Neil Young

Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin interviews legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young about his new album, Second Song, which uniquely blends brand-new compositions with

Key takeaways

• The album Second Song features tracks like 'Casting Me Away From Vert You' written as far back as 1964.
• Young utilizes an old cassette player to capture melodies and lyrics during the initial stages of songwriting.

Main topics

• New album Second Song
• The Archives project

Notable quotes

If I'm thinking about writing songs, nothing's going to happen. But if I forget about it, they'll start showing up.

Conclusion

An intimate look at how a legendary artist maintains creative continui

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:03) Elliot Speaker 3 (0:25) was so great. He was just amazing. He was like a great friend. I met him when I was in Buffalo Springfield. He was with Joni, and we wanted him to manage us, and he wanted to manage us. But then the group broke up. And I told him he had to manage me. So that's how we came together. And then he's just been my best friend for all those years. Fantastic. Somebody to talk to all the time about everything. Did you Speaker 2 (0:57) talk to him every day? Speaker 3 (0:59) Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I was terrible with him. I always talked to him every day. And I'd be yelling and screaming about shit. And then, you Speaker 4 (1:06) know. Speaker 2 (1:08) He was a good listener, though. I felt like he was able to digest that information well. Speaker 3 (1:14) Absolutely, man. He was so great. I miss him. But I got him here. He's with us. Speaker 2 (1:20) Yeah. Tell me about the new album. What was the first thing that happened that led to this new album? Speaker 3 (1:27) I was just kind of in Colorado in January and February of this year, and I just started to feel the music again towards the full moon. And I started thinking about music, and then I started to write things. I wrote a bunch of little notes and titles and things. Then it just started coming really fast. I used to wake up in the morning and write the words to the songs. I had a few melodies in my head. So Speaker 4 (2:01) I just started writing and I just couldn't stop. And the words really were Speaker 3 (2:04) coming fast. So I just wrote them all down. And then I went right to Shangri-La, your studio in Malibu, on March 1st. And I moved in there. And March 1st, I think, was March 1st or maybe the 2nd was the full moon. So after writing these during the full moon, I moved right into the studio and it was the full moon and we recorded. I had five songs and we recorded four of them the first day. Wow. And the second day we recorded the second song. And that was it. I was out of songs. So then I started thinking, I told the guys, I said, well, just let me go to sleep and wake up and we'll see what happens. And maybe I'll have another song or something. And we'll figure out what to do next. So the next day Speaker 4 (2:57) I woke up. Speaker 3 (2:59) sitting around having a cup of coffee, and I just started playing these songs. One song that I had written back in 1964 or 65, it was on the archive somewhere, and I remembered it, and I started playing it. It was called Casting Me Away From You, and it was a song that I remembered rehearsing with the Squires, which was my first band. We had moved to Toronto from Winnipeg. And I was rehearsing in the lobby of a theater that my dad had set up for us. So we set up our equipment in the lobby every day because the theater didn't have anything going on in it. So we were in the lobby playing, and that's where we played Casting Me Away From You. And then I did, somewhere along that time, I had a friend named Comrie Smith. It was a guy I went to school with. Since I was back in Toronto, I was revisiting my old school friends. So I went to his house and we recorded Casting Me Away From You in his attic. And it's in the archives somewhere back in the 60s. So it would be in volume one somewhere. Speaker 2 (4:10) It's incredible that these songs you wrote so long ago found their way to the new record. Speaker 3 (6:50) So I remembered that one. And then I remembered this other one that was from 1963. Speaker 3 (6:56) So these are 60-year-old songs. Oh, here's a couple. So, yeah, it was called I'll Love You Forever. And I wrote it about my girlfriend, Pam Smith. She was a lovely young lady who I knew in high school. And we went to different schools. And then we got together at this place called Falcon Lake, where I was visiting in the summer and sleeping in a tent. That was cool. There's a picture around here somewhere of me and Jack in our tent. Jack Harbour, the drummer in the Squires. Anyway, I just, I remembered that song. And when I first left home and we were playing in a place called Fort William, Ontario, I was playing there in a place called the, I think it was called the Fourth Dimension. I was playing. And, oh, yeah, we rent this disc jockey there. His name was Ray D. So radio, you know. We were so inventive back in the 60s. So, yeah, Ray and I and the guys went into the radio station and recorded a song called I'll Love You Forever that I wrote for Pam. But by then, of course, she was in the past. I'd already left Winnipeg, and I was on my way to Toronto. Hadn't gotten to Toronto yet. So there we were. We recorded that one. And that's in there somewhere back in the archives way back, 1963 or something. Speaker 2 (8:36) But the version we're about to hear is from the new record. Speaker 3 (8:39) Yeah. As Speaker 4 (8:51) I walk beside the sea, the sand can feel. As I hope for sending you. Speaker 3 (13:03) So that's where that one came from. So I had two more songs. And that made, I think, seven songs total. But there were a lot of long songs in the first group. The group of five new ones had three long songs in it for acoustic. Because there was no big