Neil Young to the rescue

April 14, 2006

Neil Young has a new song coming out; I think you might like it. It’s called “Impeach the President.” (Thanks to Ed for the heads-up.)

Apparently it was recorded with a 100-voice choir. Rumors have circulated the past few days on the Web, but E&P has tracked down the strongest confirmation in a blog kept by Sherman Oaks, Ca. musician/singer Alicia Morgan.

Previous reports quoted hints by Young and Jonathan Demme (who directed the new documentary “Heart of Gold”) that Neil was working on a hard-rocking political or “anti-Bush” CD.

Last Friday, Morgan wrote on her LastLeftB4Hooterville blog that she had been “summoned” to a local studio to sing on the new record with 99 others. “I’m not going to give the whole thing away, but the first line of one of the songs was ‘Let’s impeach the President for lyin’!’ Turns out the whole thing is a classic beautiful protest record. The session was like being at a 12-hour peace rally. Every time new lyrics would come up on the screen, there were cheers, tears and applause. It was a spiritual experience. I can’t believe my good fortune at being a part of this.”

The new album is reportedly going to be called “Living With War,” described by Demme as “a brilliant electric assault” that should be in stores soon. Harp magazine also reported:

“Details are pretty scarce, but the featured track, titled ‘Impeach the President,’ features a rap with Bush’s voice set to the choir chanting ‘flip/flop’ and the like.”

Sounds like something to look forward to.

I’d add, by the way, that I’m glad to see that politically-relevant music still exists. Green Day’s video in support of “Wake Me Up When September Comes” was a powerful statement on the war. Eminem’s “Mosh” in 2004 captured the idea of voting (against Bush) as an act of rage. The Rolling Stones’ “Sweet Neo Con” is about, well, you can probably guess.

The more of this, the better.

Eminems song is stil the best to date if you ask me. But it’s good to hear that good old Neil is still doing what he should do. Now I wonder when Dylan releases his next protestsong…

  • Word up, CB. Neil Young has been a personal hero of mine since the day I learned to use a record player. I love his music, but beyond that, I love that he has managed to stay true to who he is in an industry which doesn’t always reward such integrity. He’s been making politically relevant music for 40+ years, and it’s heartening to see that he has some company. Green Day’s “American Idiot” is a brilliant snapshot of what it must be like to be coming of age in BushWorld – and it’s great ear candy as well. Sometimes horrible leadership inpsires great art.

    Keep on rockin’ in the free world!

  • I was complaining to someone just a few weeks ago about the lack of anti-war music (what we used call part of “folk music” back in the early ’60s) and was informed by someone much younger than I that anti-war music has been around since the beginning of the Iraq quagmire, just that I haven’t been listening to it.

    It’s no longer found in popular (or “folk”) music; it’s in “rap”. Unfortunately, all I know of rap is ganstas ‘n’ ‘ho’s, which I find repellant, so if there has been any anti-war or anti-Bush stuff out there I haven’t been aware of it and probably wouldn’t want to be. And even if I were, I’d be incapable of reproducing it (as I used to, playing guitar in San Francisco in the early ’60s and Eugene OR in the late ’60s).

    I think I mentioned a while back a terrific country-western anti-war song – “Takin’ my Country Back”. I’d hate to think we’ve become so fragmented cutlurally that our common opposition to Bush and his “war” can’t be expressed with one voice. But I guess with the “Ipod-ization” of American that’s probably to be expected. It’s a shame really.

  • Ed: if you want to hear some good rappers: try Nas and Kanye West. They’re both into more than just ho’s and gangsters.

  • I’m glad all of this is coming out, but much of the new stuff lacks the subtlety and imagery of the old protest songs.

    I guess in a way, it’s nice to live in a society that’ll allow a song titled “Impeach the President” but a part of me would rather hear a song about the jester who became king and quit making people laugh.

  • Don’t forget the Dixie Chicks’ new song. Not exactly anti Bu$h or anti war but rather anti rightwing push back and propaganda.

  • More please. We need more protest songs. Something has changed in me this week. I became a Impeach the Mother Fucker Already convert.(ITMFA.com) What did it? Iran. Bush can’t build coalitions to deal with anyone to deal with Iran. He has no credibility, no authority. He can only make things worse, not better.

    If we’re going to grow a movement to get him the fuck out of office we need a damn theme song.

  • Perhaps our pop culture can lead us where the quakey shakey dems cannot.
    There are recent massive protests for the immigrant rights, but the streets are strangely silent of protest against the deterioration of our government, security, and way of life under Bush.
    I’m gonna buy the album no matter what it sounds like… just to send a message.

    Hey Hey !
    Ho Ho !
    Bush and Cheney have got to go.

  • I saw John Cougar, or is it John Mellancamp now, at Neal Young’s annual Bridge School Benefit last October, and he had two very political anti-bush songs. One was called the Texas Bandito, and was really good. I don’t know if it is out on record, but I wish it would get played on the radio.

  • “They’re pointing out the enemy,
    To keep you deaf and blind,
    They want to sap your energy,
    Incarcerate your mind”

    -Dire Straits, “Industrial Disease”

    I would have included lines from Fear’s “Let’s Have a War”, but this is a family webiste

  • I doubt it will get the airplay in today’s media culture. Back when Young wrote his scathing ‘Ohio’, AM radio pretty much managed to keep it off it’s air. At that time, FM was fairly renegade, so it got plenty of play there. Today’s FM is very much like the AM radio of that day. Safe, corporate approved play lists are the rule. I hope I’m wrong and that Young’s position in the industry will get it through, but I don’t think I can hold my breath that long.

