It's been 13 years since Neil Young last made the same kind of record twice. His creative streak continues with "Old Ways," a twangy Nashville album that follows on the heels of 's "Everybody's Rockin," an upbeat if self-conscious pseudo-fifties revival; 's "Trans," the sonic and artistic equivalent of being flushed down a mainframe computer; and "Re-Ac-Tor" , a gritty, post-punk effort. No, Young is certainly not doing what he did last year, or the year before, or even the year before that. And he's found the right people to do it with: those old outlaws, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, are on hand for several duets.

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The song is about a sad tale of a lover who became the next of kin to the restless wandering wayward wind. The other lover lived in a shack by the railroad track in their younger days; however, the lover hoped to settle down with the other, but, resumed to keep on wandering, leaving the lover alone with a broken heart. The song reached No.
Just a terrible, silly, and unwarranted interpretation; corny. Is it meant to be offensive and derogatory to real Confederates, by this leftist Canadian? It is not even "Neil" at all, musically.
In , Geffen Records sued Neil Young on the grounds that he had submitted uncharacteristic, uncommercial records to the label. By the time a settlement had been reached, Young had been on the road with a country band called the International Harvesters for over a year and recorded a revamped version of Old Ways , a recording originally rejected by Geffen that was cut in the style of Harvest and Comes a Time , but with a stronger country leaning. Young depends heavily on friends, especially for vocals -- Waylon Jennings sings harmony on six out of the ten tracks, and one of the others is a duet with Willie Nelson. Though populated by cowboys and country references, Young 's take on the genre is typically idiosyncratic, including a reworked version of his autobiography in "Get Back to the Country," a cover of the Gogi Grant hit "The Wayward Wind," and the uncategorizable "Misfits," which portrays astronauts watching Muhammad Ali fights on television in space. Old Ways is not a great Neil Young album and at the time of its release served to alienate him even further from his audience, but it has its moments. AllMusic relies heavily on JavaScript.