It has been covered by Band of Horses, Cowboy Junkies, Beat Farmers, Rusted Root, Jazz Mandolin Project, Feelies spin-off Yung Wu, Car Seat Headrest, and Phish.
[6] Ankeny feels that the song's first-person narrative "evokes traditional folk storytelling" but the music is "incendiary rock & roll", and praises the "mythical proportions" of Young's guitar solos as the story approaches its "harrowing" conclusion.
"[4] Rolling Stone critic Paul Nelson compared the violence in the song to the helicopter scene with Robert Duvall in the movie Apocalypse Now in that it is "both appalling and appealing — to us and to its narrator — until it's too late.
"[8] According to Nelson, it generates "traumatizing" tension and "unbearable" empathy and fascination as he "tightens the screws on his youthful hero with some galvanizing guitar playing, while Crazy Horse cuts loose with everything they've got.
"[8] Nelson points out that the music incorporates "a string of ascending [guitar] notes cut off by a deadly descending chord", what critic Greil Marcus described as "fatalism in a phrase".
[8] Rolling Stone contributing editor Rob Sheffield calls "Powderfinger" "an exorcism of male violence with shotgun power chords rising to the challenge of punk rock.