"I Don’t Want To Talk About It": Was Song Co-written by Nils Lofgren?

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Here's a great story from Nils Lofgren about Danny Whitten's song with Crazy Horse titled "I Don’t Want To Talk About It".

From an email from Robert over on Neil Young Unreleased:

You really need to listen to Nil’s story about this famous song. 

It makes Nils seem an incredibly generous soul to me. This beautiful plaintive ballad has always been credited as being written solo by Danny Whitten. It was a major hit for Rod Stewart, even reaching number 1 in the UK, so royalties must have been abundant. Neil performed it a number of times in 1982 as a tribute to Danny, but never released it on physical media.

It now seems Nils helped to write the original song by contributing the main part of the second verse, helping to finish it and make it ready to be recorded by Crazy Horse for their first album. And yet Nils has never had - and presumably has never laid claim to - a co-writing credit. Was he helping Danny out in a time of need? Many have been given a co-writing credit for much less - Neil is specially generous with others in that respect. 

But the implications behind this recollection by Nils are pretty amazing and very admirable. 

Top hat off to you, Nils.

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A post shared by Nils Lofgren (@realnilslofgren)

 

Thanks so much Robert & Neil Young Unreleased. Yes, a great story from Nils on the early Crazy Horse days.

Like you mentioned in our exchange, the question mark in the title is actually superfluous. By any normal standards it is clearly a co-write with Nils even if not officially registered as such. What is interesting, is that Nils presumably never asked for, expected or claimed it, not even after Danny was gone.

Lastly, here is Nils Lofgren with Pegi Young and Mickey Raphael perfoming "I Don't Want To Talk About It" (Danny Whitten/Crazy Horse) at Bridge School Benefit 30 concert, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA on 23 October 2016. (thanks wsanjose01 !)

"I Don't Want To Talk About It"

 

Remembering Danny Whitten: 1943 - 1972

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