Songfacts®:

• "Ordinary People" is a tribute, of over 18 minutes in length, to the common man who are struggling with everyday issues such as drugs, crime and paying their taxes. Though never released, it became the centerpiece of many of Young's shows in the late '80s and the song has gone down in rock folklore.
• Neil Young told the October 4, 2007 Guardian newspaper: "I think its time has come. People may have been distracted 20 years ago with the fact that I was doing a song with horns. Some people were upset with me. So I didn't want to have to fight that battle and release the song. It was such a powerful record that it overtook everything that I put it with."
• The original Chrome Dreams was an unreleased collection of songs mostly recorded between September '75 - November 1976 at Indigo Studios in Malibu Canyon, California. In the same Guardian newspaper article, Young said that Chrome Dreams II takes its inspiration from the original Chrome Dreams album. "Chrome Dreams represents a kind of record that I like to make where there's a lot of different kinds of music," he said. "I used to make those records all the time in the '70s. Every record that I made had acoustic and electric songs on it. And then things changed in the '80s and in the '90s. The records became focused more on one kind of music. And the radio stations have everything separated, so I made records like that for a while. Chrome Dreams II draws on the past."
• Neil Young recorded his album at a garage studio in Redwood City, California, which features vintage gas pumps on the forecourt.
• In an interview with Gibson, Young said that "Some early listeners have said that this album is positive and spiritual. I like to think it focuses on the human condition. Like many of my recordings, this one draws on earlier material here and there. I used to do that a lot back in the day. Some songs, like 'Ordinary People,' need to wait for the right time. I think now is the right time for that song and it lives well with the new songs I have written in the past few months."
• Neil Young performed "Ordinary People" on April 26, 2025, at the Autism Speaks Light Up The Blues concert at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre, marking the song's first live rendition in 36 years. Young hadn't played the epic song live since the late 1980s, despite releasing it on his 2007 album Chrome Dreams.