God Bless Neil Young
But why does it take a 60 year old Canadian musician to generate political activism in America?
Steve Watson / Prisonplanet | April 22 2006
As an avid Neil Young fan of a few years now I am so happy to see him take an important stance against the criminal NeoCons in the White House and the illegal activities they are perpetrating at home and elsewhere.
Known for his straight talking, confessional lyrical style, Young will hold back nothing on hastily penned new album "living with war" which will be an all out assault on the Bush crime syndicate.
It seems that Young has woken up from his slumber and realised that the unconscionable actions of the criminal elite must be addressed and not simply sugar coated and quietly accepted as part of a "post 9/11 mentality".
The centerpiece of the album is surely the song entitled "Let's impeach the president". No one else within the music industry has had the guts to pen such a brazen personal attack on Bush and the Neocons.
Young 's words here are savage and blatant and he should be commended. Furthermore, there is certainly no feeling of phony leftism about the lyrics, a charge that has been leveled against many other protest songs that have come before.
Let's impeach the president for lying
Misleading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
The song goes on to address the Regime's criminality, spying, the mess they made of post-Katrina New Orleans, hijacking "our religion" for partisan purposes, as well as how they have used divisiveness and racism to further their political agenda. Young backs up his lyrics with Bush's own words, turning his inspid/Orwellian diatribe on tape against him as the song is transformed from a hard rocker into a soaring gospel inspirational.
"You're always going to rub somebody the wrong way when you sing 'let's impeach the president,' " Young said. "But that's what this country's all about — being able to express your views."
In response to the frighteningly routine, ridiculous and ignorant accusations that Young is being "unpatriotic", he responded:
"We don't all have to believe in what our President believes in order to be Patriotic."
Neil Young is a guy who, like many, was sucked into the phony patriotism after 9/11, rallying around Bush and speaking out in favour of the PATRIOT act.
Yet his abrupt about face without fear of re-crimination is admirable given that many others within the entertainment industry have not dared to speak out at all.
Furthermore, other celebrities that have spoken out , seem to be stuck firmly within the false left/right paradigm and their words tend to be cliched and cringe worthy.Take Madonna for example, who warned us all that "9/11 was ambiguous" yet government involvement could not be proven, reinforcing the hollow limited hangout of the impotent left-wing Michael Moore school of whitewashing. She is a celebrity who clearly only thinks in terms of her image.
Young on the other hand cares less about his own image and record sales and more about freedom in America. Yes he has flip flopped politically all his career, ranging from protesting against Nixon in the 70s to staunchly supporting Regan in the 80s, but always with the notion that freedom in America is sacred.
"Shock And Awe" is another lyrically powerful song on the record. As Howie Klein of the "Down with Tyranny" blog suggests, let's hope that the mentality that inspired Young's "Shock and Awe" will be remembered long beyond the mentality that inspired Bush's shock and awe.
Back in the days of shock and awe
We came to liberate them all
History was the cruel judge of overconfidence
Back in the days of shock and awe.
Our "chief" was landing on the deck
The sun was setting on a golden photo op
Back in the days of "mission accomplished"
Thousands of bodies in the ground
Brought home in boxes to a trumpet's sound
no one sees them coming home that way
thousands buried in the ground
Thousands of children scarred for life
Millions of tears for a soldier's wife
Both sides are losing now...
Although Neil Young's words are moving and poignant, one must ask why is it that it is a 60 year old Canadian that is having to remind us America is being destroyed by our so called leaders?
Why must we rely on someone like Young in order to inspire some kind of political activism in America today?
Young himself has said "I was waiting for someone to come along, some young singer 18 to 22 years old, to write these songs and stand up ...I waited a long time. Then, I decided that maybe the generation that has to do this is still the '60s generation."
What is wrong with the youth of today? Is this indicative of the fact that kids today do not even understand what freedom is supposed to be?
Have the Orwellian attempts of the Neocons to transform the meaning of "freedom" into "slavery", with terms such as "PATRIOT act", "Mission accomplished" and "New freedom", begun to succeed?
I am 26 years old, I am in the prime of my life, and to see the generation after mine systematically ignoring and dismissing everything I have grown up knowing is cherished and sacred is very scary.
God bless him, but what are we going to do in another generation's time when artists like Neil Young and others in the limelight are no longer here to remind us just what America and freedom is supposed to be?
Neil Young's protest album heads to Internet first
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Neil Young's newly recorded protest album "Living With War," including a song calling for the impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush, will be posted for free Internet streaming next week, his label said on Friday.
Starting April 28, fans can log onto Young's Web site, www.neilyoung.com, and listen to the 10-track collection in its entirety, free of charge, said Bill Bentley, a spokesman for Warner Music Group's Reprise Records.
The album will first become commercially available as a digital download beginning May 2, "and we plan to get it into retail stores as soon after that as we can get them manufactured," Bentley said.
He said the label anticipates getting the album into retail outlets between May 5 and May 15. "Neil wants this album out there as soon as possible," Bentley added.
The Canadian-born Young, 60, who has tackled social and political themes through four decades as a singer-songwriter, wrote and recorded his latest studio offering over a two-week period this month, backed by a 100-member choir, according to his long-time manager, Elliot Roberts.
Much of the album conveys a sense of outrage, vowing repeatedly in the title track "to never kill again," mocking Bush's conduct of the Iraq war in "Shock and Awe" and calling for his removal from office in a provocative song titled "Let's Impeach the President."
The album also strikes a chord of empathy with soldiers separated from their families, and features lyrics ridiculing America's consumer culture, political corruption and religious fundamentalism.
Juxtaposed to "Let's Impeach the President" is one of the album's more hopeful selections, "Lookin' for a Leader," with such lyrics as: "Someone walks among us ... and I hope he hears the call. And maybe it's a woman, or a black man after all."
The album closes with an a capella version of "America the Beautiful."
Young, who voiced support for Bush's efforts to expand law-enforcement powers in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, acknowledged in published remarks on Friday the provocative nature of his latest work.
"You're always going to rub someone the wrong way when you sing, 'let's impeach the president,'" he told the Los Angeles Times. "But that's what this country's all about -- being able to express your views."
Young's new set comes just seven months after the release of his last album, "Prairie Wind," which has sold about 450,000 U.S. copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
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