Neil Young: "The world will be a better place once we get rid of Trump." New album "Second Song" out now

On the eve of the release of "Second Song", his new album made with Chrome Hearts, Neil Young once again weaves together music and politics, reiterating his criticism of Donald Trump but widening his gaze to what he considers the most urgent issue: the state of the planet and the future of new generations. "I can't tear my eyes away from the news," Young says in a new interview with Mojo. "I think about it the moment I wake up and I think about it when I go to sleep, and that's because the planet is in danger, our people are in danger, our children's future is in danger. We're squandering resources. Just as we're distracted by what we see, we're distracted from the damage we ourselves are causing."
According to the Canadian singer-songwriter, public and media attention too often ends up focused on the day-to-day controversies surrounding the White House, diverting attention from deeper problems. Young cites as an example the debates around the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool: "That's bullshit that doesn't matter at all, and the media are largely responsible for it. The channels everyone watches fixate on the White House, on the President, on the wrong things he does. Sure, there's plenty to say about that, but there are plenty of other important things."

His judgment of Trump nonetheless remains harsh. "I hope we'll get rid of him," Young says. "Maybe once he's gone the world will become a better place. But personally, as a human being, I don't wish him any harm, I'd just like him not to be there."
The political theme also surfaces in "Soon I Might Be Going", one of the seven tracks on "Second Song": without naming him explicitly, Young refers to a man who is "tearing down the old White House," an image that clearly points to the US president.

"Second Song" will be released on September 18 and is Young's second album with Chrome Hearts, following "Talkin To The Trees", released in June 2025. The band is made up of Anthony LoGerfo on drums, Corey McCormick on bass, Micah Nelson on guitar and Spooner Oldham on keyboards. Where the previous record favored a mostly electric impact, the new album should bring Young back to a more intimate, essentially acoustic dimension.
Recorded entirely in analog at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, "Second Song" was produced by Lou Adler together with Young himself and Niko Bolas, with the latter two again credited as the Volume Dealers. The record includes five new compositions and two songs retrieved from the past.
"Casting Me Away From You" dates back to 1965 and had already resurfaced in 2009 as part of the monumental box set "The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972", in a version recorded with Comrie Smith. Even older is "I'll Love You Forever", chosen to close the new album: Young had recorded it in 1964 with the Squires, the band he played in before the start of his international career, and that recording too had later been unearthed for the "Archives".

"There's no concept," Young explained about the record. "It's a couple of old songs and a lot of new ones. That's what the album is about, the interplay between the new songs and the old ones. The old songs offer a kind of reflection and counterpoint, or something like that. They all seem to fit together perfectly."
The album has already been previewed by the title track "Second Song", a first taste of a record that puts today's Neil Young in dialogue with the Neil Young of his early days: on one hand two compositions over sixty years old, on the other new songs in which the political, environmental and social anxieties that continue to fuel his songwriting resurface.

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