Ahead of the release of his new album with Crazy Horse, Barn, Neil Young has opened up on why he is “thankful” for having made the record, as well as the mystery of his songwriting process.
In a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Young discussed the making of the new album and why his is still at his happiest when making music.
“I feel good to be where I am in the world and doing what I'm doing,” he said. “I'm very thankful to be still making music. And to be alive and still moving. And I feel great about it. And the reason why I think, and people get to be my age of three quarters of a century, you get to this point and people, if they don't have anything to do, they get kind of depressed. But with me, I just got so much to do. I have all these things that I need to organize and still keeps happening.”
On Barn, he continued: “I know that I'm very thankful for having made it. And I think it was a gift and everything in it works, and it's not often that happens. I mean, it works for me. I don't know if it works for anybody else. But for me it, it works. Everything felt right. So, I feel great about it.”
Young also offered some insights into his songwriting process, which he claims he still doesn’t fully grasp himself.
“I don't even know - it just happens,” he said. I just never not do it. If it's happening, it's happening. Everything else stops. That's the most important thing. So, if you want to do that, if you want to write songs, when the song comes to you, you got to stop everything else. No matter what you're doing, you just leave, and you just go somewhere and pick up on what it was you got.”
Recorded under a full moon in a secluded 1870s barn in Colorado, the new album from Young and Crazy Horse is the follow-up to 2019’s Colorado and was made with musicians Larry Cragg, Jeff Pinn, Bob Rice and Paul Davies. The last couple of years have seen Young share a number of unreleased projects from his vast vault, including 1975’s Homegrown and a number of live recordings like 1990’s Way Down In The Rust Bucket.
On the importance of recording in just the right environment, Young noted: “Geography's important. Not just the room, but where is the room? Where am I? I really care about that. Because every time you move to a new place, everything changes. In the music, you feel some places are good for some things. If it's not happening, I just leave because it's nobody's fault, but I don't want to be part of it. There's some places I just don't want to be after a while with regards to music. It just doesn't feel right. And some places that are great.”
You can see the full interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1 below.