Lyrics to
Goin’ Back

This version of Goin’ Back was released by Neil Young in 1978.

Our About Neil Young page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Goin’ Back from 1978 as well as all of the other lyrics from Neil Young that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Neil Young or about the 1970s in general.

In a foreign land
There were creatures at play
Running hand in hand
Needing no where to stay
Driven to the mountains high
They were sunken
in the cities deep
Livin’ in my sleep.

I feel like goin’ back
Back where
there’s nowhere to stay
When fire filled the sky
I’ll still remember that day
These rocks I’m climbin’ down
Have already left the ground
Careening through space.

I used to build these buildings
I used to walk next to you
Their shadows tore us apart
And now we do what we do
Driven to the mountains high
Sunken in the cities deep
Livin’ in our sleep.

I feel like goin’ back
Back where
there’s nowhere to stay.

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Neil Young has released many songs over the years besides Goin’ Back. Neil Young released songs from 1969 to 2007 spanning across albums like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young, After The Goldrush, Harvest, Journey Through The Past, Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight's The Night, Zuma, Long May You Run, American Stars & Bars, Comes A Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Hawks And Doves, Re-ac-tor, Trans, Everybody's Rockin', Old Ways, Landing On Water, Life, This Note's For You, Eldorado, Freedom, Ragged Glory, Harvest Moon, Lucky Thirteen, Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, Broken Arrow, Silver & Gold, Prairie Wind, and Chrome Dreams II. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Neil Young.

If you're a fan of popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Goin’ Back by Neil Young

The lyrics for Goin’ Back are defined as the words making up the song released by Neil Young in 1978. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to Goin’ Back have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only Neil Young and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to Goin’ Back by Neil Young if you think through it. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Goin’ Back" means the words set to the music of Goin’ Back, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Neil Young. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Goin’ Back and the lyrics to Goin’ Back are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Neil Young who came here looking just for the lyrics to Goin’ Back, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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