The album contains three songs that became standards in his performance repertoire: "Cinnamon Girl", "Down by the River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand", all of which were written when Young had a 103 °F (39.5 °C) fever.^[2]

 In 2003, the album was ranked number 208 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Young's final lead vocal track (on the original album) was actually a temporary scratch vocal he sang through the low quality talk-back microphone on the mixing board, with no effects such as reverb Young liked the stark contrast to the rest of the recording and used the track.