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"Helpless" is a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, most famously recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on their 1970 album Déjà Vu. The song was originally recorded with Young's band Crazy Horse in early 1969, before Young's new CSNY bandmates (he had joined the then-trio in mid-1969) convinced him it would suit them better.
The song is deceptively simple; at its core is effectively the repetition of one melody over a descending D-A-G chord progression. CSNY initially found difficulty deciding on an arrangement and many different versions of the song were recorded before the group finally decided on the slow-paced version that appeared on Déjà Vu. On this final version Young was in the foreground, singing the verses and the chorus with his bandmates providing the "Helpless" refrain, while the instrumentation came in the form of acoustic guitar, electric guitar (with volume pedal and tremolo), piano, bass and drums. It became one of the most revered songs from the Déjà Vu album (Q magazine's Peter Doggett regards it as "one of showpieces"), and has remained a live favorite of Young's ever since. An alternate mix of the CSNY version was released on Neil Young's "Archives Vol. 1". It features Young playing harmonica prominently in the mix.
The "town in North Ontario" referred to in the opening line of the song is often presumed to be Young's hometown (he is an Ontario native); Young himself cleared up the rumors in a 1995 Mojo interview with Nick Kent: "Well, it's not literally a specific town so much as a feeling. Actually, it's a couple of towns. Omemee, Ontario, is one of them. It's where I first went to school and spent my 'formative' years.."
Omemee, just west of Peterborough, is well within what is now considered Southern Ontario, and 130 km from Toronto by road.
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