Neil Young Revives Teenage Ballad ‘Casting Me Away From You’ Ahead of ‘Second Song’ Album With the Chrome Hearts

Neil Young has uploaded a brand new recording of “Casting Me Away From You,” a song he wrote when he was still a teenager, onto the Neil Young Archives. The track will feature on “Second Song,” his upcoming album with his backing band the Chrome Hearts, which most outlets list as arriving September 18, 2026, though Rolling Stone has reported the date as September 19.

• Young believes he wrote “Casting Me Away From You” in 1964 or 1965.
• Rolling Stone reports that the original version was recorded in October 1965 inside the attic of Young’s high school friend Comrie Smith, roughly seven months before Young left the Toronto folk circuit for Los Angeles.
• A prior recording of the song with Comrie Smith surfaced on the 2009 box set “Neil Young Archives Vol. I (1963-1972).”
• “Second Song” also revives another very old composition, “I’ll Love You Forever,” which Rolling Stone identifies as dating back to 1964.
• Young and the Chrome Hearts recorded “Second Song” at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu, California.

Why Neil Young Went Back to a 1960s Song for ‘Second Song’

Young has explained that while making “Second Song” earlier this year, he came up short on new material after tracking five lengthy new songs for the record. Needing more, he says his mind drifted back to “Casting Me Away From You,” a tune he hadn’t touched in decades, and he cut a new version of it for the album the very next day.

“CASTING ME AWAY FROM YOU is one of my early songs. I think I wrote it in 64 or 65,” Young wrote on the Archives. “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.”

Before officially unveiling the album, Young had already said that three songs on “Second Song” date back to his earliest writing years, discovered unreleased in his own archives. “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,” he said. “There were more. I found three others with it… also unreleased! Three 60 year old songs and five brand new ones!”

Young also spoke in July about how the vintage tracks fit alongside the newer material on the record. “Those two old songs, they just seemed to fit with the new ones,” he said. “There was no concept. It 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.”

The Vintage Video Paired With the New Recording

The new version of “Casting Me Away From You” arrives with archival footage shot by cinematographer David Meyers in the early 1970s at Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch. The clip shows Carrie Snodgress on horseback alongside Young’s dog Timer as they cross the ranch.

Young described the footage himself in his post: “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.” He added, “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.”

‘Second Song’ Tracklist

1. The Foggy Edge Of Time
2. Day After Day
3. Earth Girl
4. Second Song
5. Casting Me Away From You
6. Soon I Might Be Going
7. I’ll Love You Forever

The Chrome Hearts lineup backing Young on the album includes Micah Nelson on guitar, Spooner Oldham on keys, Anthony LoGergo on drums, and Cory McCormick on bass.

Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts 2026 Tour Dates

• September 22: Bridgeport, Connecticut, Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
• September 24: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, TD Pavilion at the Highmark Mann
• September 26: Virginia Beach, Virginia, Farm Aid

More Info

• Neil Young shares new recording of Casting Me Away From You, which he wrote in the 1960s | Far Out Magazine
• Neil Young Posts Second Song Track Which He Wrote in the Mid-1960s | Relix
• Hear Neil Young’s New Recording of a Song He Originally Wrote as a Teenager in 1965 | Rolling Stone
• Neil Young The Chrome Hearts Share New Version Of Casting Me Away From You, A Song He Wrote Over 60 Years Ago | Stereogum