Neil Young Drops Three Versions of Activism Anthem ‘Who’s Gonna Stand Up?’
During Neil Young‘s recent tour, the rocker and Crazy Horse have been road-testing a new track titled “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?,” an environmental activism anthem that Young has since used to lend support to the anti-lobbyist documentary Under the Influence, Farm Aid and the People’s Climate March in New York.
In fact, Young feels so strongly about the song and its message that he has unveiled three different versions of “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?”: The live Crazy Horse rendition, a solo acoustic take and a mammoth orchestral interpretation that’s backed by a 92-piece symphony and choir. The latter version will most likely appear on Young’s upcoming LP Storeytone, which the rocker revealed will be released in November.
“Take out the dams / stand up to oil / protect the plants and renew the soil / who’s gonna stand up and save the Earth?,” Young and his 30-person choir sing on the orchestral take, which carries the weight of a battle cry. “End fracking now / let’s save the water / and build a life for our sons and daughters.” This version of “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?” was arranged by Christopher Walden and recorded live with no overdubs, Young’s website states.
Storeytone will be the Godfather of Grunge’s second LP of 2014 following A Letter Home, a covers album that showcased Young recording in a refurbished Voice-o-Graph recording booth at Jack White’s Third Man Studios. Young promises to reveal more Storeytone details soon, but he did hint what he had in store for his latest record. “I’d like to make a record with a full-blown orchestra, live — a mono recording with one mic,” Young told Billboard earlier this year. “I want to do something like that where we really record what happened, with one point of view and the musicians moved closer and farther away, the way it was done in the past. To me that’s a challenge and it’s a sound that’s unbelievable, and you can’t get it any other way.”