An acoustic song, it was recorded live in early 1978 at the Boarding House in San Francisco, California.

[3] The line, "it's better to burn out than to fade away" was taken from one of the songs of Young's bandmate in the short-lived supergroup The Ducks, Jeff Blackburn.

Young compared the rise of Johnny Rotten with that of the recently deceased "King" Elvis Presley, who himself had once been disparaged as a dangerous influence only to later become an icon.

Kurt Cobain's suicide note ended with the same line,[5] shaking Young and inadvertently cementing his place as the so-called "Godfather of Grunge".

I don't want Sean worshiping John Wayne or Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious.

I'll take the living and the healthy.Young, when asked to respond to Lennon's comments two years later, replied: The rock'n'roll spirit is not survival.

[9]Oasis covered the song during their 2000 world tour, including it on their live album and DVD Familiar to Millions.

The band acknowledged Cobain's attachment to the song by dedicating it to him when they played it in Seattle on the sixth anniversary of his death.

[11] The song was included at number 93 in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Singles (2010).

The singer Lana Del Rey used this song as an entrance to her second set of Coachella 2024, highlighting her connection with country music and her love to the band Nirvana.