“You’d Better Take Your Time”: Neil Young’s Shattering Return to ‘My Boy’ After 40 Years

The room held its breath. The lights were low, the stage bare, and the audience had no idea what was coming. Then Neil Young stepped to the microphone—older, quieter, but unmistakably himself. And when he began to play the opening chords of “My Boy,” time itself seemed to freeze.

For over forty years, this song had remained locked away, unperformed live, untouched by decades of tours, albums, and tributes. But tonight, something was different. Something had shifted in Neil Young. And when his voice, fragile yet resolute, broke the silence, it wasn’t just music that filled the air. It was memory. It was pain. It was love.

“My Boy” isn’t one of Neil Young’s chart-toppers. It’s not a crowd-pleaser or a political anthem. It’s a song written from the rawest part of the heart—a father speaking to a son he once feared he might lose. Young’s son, Ben, was born with cerebral palsy. The diagnosis was devastating. But instead of breaking him, it led Neil to write one of his most emotionally vulnerable pieces, a lullaby to a boy growing up in a world that couldn’t understand him.

The lyrics are simple. Quiet. Almost unbearably tender. They don’t scream. They ache. And on this night, when Neil returned to them, he didn’t try to hide his trembling. He let it show.

“This is a song I haven’t played live in a very long time,” he told the crowd, voice cracking. “It’s called ‘My Boy.’”

Every note carried weight. Every word seemed drawn from a well of remembrance—of hospital rooms and quiet nights, of watching Ben struggle, learn, and ultimately thrive. The years had not dulled the emotion. If anything, they had deepened it.

As Neil sang the line, “Better take your time, my boy,” he paused. Not for dramatic effect—but because the words caught in his throat. And in that pause, the audience saw everything. A father, still hoping to protect a son from a world too fast, too cruel, too indifferent.

There was no backing band. No flashy lights. Just Neil, his guitar, and a truth that had waited four decades to be told aloud.

And when he reached the final verse, the room had changed. People were crying—quietly, reverently. This wasn’t nostalgia. It wasn’t a trip down memory lane. It was something more sacred. A reckoning. A release.

Because “My Boy” isn’t just Neil Young’s story. It’s the story of every parent who has ever watched their child struggle. It’s the silent prayer of those who’ve felt helpless in the face of fate, yet who continue to love—fiercely, endlessly, without condition.

After the last chord faded, Neil didn’t speak. He just looked out into the dark, blinking back tears, and nodded once. No encore. No explanation. Just the echo of a father’s love, still burning after all these years.

It’s rare in music—especially in a career as prolific as Neil Young’s—to see a moment so deeply personal offered so publicly. But in doing so, Neil reminded the world of something essential: that sometimes, the quietest songs speak the loudest truths.

And on this night, “My Boy” wasn’t just a song. It was a mirror. A prayer. A promise.

To take your time.
To hold on longer.
To love harder.

Because time runs fast.
And boys grow up.
But a father’s song—if it’s true—never fades.