By Andy Greene
Six days after previewing the song at the semi-annual Light Up The Blues charity show, Neil Young has officially released “Let’s Roll Again” from his upcoming LP Talkin’ To the Trees, which arrives June 13. It may sound like a sequel to his 2002 September 11 song “Let’s Roll,” but it’s actually a plea for auto manufacturers to act responsibly and create more electric vehicles.
“C’mon Ford, C’mon GM,” he sings. “C’mon Chrysler, let’s roll again/Build somethin’ useful, people need/Build us a safe way for us to be/Build us somethin’ won’t kill our kids.”
This doesn’t, however, mean he wants people to support Elon Musk and buy Teslas. “If yer a fascist/Then get a Tesla,” he sings. “If it’s electric, it doesn’t matter.” (Two decades back, Young created his own electric vehicle, Lincvolt. The saga is chronicled on his 2009 LP Fork in the Road.)
Talkin’ To The Trees is Young’s first album with his new band, the Chrome Hearts, which includes guitarist Micah Nelson, organist Spooner Oldham, bassist Corey McCormick, and drummer Anthony Logerfo. (The band is essentially Promise of the Real minus Lukas Nelson, with Oldham added in.) In January, Young shared the Talkin’ To The Trees album cut “Big Change.”
Neil Young assembled the Chrome Hearts last year after unspecified health matters forced him to call off a tour with Crazy Horse last summer at the halfway point. They played their first show of the year at Light Up The Blues on April 26. The set included not just the live debut of “Let’s Roll Again,” but also the first performance of “Ordinary People” since 1988.
They recorded Talkin’ To The Trees late last year at Shangri-La studios in Malibu, California, with producer Lou Adler. Young’s longtime associate John Hanlon served as the engineer. “In my humble opinion, this is shaping up to be a completely unique and soulfully introspective album of songs,” Hanlon wrote earlier this year on the Neil Young Archives, “that run the gamut from a palette of beautiful acoustic style pastels to in-your-face loud, irreverent rock ‘n roll paint splatter on the canvas in the vein of a Jackson Pollack painting.”
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts kick off a world tour June 18 at Dalhalla, Rättvik, Sweden. The U.S. leg begins August 8 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and wraps up September 15 in Los Angeles.
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