Drive Back

Album: Zuma (1975)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Whatever gets you through the night" is the same opening line as the opening line of John Lennon's "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night," which had been released as a single a year earlier. The song's second line is also very similar to Lennon's, with Young singing "That's all right with me" versus Lennon's "It's all right."
  • "Drive Back" is a breakup song with the requisite sorrow, but also with a distinct angry streak. In the chorus Young sings balefully to an unnamed woman:

    Drive back to your old town
    I wanna wake up with no one around
    Drive back to your old town


    Perhaps the most poetically interesting line of the song is:

    If somebody
    Is haunting your mind
    Look in my eyes
    Let me hide you
  • The song has piano, but it's easy to miss it beneath the overpowering guitar.

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