Neil Young Recycles A Line From Long May You Run for Casting Me Away From You

Neil Young’s newly recorded “Casting Me Away From You” reveals a direct lyrical connection to “Long May You Run”, with a line written when Young was a teenager resurfacing 11 years later.

by Paul Cashmere

Neil Young has revisited a song he wrote and recorded as a teenager, but the new version of “Casting Me Away From You” also draws attention to a remarkable piece of songwriting continuity in his catalogue. The line “we found things to do in stormy weather”, written in 1965, was later used in “Long May You Run”, the 1976 song Young recorded with Stephen Stills as part of the Stills-Young Band.

The composition originated during Young’s teenage years in Toronto and survived in his repertoire for decades, with its melody and lyrics subsequently resurfacing elsewhere in his work. “‘Casting Me Away From You’ is one of my early songs, Neil Young said. “I wrote it in 64 or 65. When we recorded our ‘Second Song’ album early this year, I only had the 5 new songs, including some long ones. I recorded 4 of those songs in the first day! We needed more.

“Then the next morning ‘Casting Me Away’ came to me from the deep past and I sang it for the ‘Second Song’ album with the Chrome Hearts that same day, along with Second Song. There is an old recording of it with my school-mate Comrie Smith in the archives. We were playing it in his attic. As soon as I picked up my guitar, I remembered it.

“In the early 70s, soon after I moved to Broken Arrow Ranch, David Meyers, the great cinematographer, jumped on the back of my old Jeepster I had driven to the ranch from LA when I moved there, and we took a ride across Broken Arrow in it. That was 20 years or so before Rick Rosas shot the trip across the ranch that is now the ‘Second Song’ video.”

Young recorded “Casting Me Away From You” with his high school friend Comrie Smith at 26 Golfdale in Toronto on October 15, 1965. Young and Smith performed guitar and vocals on the intimate recording, which remained unreleased for 44 years before appearing on Neil Young Archives Vol. I (1963-1972) in 2009.

The song itself is a direct expression of romantic rejection. Young sings from the perspective of someone struggling with a relationship ending, moving between denial, hurt and the hope that the person leaving might eventually return. Within that early composition sits the “stormy weather” line that would later be transferred into “Long May You Run”.

The reuse is particularly notable because “Long May You Run” has a completely different subject. Young wrote the 1976 song about his 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse, known as Mort or Mortimer Hearseburg. The song became the title track of the Stills-Young Band album Long May You Run, released during the brief collaboration between Young and Stephen Stills.

Young’s recycling of musical material extends beyond that single lyric. The melody of “Casting Me Away From You” was subsequently repurposed for “The Emperor of Wyoming”, the instrumental that opens Young’s 1968 self-titled solo album.

The chronology also illustrates how Young’s earliest songwriting ideas remained available to him long after they were written. “Casting Me Away From You” was not publicly heard when Young first recorded it with Smith. Its eventual appearance on the 2009 Archives collection established the recording as part of Young’s documented early history, while the later appearance of its lyric in “Long May You Run” shows that elements of the song had already found another life in his catalogue.

The 2026 recording gives the composition another chapter. Young has re-recorded “Casting Me Away From You” with The Chrome Hearts for Second Song, a seven-track semi-acoustic album scheduled for September 18, 2026. The new band version features Young on vocals and acoustic guitar, with Anthony LoGerfo on drums, Corey McCormick on bass, Micah Nelson on electric guitar and Spooner Oldham on Farfisa organ.

Second Song also includes a second archival composition, “I’ll Love You Forever”, another song originating from Young’s youth. Unlike “Casting Me Away From You”, that recording was made with The Squires at CJLX in Fort William, Ontario, on November 23, 1964. The original mono recording was subsequently issued through Young’s archival programme.

The return to teenage material is therefore central to Second Song, but “Casting Me Away From You” carries an additional historical thread. A lyric first written in the context of teenage heartbreak was later incorporated into a song about a much-loved automobile, and now the original composition has been rebuilt more than six decades after it was written.

For Young, the process also demonstrates the depth of a catalogue in which songs, melodies and fragments can remain dormant before being repurposed. “Casting Me Away From You” now exists in three distinct historical contexts: the 1965 recording with Comrie Smith, its archival release in 2009, and the 2026 Chrome Hearts re-recording.

Second Song is scheduled for release on September 18, 2026. “Casting Me Away From You” provides one of its clearest links between Young’s teenage songwriting and his present-day work, while the reused lyric offers a rare glimpse into how an idea can travel through an artist’s catalogue across more than 60 years.

Tracklisting
The Foggy Edge Of Time
Day After Day
Earth Girl
Second Song
Casting Me Away From You
Soon I Might Be Going
I’ll Love You Forever