It incorporates musical ideas from "Down Down Down," a demo Young recorded with Buffalo Springfield (later released on their eponymous box set).
It consists of three parts in three different time signatures interspersed with snippets of sounds, featuring organ, a jazz combo with piano, bass, drums, and a clarinet.
The song begins with audience applause (taken not from a Buffalo Springfield show, as some expect, but rather from a concert by the Beatles) and the opening of "Mr.
[3] Each of the three verses uses surreal imagery to deal with emotions (emptiness of fame, teenage angst, hopelessness), and contains self-references to Buffalo Springfield and Young.
Could you tell that the empty-quivered Brown-skinned Indian on the banks That were crowded and narrow, Held a broken arrow?