Classic Clips: Neil Young “A Man Needs a Maid” – Live at the BBC, 1971

I first became enchanted by ‘A Man Needs A Maid’ when I heard a version of it on the 2007 Neil Young covers album ‘Borrowed Tunes II’. It’s a song of heartbreaking feeling as Young wrestles with his want for love and companionship and his deep fear of hurt. “I was thinkin’ that maybe I’d get a maid / Find a place nearby for her to stay,” he muses as an option easier than romantic entanglement. “Just someone to keep my house clean / Fix my meals and go away.” 

While I may have fallen in love with ‘A Man Needs a Maid’ as a cover sung by an exceptional vocalist in Chantal Kreviazuk, I still think it’s fair to say that no one can really do it better than Young himself, so here he is performing the song in all its haunting glory with just a piano as accompaniment for the BBC in 1971.