"[9] Young speaks the verses over the instrumentation, in a manner that music lecturer Ken Bielen compares to Frank Zappa, and sings the refrain in what the Rolling Stone editors describe as a mumble.
[5] Music critic Nigel Williamson said that Young's vocal "has a world weary lethargy so that the song is drained of tension and drama" but that "paradoxically, this only adds to its impact.
"[6] According to Williamson, "Tired Eyes" and the previous song "Lookout Joe" widen the theme of the Tonight's the Night from the deaths of Whitten and Bruce Berry, who are memorialized in other songs on the album, to turn the album into "an epitaph for an America that has lost its moral compass and for its dead in the jungles of Vietnam as well as in the back streets and barrios of urban America.
"[2] Music critic Johnny Rogan similarly states that with this song Young "extends the [album's] narrative beyond the deaths of Whitten and Berry.
[3] Janovitz interprets "Tired Eyes" as reflecting Young's "disgust and wariness" at the dark side of the Woodstock dream, such as the drugs and violence that manifested themselves at the Altamont Free Concert in 1969.
"[1] "Tired Eyes" has appeared on the 1977 compilation album Decade and on the 2020 box set Neil Young Archives Volume II: 1972–1976.