Neil Young has really dug deep into the vault for his new album.
The iconic singer-songwriter and the Chrome Hearts have finished work on a follow-up album to Talkin’ to the Trees (2025), and it features three tracks that Young wrote 63 years ago (as per Rolling Stone).
After going into Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu, California, with five brand-new songs, Young realised they were “then out of songs,” he wrote in The Neil Young Archives. “We needed more. The next morning I had a song going through my head and I was playing it.
“I checked it out in the archives and found it was from 1963, unreleased. There were more. I found three others with it … also unreleased! Three 60 year old songs and five brand new ones!”
He continued: “We finished mixing and assembling one month later on the next full moon … April 1. It was fast! We now have a complete mastered record, ready to go. I cannot wait for you to hear it and I hope it gives you what it gives me.”
Young was just 17 in 1963, playing gigs around his native Winnipeg, Canada, with his high school band, the Squires.
Young has previously only released two Squires songs from that year: “Aurora” and “The Sultan”, instrumental tracks that came out at the time in a very limited vinyl pressing that went on to become a valuable collectors item.
The songs were later given a much wider release in 2009 on Young’s box set The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972, along with four other Squires songs recorded in 1964 and 1965.
At the time of writing, it’s unclear if the newly discovered 1963 songs are instrumentals or Squires songs.
The title of Young and the Chrome Hearts’ new album also remains unclear. In a recent post on his website, he referred to the album as “Second Song,” but that could also just be one of the track titles.
