Waging Heavy Peace is a collection of Neil Young's thoughts and life stories.

Young loved playing music, working on his model trains, collecting cars, and developing innovative ideas. In his book, he shared his numerous health issues with the reader. As a youngster, he suffered from polio and had epilepsy. More health issues plagued him later in his life. While writing the book, Neil stopped drinking alcohol and smoking weed on his doctor's suggestion. He loved his wife Pegi and his 3 children. He wanted to live his life so that he was not a burden to anyone.

Neil's musical history began when he joined the band called the Squires. He was inspired and impressed by other bands, such as the Company and the Silvertones. He met Stephen Stills, who later became like a brother to him. The Squires was successful, but also fell upon hard times. After the band broke up, Neil was part of the Mynah Birds until the lead singer, Rick James Matthews, was arrested and their manager spent all their money. Neil started to experiment with smoking weed and other drugs while he was playing in the band.

The band Crazy Horse was made up of Danny Whitten, Ralph Molinia, Billy Talbott, and Neil Young. Poncho Sampedro joined in 1974 when Danny died. They were still playing in 2011. In 1969, Neil joined Crobsy, Stills, and Nash and his last name, Young, was added to the end.

Neil loved cars and collected many of them. They were stored in Mr. Feelgood's Garage, where he also held many of his conferences. His favorite car was his 1953 Buick Skylark, called the Big Kahuna. His mother bought Neil's first car, a 1948 Buick hearse when Neil was 18 years old. The hearse was roomy enough to transport his musical equipment.

Neil had been working on his Lincvolt for the past four years when it was destroyed in an accidental fire. He wanted to make a large car more energy resourceful. Several companies, including Ford motors, decided to support Neil's dream to start over and rebuild the car.

PureTone was an invention idea that Neil wanted to pursue. He believed that it had superior sound quality over iTunes, CDs, and MP3 players. Neil was trying to get his project financed. The title of the book came from a question about PureTone, from one of his son's caregivers. The question asked whether Neil was creating war on Apple with Puretone. Neil's response was that he was waging heavy peace, not war. He was concerned about the sound quality, which he felt was lacking due to the convenience and wide ease of music availability.

Neil's health had been poor over the years. He contracted polio at the age of six years, so he had to relearn how to walk and his back hurt. He also suffered from epileptic seizures and was tested by many doctors before they figured out what was wrong. Neil's back was painful before he had a double laminectomy in 1971. In 2005, Neil suffered from an aneurysm and had to have surgery. Complications arose and he started to bleed from the surgical site, the femoral artery.

Throughout the book, Neil maintains a positive attitude toward making life better for others. He had wanted to make the Lincvolt to have a better environmentally friendly car and PureTone would enhance the quality of portable music. Neil's personality shines throughout the book as he shares his feelings, regrets, and mistakes with his audience.