Neil Young Shares “Big Change,” First Song With New Band The Chrome Hearts

Neil Young is 79 years old and has never been afraid to swim against the tide, but he’s in touch with the youth in one important way: He’s gone all-in on lowercase. Lately Young has been performing with the Chrome Hearts, a band featuring Micah Nelson on guitar, Corey McCormick on bass, Anthony Logerfo on drums, and Spooner Oldham on Farfisa organ. Today that unit, billed explicitly as neil young and the chrome hearts, releases its first song, “big change.” A press release emphasizes that the lack of capitalization.

More importantly, the song rules. It’s a loud, raw, shouty, bashed-the-fuck-out rock ‘n’ roll song that makes me want to go see Young in concert this year even more than I already wanted to. Big drums are indeed drummin’, big guitars strummin’, etc. “Big change is coming!” Young sings repeatedly. “Could be bad, and it could be good!” Young and Lou Adler produced the track, and Young’s longtime audio engineer John Hanlon calls it “in your face loud irreverent rock ‘n roll paint splatter on the canvas in the vein of a Jackson Pollack painting.” If only I could hear it on Pono! It comes from the band’s new album that was recorded analog at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La and is “going to be real different,” Young told Hanlon.

Listen below.

In other Young news, you probably saw he dropped off of the Glastonbury lineup and then jumped right back on. But did you catch his review of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown? It reads as follows:

I love Bob Dylan and his music. Always have. He’s a great artist. Once he was on my bus and I didn’t recognize him and threw him off but that’s another story. This movie is a great tribute to his life and music. I think if you love Bob’s music you should see this great movie. I loved it.

One more Neil tidbit: He is releasing another shelved album, Oceanside Countryside, on Valentine’s Day.