I grew up reading comic books wanting to be a superhero. Comics taught me that those who speak the truth are heroes, all the rest are liars.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Neil Young: Living with War

Neil Young has always been a maverick politically as well as musically. Although he has recorded a few songs that drew cheers from liberals, such as "Ohio" and "Southern Man," he also drew criticism from the left for pro-Reagan comments many years ago.

Now Neil Young is weighing in with a soon-to-be-released album that urges, “Let’s impeach the president -- for lying.” featuring a rap with Bu$h’s voice set to the choir chanting “flip/flop” and the like. more here and here.

According to film director (heart of gold) Jonathan Demme at JamBase,

It is a brilliant electric assault, accompanied by a 100-voice choir, on Bush and the war in Iraq... Truly mind blowing."

From Howie Klein's blog DownWithTyranny!: "
"The album, with Young on Old Black, Rick Rosas on bass and Chad Cromwell on drums, took three days to finish."
Howie is a personal favorite of mine and former president of Reprise Records and life long committment to being a hippie. I highly recommend you visit his blog for more information. Also visit the newly minted blog: Living with War.
  • Track 1: After the Garden, and first lines of the album: Won't need no shadow man Runnin' the government
  • Track 2: Living with War has a take out with the Star Spangled Banner towards the end that is a chilling reminder that this is our country, not just Bush's and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's and the reactionaries' who are behind the immensely unpopular and tottering, incompetent regime.
  • Track 3: The Restless Consumer starts out dark and ominous but blends in Neil's always positive message of optimism.
  • Track 4 : Shock And Awe but Neil doesn't have Bu$hCo's planes and tanks and bombs. He has words and music and, ultimately, his "Shock and Awe" will be long remembered after Bu$h's shock and awe are nothing but an unfortunate footnote in history books. Neil wrote on his website, "I think it is a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan... metal folk protest?" has a lot to do with this song. There's even a shout out to Dylan in the lyrics!
  • Track 5: Let's Impeach the President was like he could read my mind! This song really lays it on the line, the one all his accumulated moral authority allows him to write. Let's impeach the president for lying and misleading our country into war, for abusing all the power that we gave him, and shipping all our money out the door.
  • Track 6: Lookin' For A Leader, which is forward looking and has the musical potential to be a single. It's a song crying out to "re-unite the red, white and blue," and to "clean up the corruption." Neil sings that "We're lookin' for a leader/With the Great Spirit on his side." He even includes an interesting couple of shout outs to Colin Powell and to Barack Obama, with whom he spent some time at Farm Aid.
  • Track 7: Roger and Out ends the album with a song about somebody's buddy who went to Iraq. It goes into a stirring rendition of "America the Beautiful" sung by a 100 piece choir.

Look I know I'm sounding like a rabid fan... but I'm also speaking as someone in need of more protest song escapes from this current administration. It won't be long before the wingnuts attack Neil for using his genuis for song. To that I say...thank g*d and may many more artisit, musicans, and poets follow in Neil's footsteps.

YouTube - Living With War - Neil Young Interview

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