Neil Young's song "The Needle and the Damage Done", written about the toll of drug addiction on musicians, took on a devastatingly personal meaning shortly after its release. Young wrote the track as a broader lament for creative figures lost to heroin and alcohol, drawing in particular on the worsening addiction of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten. The song appeared on Young's April 1972 album Harvest, but within months Whitten died of an overdose, transforming the song from a general warning into a source of deep personal grief for Young, who said he "felt responsible".

The album used a live recording of the song made on 19 January 1971, and Young discussed its origins in a 1988 Rolling Stone interview, noting he never explicitly told Whitten the song was about him. According to Michael Heatley's book In His Own Words, Whitten died hours after rehearsing with Young at the musician's San Francisco home; Young had sent him back to Los Angeles because he was too impaired to play, and the coroner phoned that night to say he had died. Young went straight onto a large arena tour feeling "nervous and insecure", and though the song remained painful to perform, he continued to play it, telling NME in 1982 and The Boston Globe in 1990 that he was glad to have survived that turbulent period.