Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon

Author: BBC Radio 4 August 5, 2020 Duration: 27:53

It's a love song about growing old.

Neil Young's Harvest Moon released in 1992 is a nod to 1970s country rock.

It's loved by music blogger Alyson Young. It's also a grown up song about love says singer-songwriter Ricky Ross.

How do you make the magic last and how do you keep love alive?

People tell their stories about what the song means to them: jazz singer Maureen Washington danced to the song with her late husband.

Amanda Legere played it to her premature baby daughter when she went to see her in the ICU. She knows the baby responded to that song.

Mary Divine and her husband were serenaded on their wedding anniversary during lockdown. The whole neighbourhood came out to watch a teenage neighbour play Harvest Moon for them.

Margy Waller drove to work at the White House on the final days of Bill Clinton's Presidency listening to Harvest Moon because she needed to cry. For her it's a song about loss. She is still touched by it today during the pandemic in what she describes as another period of great loss.

Versions of Harvest Moon include those by: Neil Young Cassandra Wilson Maureen Washington Nils Lofgren Neil Young Unplugged

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2020.


There’s a certain piece of music that, when you hear it, seems to stop time. It might be a melody from your childhood, a song that played at a pivotal moment, or a composition that simply reaches into your chest and grips your heart. Soul Music, from BBC Radio 4, is built around that very phenomenon. This isn’t a program about genres or charts; it’s an intimate exploration of why specific pieces of music carry such profound emotional weight. Each episode focuses on a single, iconic work-from classical adagios to folk ballads, from film scores to pop anthems. The podcast weaves together the voices of people whose lives have been indelibly marked by that music: listeners share personal, often moving stories of grief, joy, love, and remembrance, while composers and performers might shed light on the piece’s creation. You’ll hear the music itself, of course, but framed in a way that reveals its deeper resonance in human experience. It’s a quiet, thoughtful series that reminds us how soundtracks our inner lives. Tuning into this podcast feels like being part of a conversation about the invisible threads that connect us all through notes and rhythms, exploring how a sequence of sounds can become a vessel for collective memory and feeling.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Soul Music
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