instrumentals or anything. A little harmonica or something, you know. Speaker 4 (13:24) Yeah, I had those ones. So there I had the seven songs. I Speaker 3 (13:27) recorded them. And I said, that's it. You know, we don't need to pretend that we need more. I mean, listen to this. There's a lot of stuff here. Speaker 2 (13:35) What's shocking about this is I listened to the album today. I would have never imagined that two of the songs are from 60 years ago and the others are brand new. They sound like songs that have just always been in the air. Speaker 3 (13:49) Yeah, yeah, they're all the same that way. They're all just a bunch of, they just hang together. I was always really lucky to have those songs and have them come along. And that's the way, now I have to wait for a while to clear my head completely before I can do anything else. But that won't take long. There's other songs that are starting to come now. Does Speaker 2 (14:10) it happen that way where you're not thinking about writing songs and all of a sudden it just happens? Yeah. Speaker 3 (14:17) If I'm thinking about writing songs, nothing's going to happen. But if I forget about it, they'll start showing up. Speaker 2 (14:24) And you said that you started with writing the words. Did you work them out on the guitar first, or were you just working in your head on lyrics? Speaker 3 (14:32) It's hard. I can never figure out which comes first. You know, I was playing a few melodies here, just a couple of things. I play a couple of chords and I got my method now. It's a little different. I use a cassette player, an old cassette player, and I turn it on and I play a little bit into that. When I first start writing anything, when I first have a melody, I'll turn on the cassette player and I'll just play it as I kind of find it. Then I turn the cassette off and that's it. That's all I ever listen to. So I'm back there where it first showed up when I listened to it. And then it's in my head. And then pretty soon the lyrics just start coming from everywhere. Do Speaker 2 (15:13) you think the reason you came back was because somewhere you knew that they fit with the others? Speaker 3 (15:21) Boy, I don't know, man. They just came back. I said to the guys, I said, well, I don't have any right now, but maybe I will tomorrow. Maybe they'll show up. I wasn't thinking about old songs. This is the first time I've ever written an album that's got new songs and songs 60 years old. Really, these songs had never been heard Speaker 4 (15:42) by anybody. None of them have. Speaker 3 (15:45) There's a few people, if you're Speaker 2 (15:47) a Speaker 3 (15:47) real archives junkie. They'll get in there and they'll hear these. And now people that know the archives will be looking for them. And they'll see them and they'll hear them. And then they'll hear the way we did it with the chrome hearts. And they're really like the same thing. Speaker 1 (16:10) As nutrition science advanced through the mid-20th century, researchers began to understand that modern eating patterns, limited variety, processed foods, and time constraints could leave small but meaningful gaps in daily micronutrient intake. Today, large population studies confirm that approximately 90 % of adults fall short on one or more essential vitamins or minerals. AG1 was formulated in response to those findings. Each daily serving provides more than 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source nutrients, including vitamins A, C, E, B6, B12, magnesium, zinc, selenium, and iodine. 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Learn more at drinkag1.com slash tetra. Do it today. Tell Speaker 2 (18:24) me about the whole archive project. Speaker 3 (18:26) Yeah, I think I started it back in the 90s, Speaker 4 (18:29) somewhere back there. Speaker 3 (18:31) Yeah, I could look it up, but it's easier to Speaker 2 (18:35) just kind of drift around in my head. Speaker 3 (18:37) I just started going like, I've got everything, but it's all over the place. I want to put this thing together and make a thing and see this. Speaker 3 (18:49) Those are three boxes. We're making the fourth one now. Probably going to be five or six of them. I'm not sure. Maybe five. I thought I'd be done at four. So that's why we made it like that. So you could have, you know, Neil Young and it all spelled out. Each box had part of my name on it. And then you put the boxes together. If you put it on the shelf, you can see my name and that's my stuff. Speaker 2 (19:15) Is it songs with all of the different bands and everyone you've played with from the beginning till now? Speaker 3 (19:21) Yeah. Speaker 2 (19:22) It's everything. Speaker 3 (19:23) Yeah. There's between 10 and 12 discs. At first, I was using Blu-ray discs for Volume 1 because I wanted i-res. Yeah. And then Blu-ray disappeared, kind of. Nobody had Blu-ray, so. I went to CDs and what I was too bad, that's not vinyl. It'd be ridiculous. Speaker 2 (19:46) That'd really be a lot of boxes. So it's 10 to 12 in each of the three. Speaker 3 (19:51) Yeah. Speaker 2 (19:52) So it's between 30 and 36 CDs. Yeah. Speaker 3 (19:56) And there'll be, you know, it'll be between 46 and 50 and this next one, I'm not sure how this is going to work out. And it's everything chronological. Speaker 3 (20:08) Yes. That's what holds it together. I keep it all chronological, and I have no decisions to make. One less thing to think about. You're not kidding. So it's great. Yeah, I love doing it, and it's a lot of fun. I really want to finish the whole thing, and so it kind of gives me a mission, you know? Speaker 2 (20:27) Yeah. I hope that they end up being 10 boxes so that it Speaker 3 (20:30) keeps you busy for a while. Me too. That'd be great. I really think so. And there's so much stuff in it that I really love. There's an album in there with Booker T and the MGs. It's got Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper, Booker T, and Jimmy Keltner. So I