fragment played during 2020-04-10 Fireside Session #3; mentioned in 2021-12-15 Howard Stern Interview; written before Barn, but forgotten

xx: When you are walking and writing, what are you writing on? NY: Oh yeah, I wrote it on a piece of paper while I was walking. xx: That's very analog. NY: That's one song. That's called Break The Chain. "When I'm walking and I take a deep breath, It's like I'm dancing, Am I dancing with death?" It's the COVID mindset song where you go - What happened? What am I doing? Neil Young Break The Chain music video October 20, 2022

NY: I've got this new song I'm working on. [Plays and sings] "Break the chain, break the chain, break the chain". That's all I got. HS: When you say that's all you got, you said you like repetition, "break the chain, break the chain, break the chain" ... NY: You see it works. You've got it, you've got that little note in it. There's something there. So I know I have that. I can hang the whole thing on that . NY: But I did it while I was walking before the pandemic. The pandemic had just started and Daryl and I were out for a walk. And I'm walking through another area where there's beautiful grass and alpine aspen trees. And I'm walking step by step and I'm singing this song to myself saying "break the chain". And then all the words start coming and I'm copying them in a little piece of paper in my pocket. And I do this whole thing and it was a couple of months before we even about the barn or anything like that. It's about the pandemic and it's about COVID and it's about the bug and don't give it a place to hide. So I finished it. I wrote it all down and then I forgot it. So I found the paper maybe two months ago. So when we did Barn I didn't remember it. So I'm going to do that maybe in the next album. Neil Young Howard Stern Interview December 15, 2021