more expansive, stating:

It's inspired by some people I know and some people I don't know and all kinds of things put together...They're just pictures, people's lives. A lot of the common thing is survival, not losing what it is you were when you were young, but take it with you, take it with you into your own age. Don't leave it behind.

Young biographer David Downing sees the song as one of several on ''Harvest Moon'' that describe Americans feeling a deep sense of loss for unknown reasons in 1992.

Reception

In a 2016 '' Rolling Stone Magazine'' readers poll, "Unknown Legend" ranked as Young's 4th best post-1970s song. It reached #38 on the ''Billboard Magazine''

chart. Allmusic critic

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...

considers "Unknown Legend" to be one of Young's best songs, describing it as "lovely." McDonough describes it as "perhaps the empathetic portrait of a woman oung hasever created. Greenwald calls the

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

"exquisite" and comments how the lyrics provide a "clear" and "cinematic" picture of the female protagonist.

Live performances

Young performed "Unknown Legend" for his 1993 '' MTV Unplugged'' concert and it was included on his '' Unplugged'' album. For the ''Unplugged'' concert,

Astrid Young Vendela Astrid Young (born August 16, 1962) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of journalist, sportswriter, and novelist Scott Young and his second wife Astrid Carlson, and the half-sister of fellow musician Neil Young, who bou ...

and

Nicolette Larson Nicolette Larson (July 17, 1952 – December 16, 1997) was an American singer. She is perhaps best known for her work in the late 1970s with Neil Young and her 1978 hit single of Young's "Lotta Love", which hit No. 1 on the Hot Adult Contem ...

performed the backing vocal that Rondstadt performed on the ''Harvest Moon'' album. Young later played the song live on his 2015 tour.

References

{{authority control Neil Young songs Songs written by Neil Young 1992 songs Song recordings produced by Neil Young