Young Performs "Long May You Run" at Olympics

Neil Young selected "Long May You Run" to help close out the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Dressed in a long black coat and black flat-top hat Young stood solo beneath the campfire Olympic flame, playing harmonica and supporting the song with an easy strum of a well-worn guitar.

The song, from the short-lived Stills-Young Band and recorded on an LP of the same name, was a solid choice. Like Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," "Long May You Run" is a nostalgic, heartfelt look back with hopeful nod toward what's ahead. Young once said it was written "for my first car and my last lady," but in his biography, "Shakey," he says it was written mainly for his first car, a used hearse he named Mort. He relied on the car to get teenage versions of his band from gig to gig, but sadly Mort dropped its transmission in Blind River, where Young had to abandon it for lack of funds.