Neil Young's classic track "Powderfinger", which first appeared on 1979's Rust Never Sleeps with Crazy Horse, actually had its roots more than a decade earlier, illustrating how some of the songwriter's most acclaimed work emerged only after years of patience rather than a single burst of inspiration. The story highlights a broader truth about Young's creative process during an era when the wider music scene, from Buffalo Springfield to the San Francisco psychedelic movement, was fixated on immediacy, making his willingness to shelve and revisit unfinished ideas somewhat unusual.

Young told Guitar World in 1993 that he wrote the first line of "Powderfinger" in 1967 but did not complete the song until 1975, meaning it took a further four years before it was released on record in 1979 – 12 years after it began. In the intervening period he wound down Buffalo Springfield, released his landmark 1972 album Harvest, and worked with Crosby, Stills & Nash, experiences he said fed into the song's eventual final form. Young described the process as one where "something blocks me once in a while", prompting him to set songs aside rather than force them to a premature conclusion.