Second Song is an act of hypnosis. For all of Neil Young’s enduring and endlessly regenerative influence, that power is what nobody can touch. Imitate his moody, mewing Canadian whine; adopt his verité approach to studio recording; tune your acoustic guitar to drop-D and overdrive your electric through a vintage amp; rip a solo that’s just one note and dig into the fretboard as if a weaker player handed you their instrument to help wear in the neck. But who else can conjure this kind of grainy, autumnal dream state with such effortlessness and patience, using such spare tools? For the first time since 2012’s louder and gnarlier Psychedelic Pill, Young spends his 50th studio album luxuriating in this gift, casting a glow of bittersweet contentment that feels distinct in his catalog.
You could be forgiven for keeping your expectations low. These days, the 80-year-old songwriter’s attention seems largely dominated by his Archives project—the type of comprehensive legacy curation that tends to be handed off entirely to the label but which Young has continued to operate in a charmingly messy state of constant, unpredictable motion. Along the way, his new records, more than ever, seem to exist mainly to document passing obsessions, feelings, and company. From a trio of understated Crazy Horse reunion records between 2019 and 2022 to last year’s wispy and unsteady Talkin to the Trees—the debut of his new backing band, the Chrome Hearts—these statements are always welcome but rarely essential.
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Upon entering the studio earlier this year, even Young wasn’t sure about his latest crop of material, confessing to Archives subscribers that he “ran out of tunes fast.” Really, he just had five songs—and “songs” might even be stretching it. These were slow, formless meditations, several hovering around the 10-minute mark, ambling along to breezy, familiar chord changes on acoustic guitar and piano. The title track felt like a stretched-out jam on the ascending progression from his eternal “Harvest Moon”; another sounded a little like Mazzy Starr’s “Fade Into You.” And so, Young padded out the record with new renditions of “Casting Me Away From You” and “I’ll Love You Forever,” two early rarities that had yet to appear on a studio album (although both appeared on 2009’s Archives Vol. 1 box set). Together, they lighten up the B-side of the record with sweet, Beatlesque love songs: nascent tunes written by a young singer-songwriter in the mid ’60s, finding his voice in a crowded industry.
Here, they serve a different purpose. For one thing, they are reminders of the melodic dexterity that once defined Young’s songwriting but has since been replaced with a first-thought-best-thought folk simplicity. (Two tracks on Talkin to the Trees borrowed the melody from “This Land Is Your Land.”) There’s another thing that’s hard to replicate: While “Casting Me Away From You” might feel like a pop standard, notice the way the rhythm shifts briefly, allowing the turn of “Now I find/You’re leaving me behind” to form its own mini-refrain within the chorus. On Talkin to the Trees, you got the sense the Chrome Hearts were hearing the songs for the first time as Neil counted off; now, you can sense his bandmates listening, cautiously finding their way and navigating each turn with a fragility that suits the material.
