This week, MJ Lenderman appeared on The Adam Friedland Show, where he proudly said he has the Neil Young Archives app on his phone. This wasn’t very surprising, since Lenderman has often drawn comparisons to the singer-songwriter, ever since the Wednesday guitarist broke through with his 2024 solo album, Manning Fireworks. “I grew up believing that every band that I like somehow is influenced by Neil Young,” he said last year. “He’s my number one.”
Lenderman performs his hero’s songs quite often on the road. Here’s every Young gem he’s covered so far.
Song: “Lotta Love”
Album: Comes a Time (1978)
Times Performed: 43
Lenderman began covering “Lotta Love” while on tour in Europe in the fall of 2024, and he’s since performed it more than 40 times. The video above shows his sixth time singing it, at the Garage in London on Nov. 18. As he told the crowd, the song carried a different meaning following the U.S. presidential election, in which Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris.
“This song, we always thought, was about an interpersonal relationship,” Lenderman said. “But there’s so much fucked-up shit going on in the world, and we’re from America. [There’s] so much fucked-up shit going on there. And once the election results came through, a Canadian friend sent me this song, and I thought about in a whole different light. So we’d like to do it for you now. You guys probably need it, too.”
Young released “Lotta Love” off Comes a Time in 1978, but it was made famous by his singing partner Nicolette Larson, who released it on her self-titled solo debut that same year. Larson, who died in 1997, achieved a No. 8 hit with the song. “She was absolutely fearless,” Young told Rolling Stone of Larson. “She told me, ‘I’m the best one. I can follow you anywhere you want to go. No one can follow you better than I can.’ And she could.”
Other Comes a Time material Lenderman should cover: “Goin’ Back,” “Already One,” and “Four Strong Winds.”
Song: “Powderfinger”
Album: Rust Never Sleeps
Times Performed: 7
On “Powderfinger,” Young delivers a tragic American Western, in which a young man attempts — and fails — to protect his family from an approaching gunboat. It’s regarded as his greatest song ever, containing his favorite themes of violence, mortality, regret, and above all, loneliness, against the backdrop of the American wilderness. It’s a live staple for Young, which he originally released on Rust Never Sleeps with his band Crazy Horse.
Lenderman has performed “Powderfinger” seven times, most recently in the video above, at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, North Carolina, in January 2025. Lenderman is supported by his bandmates (guitarist Jon Samuels, guitarist and fiddle player Landon George, drummer Colin Miller), and his ex and Wednesday bandmate Karly Hartzman, who delivers some killer backing vocals the same way Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro did all those years ago.
Other Rust Never Sleeps material Lenderman should cover: “Thrasher,” “Pocahontas,” and “Sail Away.”
Song: “On the Beach”
Album: On the Beach, 1974
Times Performed: 1
Young once described 1974’s On the Beach as one of the most depressing records he’s ever made, and yet it’s undoubtedly his best. Wrestling with heartbreak and critics who didn’t understand him, and trying to find his place in a post-Sixties Watergate America, culminated in eight brilliant songs that hardcore Young fans love to endlessly talk about — more than Young sure ever did.
Lenderman tackled the title track at Zootown Arts Community Center in Missoula, Montana, in October 2022, performing an aching 12-minute rendition. Young has only played it 14 times over the last five decades, with his most recent public performance of it occurring in July 2019, at the Sportpaleis in Antwerpen, Belgium. There’s no footage of Lenderman’s cover, yet it’s available here on Internet Archive.
Song: “Vampire Blues”
Album: On the Beach, 1974
Times Performed: 1
Lenderman seemingly loves Halloween, having covered Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” several times and this On the Beach gem, days before the spooky holiday on Oct. 26, 2024, at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg. I was lucky enough to catch this funky “Vampire Blues,” Lenderman’s only performance of it, alongside his bandmates and Ryan Davis.
Other On the Beach material Lenderman should cover: “See the Sky About to Rain,” “Ambulance Blues,” and “Motion Pictures (For Carrie),” the latter of which Young has never performed live.
Song: “Separate Ways”
Album: Homegrown, 2020
Times Performed: 1
There’s a lot of lore that surrounds Homegrown, the album Young shelved in 1975 in favor of Tonight’s the Night. It sat in the vault for 45 years — feverishly discussed among fans like a long-lost treasure — until Young finally released it in 2020.
If Lenderman covering two On the Beach songs wasn’t enough, he went even deeper into Shakey Land, delivering the deep cut “Separate Ways,” at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, on Feb. 11. It’s an intensely raw and painful reflection of Young’s breakup with actress Carrie Snodgress, where he sings lines like, “I won’t apologize/The light shone from in your eyes/It isn’t gone/It will soon come back again.” Lenderman conveys this perfectly, despite having never played it live before. Hopefully, it won’t be his last.
Other Homegrown material Lenderman should cover: “Try, “We Don’t Smoke It No More,” and “White Line.”
