Neil Young and Crazy Horse have released a new song titled “Heading West,” the second offering from their upcoming album Barn.

“Heading West” is a ragged rocker full of overdriven guitar that finds Young looking back wistfully on his childhood. He reflects on the days of walking through town with his wagon in tow, his parents’ divorce and the day his mother got him his first guitar.

Good old days, good old days / Headin’ West to find the good old days / Riding with mommy in her little car,” Young sings. “Sometimes it feels alright / Livin’ in a western town / Mommy got me my first guitar.”

You can listen to the song below.

Young shared some information about “Heading West” on the Neil Young Archives website. “What a great ride with the Horse on this one! Larry Cragg had my guitar sounding so alive,” he wrote. "My mom and I traveled across the country together, heading west. She was on her way back home to start over. I was on my way there with her. Here’s a song about me and my mom, and those ‘growing up’ times. It’s so great to remember her this way!”

Young and Crazy Horse recorded Barn over a handful of days in summer 2021 in a 19th-century log barn. “We are so happy to be back in the barn, a barn built to replicate the 1850s barn that had collapsed in exactly the same place, high in the mountains of Colorado!” he wrote on the NYA in June. The songwriter offered the first taste of his new album earlier this month with “Song of the Seasons.”

Barn, which follows 2019's Colorado, will hit shelves Dec. 10. You can see the track listing below.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse, 'Barn' Track Listing
1. “Song Of The Seasons”
2. “Heading West”
3. “Change Ain’t Never Gonna”
4. “Canerican”
5. “Shape Of You”
6. “They Might Be Lost”
7. “Human Race”
8. “Tumblin’ Thru The Years”
9. “Welcome Back”
10. “Don’t Forget Love”

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Neil Young is one of rock's most brilliant, confounding, defiant and frustrating artists.

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