In October 1965, seven months before he left the Toronto folk scene to move to Los Angeles, Neil Young recorded the ballad “Casting Me Away From You” in the attic of his high school buddy, Comrie Smith. Young revisited the melody for the 1968 instrumental track “The Emperor of Wyoming,” which kicks off his self-titled solo debut LP, and the line “we found things to do in stormy weather” was used in his 1976 classic “Long May You Run.”
Earlier this year, when Young was in Malibu, California, recording his new LP Second Song with the Chrome Hearts, he found himself out of new songs after recording the five he wrote for the project. His mind went back to Smith’s attic all those years ago, and he decided to re-record “Casting Me Away From You” for the album.
Young shared the new version of “Casting Me Away From You” on the Neil Young Archives (click here to check it out) that he paired with a vintage video of him driving across Broken Arrow Ranch in California, where he lived for several decades. “[My son] Zeke’s mom, Carrie Snodgress, is riding her horse along with Timer, our dog,” Young writes, “who’s riding as we cross the beautiful ranch on a new road.”
Earlier this month, Young released the 11-minute title track to “Second Song.” The full album – which also includes a re-recording of Young’s 1964 extreme deep cut “I’ll Love You Forever” – will be released on September 19.
“Those two old songs, they just seemed to fit with the new ones,” Young told fans in July. “There was no concept. [The album] is a couple of old songs, and lot of new ones. With the length of the new songs, we could have knocked out the old songs and still had an album, for length. But we went ahead and added the two old songs. That’s what this album is about. It’s about the new songs vs the old songs. The old songs offer some sort of reflection and juxtaposition or something. They all seem to fit together.”
Young originally planned on touring Europe this summer with the Chrome Hearts, but he cancelled all of the dates in February. “Everything is OK,” he told fans. “Just needed a break. Listening to my body.”
He’s remained almost completely absent from concert stages this year, appearing only for a brief set at David Suzuki’s 90th birthday show May 22 in Vancouver. But he’s playing two shows on a double bill with Wille Nelson – September 22 in Bridgeport, Connecticut and September 24 in Philadelphia – as a warmup to Farm Aid in Virginia Beach on September 26.
It’s unclear if he plans on playing additional shows, but don’t expect to see him at Madison Square Garden, the Beacon Theater, Radio City Music Hall, or any other venue that use facial recognition technology. “Neil Young will not be playing venues utilizing the facial recognition surveillance,” reads a recent post on the Neil Young Archives.
