Crazy Horse is best known as Neil Young's backing band, but they were also an autonomous group lead by Danny Whitten. "Beggars Day" is a track from their first album, which was released in 1971 shortly before Whitten began to succumb to drug abuse that led to his death the following year.

This song was written and sung by guitarist Nils Lofgren, who joined Crazy Horse when he was 17 and was just 19 when the album was released. While Lofgren had a spotlighted adolescence, the song deals with the more typical pressures that come with the transition into adulthood. He explained in his Songfacts interview: "There was just a darkness as a kid - and we still do it to our kids today - like, 'Hey, you're 15 now, start thinking about what college you're going to, and SAT scores, and what you're going to do with the rest of your life.' It's just an enormous pressure and a very irresponsible thing to put on young people, because every four months they're a stranger to themselves due to hormones. And we're still doing it - it's kind of a crazy thing."