Living With War

  The release of Neil Young’s war-protest album, “Living With War,” is old news.  It hit shelves in early May and was received with mixed—and clearly partisan—reviews.  Conservatives and hawks hated it; liberals and doves loved it.  My beef with the album has little to do with the political ideals that produced it.  I think that is lyrically inferior to Young’s earlier work, including last year’s “Prairie Wind,” and musically it appears to be driven by the frustration of “living with war.”  Although I suspect there is more to that frustration.

  Earlier this week, as the nation was celebrating its 230^th birthday, Neil Young’s website opened its doors to a new feature, “Living With War Today.”  The mock newspaper, its motto “All War All The Time,” includes both positive and negative reviews of the album, under the headline “The Great Debate.”  It presents stats on monthly U.S. deaths in Iraq, and total U.S. military deaths in Iraq.  There is a “Timeline Analyzer, developed exclusively for LWWToday,” that tracks coverage of the album on television, radio, and print media alongside events relating to the production of the album.  But perhaps the most telling feature on the site is a section where both aspiring and established artists can submit protest songs and videos for possible inclusion.

  Now back to that frustration that is evident in Young’s guitar playing on “Living With War.”  The timing of the album’s release seemed odd.  It was rushed, as one reviewer said, “like a breaking news bulletin.”  It was written and recorded in less than two weeks.  On April 28, the album began streaming on Internet sites; on May 2, it became available as an internet-only download; on May 8, it hit shelves.  Young’s label, Reprise, fast-tracked it without the usual buck-and-shuffle of pre-release promotion, pitching singles to radio, buying ads in the trade.  Only five weeks passed between the first recording session and the first in-store purchase, entirely unheard-of in the world of record production.  But why the urgency?

  Nothing in particular—no catastrophic world event, no sudden change in approval ratings—happened to precipitate the hastening of the album’s release.  Young, it seemed, was just fed up.  The voice of protest and Young’s are the same, inextricably intertwined for almost 40 years.  It was Young’s voice on Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” a song that, in 1967, announced the arrival of a new generation of protest songs.  The torch had been passed from the folkies, like Bob Dylan and Barry McGuire, to the next generation of rockers.  A few years later, Young penned “Ohio,” which became an anthem of the student anti-war protest.

  The urgency and frustration that can be heard on “Living With War” is, in no small part, Young reaching his tipping point.  Where is the next generation?  To whom can we pass the torch?  And why must a 61-year-old Canadian—recovering from brain aneurysms, no less—be the one to pen these songs?  Young has said that he kept waiting for younger singer-songwriters to begin writing these songs, voicing the frustrations of a generation of Americans upset by the war. 

  The clatter that can be heard between notes on “Living With War” is the sound of Neil Young throwing down the gauntlet.

  See Living With War Today at www.neilyoung.com.

 -From Pulse
   July 6, 2006

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Are The Times A-Changin’?

  Look, I’m not tryin’ to start a fight here.  Lord knows we’ve already got enough of those.  It started out as us against them, and now with elections approaching, it’s us against us.  These days, we’re having to choose sides more often than a schizophrenic during March Madness.  And this year, I’m trying hard not to participate.

  I know it’s irresponsible, but it’s too hard to sort the information from the misinformation, the truth from the propaganda.  I mean, if Dan Rather can’t do it, count me out. 

  But it’s getting harder and harder to avoid these “issues.”  Everything’s an “issue.”  Medicare and tax relief and domestic policy and homeland security and family values.  And “Flip-Flopping.”  Flip-Flopping is an issue.

  It seems like I’m forgetting one. OH!  The war in Vietnam, er, Iraq.  Okay, it’s not Vietnam…yet.  But the way celebrities—actors, actresses, and particularly musicians—are reacting is eerily reminiscent of the 1960s.

  If we look back to the early years of the Vietnam War, popular music was very supportive of the war.  Look no further than “The Ballad of the Green Berets.”  The song was number one on the pop charts for five weeks, a huge hit for SSgt. Barry Sadler (a Green Beret born in Carlsbad, NM).  Then suddenly the tide turned.

  Pop music turned against the war.  Folk music was already speaking out against it.  When it was Dylan and Joan Baez, it was one thing.  But when Edwin Starr and Neil Young and CCR started in, the Nixon Administration started thinking twice.  Could we be seeing that trend again?

  After 9/11, radio was rife with patriotism, from Lee Greenwood and Toby Keith to Springsteen and Billy Joel.  Now it seems safer for artists to speak out against the war.

  Country-Rocker Steve Earle has a new CD out (The Revolution Starts…Now, Artemis Records) that speaks loudly against the war in Iraq.  Rappers like Jadakiss and Wyclef Jean are starting to openly ask questions, in Jada’s “Why?” and Wyclef’s “President.”  And rock artists are coming out en masse against the war.   A Perfect Circle, Drowning Pool, The Strokes, and System of a Down all have released anti-war singles.  And Zack de la Rocha, former frontman for Rage Against The Machine, released a single called “We Want It All,” which I assume is against the war, but I can’t understand a word he screams.

  Some of the classic protest songs are being dusted off again, too.  Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World” was used as the theme to Fahrenheit 9/11, Wilson Phillips have recently covered “Get Together,” and A Perfect Circle just released their version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

  Vote or Die, Choose or Lose, Rock The Vote.  I think that P. Diddy, Michael Moore and MTV can take a break.  Everyone else, it seems, is doing their job for them.

  As for me, I’m just going to lay low for the next two weeks, try to avoid the issues, and wait for the release of  U2’s new CD, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. 

                                                                                                            -From Pulse

                                                                                                              October 14, 2004

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