In the early '60s, back when he actually was young, Neil Young was a member of a Winnepeg band called the Squires. Next month, Young and his new band the Chrome Hearts will release their new album Second Song; we have already posted the title track. As previously reported, the new LP includes a few new versions of songs that Young wrote long, long ago. Today, we get to hear the new take on "Casting Me Away From You," which Young wrote more than 60 years ago.
Neil Young's not entirely sure when he wrote "Casting Me Away From You," but he figures that it was 1964 or 1965. The Squires never released a version of "Casting Me Away From You," but Young did record a version of the track with his high school friend Comrie Smith, and it appeared on the 2009 box set Neil Young Archives Vol. I (1963 - 1972). That version of the song was charmingly simple, and it had a bit of an Everly Brothers thing going on.
Young and the Chrome Hearts recorded Second Song at Rick Rubin's Shangri-La studio in Malibu, and their new version of "Casting Me Away From You" has a lonesome, countrified feel. Right now, the only place to hear the new version is on the Neil Young Archives website. It's got a video made up of footage that David Meyers shot at Young's Broken Arrow Ranch in the early '70s. On that site, Young writes a bit about that song:
CASTING ME AWAY FROM YOU is one of my early songs. I think I wrote it in 64 or 65. When we recorded Second Song; early this year I ran out of tunes fast. I only had the 5 new ones, long ones, and I needed more, so i started to feel it out and came up with Casting Me Away - from the deep past. There is an old recording with my school-mate Comrie Smith, somewhere in the ARCHIVES from that time. I recorded it for the Second Song album with the Chrome Hearts the next day.
In the early 70s, some time soon after i moved to Broken Arrow Ranch, David Meyers, the great cinematographer, jumped on the back of my old jeepster and we took a ride across Broken Arrow. 20 years or so before Rick Rosas shot the trip that is now 'Second Song'.
Check this video out! Zeke's mom, Carrie Snodgress, is riding her horse along with Timer, our dog, who's riding with me as we cross the beautiful ranch on a new road. Love to you,
neil
Hear the new version of "Casting Me Away From You" here, and check out the old one below.
Second Song is out 9/18 via Reprise Records. Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts recently canceled a planned European tour that was set for this summer, but they'll return to the road next month to play Farm Aid, as well as two shows with Willie Nelson.
