Neil Young is working on a new album.
He says, “This year Crazy Horse finished a new album and I have started writing again. Albums are like stories — not literally though. My methods have changed over the years and my current way of writing is a departure from everything I’ve done before. evolving into something I might now have envisioned earlier in life.
“Now I start with melodies that gain a lot more variation as I continue to shape them. Sometimes, a section may last a long time, which means the song could be very much longer than previous ones. It might take weeks to shape the melody, but, unlike the past, I’m in no rush now.
“When I think I might be done, I stop playing it and just keep that melody in my head. The melody swirling around, I start hearing the words. Before this, the words mostly came first — followed by a melody…but there were never hard fast rules.
“So, I have almost finished my next song!”
Young’s last album with Crazy Horse was 2019’s Colorado. His last solo album of original material was Peace Trail in 2016.
In 2017, he released The Visitor backed by Promise of the Real.
And Young continues to comb through his archives with Harvest Time, “almost two hours of Harvest rarities,” set to be released next year.
REUTERS PHOTO
