New Song Alert: Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts Drop “big change” – Righteous, Raucous Noise

“Gotta do what you gotta do, Head to the hills or go to town” – Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts, “big change”

Neil Young dropped a new song on Friday, “big change,” lack of capital letters apparently on purpose…very E.E. Cummings of him.  He also announced a new backing band, the Chrome Hearts. The Chrome Hearts are longtime Young collaborator Spooner Oldham (Farfisa organ and super cool name), Lukas Nelson (guitar/vocal), Corey McCormick (bass/vocals), and Anthony LoGerfo (drums). The engineer on the track has described this song as an “in your face loud irreverent rock ‘n roll paint splatter on the canvas in the vein of a Jackson Pollack painting.” Not that I’m sure we need to know what the engineer thinks… It certainly is raucous.

I have to admit that when I saw that Young had a new backing band, the aforementioned Chrome Hearts, it got me thinking of all the backing bands Young has had. Obviously he was a member of Buffalo Springfield, and sort of a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young, and later the Stills-Young Band but man, has he had a lot of backing bands. Here are the ones I can think of:

• Crazy Horse (Mach 1 with Danny Whitten)
• The Stray Gators
• The Santa Monica Fliers
• Crazy Horse (Mach 2 with Frank Sampedro)
• The International Harvesters
• The Blue Notes
• And the latest, The Chrome Hearts

That’s a long list and I haven’t even mentioned Pearl Jam or Promise of the Real who have both backed Young on different albums. Not that it’s a big deal but since he was on such a hot streak with a reconstituted Crazy Horse (with Nils Lofgren taking over for Sampedro) I had kind of hoped he’d keep rocking with those guys. Who doesn’t love that Neil Young and Crazy Horse chemistry? And those last few records with Crazy Horse have been really great: Colorado (2019), Barn (2021), and World Record (2022).

All of that said, this song rawks. In terms of sound, this track is more side 2 of Rust Never Sleeps than side 1. It opens with guitar feedback, which is always a good sign. Neil and Lukas clearly have the guitars turned up to “11.” Young sounds urgent and a little agitated. I will admit that the lyrics are a little baffling. He sings “Big change is coming, could be bad or could be good,” and later “could be bad or could be great…” I don’t want to be a spoil sport and this is not a political blog but perhaps Mr. Young needs to start reading up on current events. I mean, it can’t be a coincidence that Young released this song when he did… Here’s the video:

The Chrome Hearts chant the chorus along with Young and it almost sounds strident but man I gotta tell you this track grew on me fast. It’s got me all riled up on this crazy Monday. The guitar solo is vintage Neil Young. His guitar sound is almost as distinctive as David Gilmour’s. This track borders on punk rock and I dig a little pugnacious Neil. It may not be “Ohio” but it’s got some, for lack of a better word, “oomph.”

I urge everyone out there to check this one out. Turn up it up loud but be warned – this track will rattle your windows, scare the pets and hopefully piss off your neighbors…

Cheers! Take care of each other out there… it’s gonna be a lot darker before we see the light again…