Old Ways is the 15th studio album by Canadian-American musician and singer-songwriter Neil Young, released on August 12, 1985, on Geffen Records.

He recorded several songs at producer David Briggs' Nashville recording studio House of David with longtime collaborators Ben Keith, Tim Drummond, Karl T. Himmel, Spooner Oldham and Rufus Thibodeaux, who had all previously backed Young on Comes a Time from 1978.

Young describes this first effort in a June 1988 Rolling Stone interview with James Henke: There was a whole other record, the original Old Ways, which Geffen rejected.

The tour included an appearance on the Austin City Limits TV show and would eventually be chronicled on the live album A Treasure in 2011.

Another outtake, "Silver and Gold" also reflects his seeming satisfaction with family life, while "California Sunset" is dedicated to his adopted home.

Young explains how quickly the song came about in a 1985 interview with Adam Sweeting for the Melody Maker: "It only took me a few minutes to write it.

"[9] "Bound for Glory" is a ballad that tells the tale of an affair between a long distance truck driver and a lone hitchhiker.

Young recounts in a 1986 interview with Bill Flanagan: "I wrote that one on a little word processor in the back of my bus while I was rolling.

[11] The partnership with Willie Nelson and Young's delve into the country world would have a lasting impact on the artist's interest in the financial plight of small scale family farmers.

Young, Nelson and John Mellencamp would found the Farm Aid organization, performing benefit concerts almost every year in the subsequent decades.

Young made plans to release an EP to promote the Farm Aid cause, but the idea was rejected by Geffen Records.