Neil Young has released a personal statement on the death of ex-wife Pegi Young, who passed on Jan. 1 after a yearlong battle with cancer at the age of 66.

On his NeilYoungArchives.com website he posted the lyrics to 1992 song “Such A Woman,” which had been inspired by her, including the lines “You are such a woman to me / And I love you / Our love will live / Until the end of all time.” He added: “Thanks Pegi, for being such a wonderful mother to our children. You live on inside of them and the many you have touched.”

Although he hadn’t previously issued a statement, his website’s song on the day Pegi’s passing was announced was “Harvest Moon,” the title track of the album on which “Such A Woman” appeared. “Such A Woman” itself was chosen the following day. Both, along a number of his other works, had been inspired by Pegi.

The couple met in 1974 and married four years later, and went on to work closely together until they divorced in 2014. She’d been a member of his touring band since the early ‘00s and previously they’d worked to develop the annual Bridge School Benefit concerts, created to raise funds and awareness for the Bridge School, a nonprofit co-founded by Pegi in 1986.

Their divorce contributed to much of the material of Pegi’s last album 2016’s Raw. She later described it as “a soundtrack to the seven stages of grief,” explaining that she hadn’t expected the split to take place. “We go through things we may not’ve expected, what we thought was maybe our future. But even if we get the shock of our lifetime, life goes on. You figure out who you are again, and you just keep going on. I’m a living persona of that.”

Longtime Young collaborator Nils Lofgren tweeted his own personal tribute to Pegi on Jan. 4, saying: “Rest in sweet peace … Our friend. And a warrior for children and families everywhere. Thank you. It’s all too short.”

 

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