    Ohio
    lyrics by Neil Young
    ——–

    Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
    We’re finally on our own.
    This summer I hear the drumming,
    Four dead in Ohio.

    Gotta get down to it
    Soldiers are gunning us down
    Should have been done long ago.
    What if you knew her
    And found her dead on the ground
    How can you run when you know?

    Gotta get down to it
    Soldiers are gunning us down
    Should have been done long ago.
    What if you knew her
    And found her dead on the ground
    How can you run when you know?

    Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
    We’re finally on our own.
    This summer I hear the drumming,
    Four dead in Ohio.

  • Don’t anyone overlook James McMurtry’s brilliant, venomous “We Can’t Make It here Anymore” from his recent LP Childish Things. Eight minutes of incendiary indictments of the ways things are and who’s to blame. Lyrics and music samples are widely available on the web, check it out brothers and sisters!

  • Coincidentally, I just picked up this week’s (Apr 17) issue of the New Yorker (arrived yesterday – the one with the lead article on Bush’s plan for attacking Iran, by Seymour M. Hersh). In it there’s a long “Profiles” article (unfortunately not online – I checked) about … Pete Seeger of all people, the man who did more to introduce America to protest music and folksinging than anyone I can think of. It’s entitled “The Protest Singer: Pete Seeger and American Folk Music” (pp. 44-53). According to that article Bruce Springstein is coming out Apr 25 with an album. “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions”. Pick it up for a real treat.

  • Neil Young is an odd one to figure out politically: He liked Reagan, disliked Clinton and Gore … so I figured he’d like W., especially after his “Let’s Roll” song. But this will be the second political “anti-Bush” album he’s done (the first one was Greendale). I doubt this will get any airplay, but it’s nice to see the crusty old guys coming around.

  • While I appreciate the old guard like Young coming around, I really have to hand it to Green Day. Before popular opinion had totally turned, they went all-in on an album that not only was musically and comercially successful, but includes two of the best “protest” songs (and that isn’t even counting Wake Me Up, which is a sappy song with a protest video).

    The song “American Idiot,” as gypsy moth noted above, is just dead on about the things we complain about here day after day – corporate media, fact manipulation through fear, etc.

    The song “Holiday,” which I dont like as well as a song, is one of the most politically hard-hitting songs I think has ever become a hit on the charts. (Sadly, most people likely dont pay as much attention to the lyrics as I would want to believe).

    “Holiday” by Green Day, from “American Idiot”
    _________________________________________________

    Say, Hey!

    Hear the sound of the falling rain
    Coming down like an Armageddon flame (Hey!)
    The shame
    The ones who died without a name

    Hear the dogs howling out of key
    To a hymn called “Faith and Misery” (Hey!)
    And bleed, the company lost the war today

    I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
    This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
    On holiday

    Hear the drum pounding out of time
    Another protestor has crossed the line (Hey!)
    To find, the money’s on the other side

    Can I get another Amen? (Amen!)
    There’s a flag wrapped around a score of men (Hey!)
    A gag, a plastic bag on a monument

    I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
    This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
    On holiday

    (Hey!)
    (Say, Hey!)

    “The representative from California has the floor”

    Zieg Heil to the president gasman
    Bombs away is your punishment
    Pulverize the Eiffel towers
    Who criticize your government
    Bang bang goes the broken glass and
    Kill all the fags that don’t agree
    Trials by fire, setting fire
    Is not a way that’s meant for me
    Just cause, just cause, because we’re outlaws yeah!

    I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
    This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
    I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
    This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

    This is our lives on holiday

  • Hey Zeitgeist,

    I was referring to the entire album (can you still say “album”?) as being a brilliant take on being young and American in the 21st century, not just the title track. “Holiday” is a GREAT song and the lyrics perfectly capture the essence of life during the reign of W. “This is our lives on holiday” indeed!

    I wish, as you do, that everyone who finds it catchy would absorb the meaning. But maybe if they buy the CD and keep listening, it will sink in. We can only hope. Thanks for printing the lyrics – I’ll be humming it for the rest of the day!

  • but a part of me would rather hear a song about the jester who became king and quit making people laugh

    Bye, bye, Miss American subtlety.

  • You all must listen to Pearl Jam’s Bushleager on their Riot Act album. It’s a great song about W. I just hope Eddie Vedder was part of the 100 person choir.

  • Number 1 with a bullet on rock radio:

    “World Wide Suicide” by Pearl Jam. Album out next month !

    Bush’s lies about lies are catching up with him.

  • John Lennon would be right in the mix of this if he were around today.
    sorta suprised Paul hasn’t chimed in

  • The song title is “Wake Me Up When September Ends”.

    Makes more sense that way, yes?

  • Don’t forget John Fogarty’s “Deja Vu (all over again)”

    Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio
    Did you try to read the writing on the wall
    Did that voice inside you say I’ve heard it all before
    It’s like Deja Vu all over again

    Day by day I hear the voices rising
    Started with a whisper like it did before
    Day by day we count the dead and dying
    Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score

    One by one I see the old ghosts rising
    Stumblin’ ‘cross Big Muddy
    Where the light gets dim
    Day after day another Momma’s crying
    She’s lost her precious child
    To a war that has no end

    Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio
    Did you stop to read the writing at The Wall
    Did that voice inside you say
    I’ve seen this all before
    It’s like Deja Vu all over again
    It’s like Deja Vu all over again

  • I hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern (An American) Man don’t need him around anyhow.

    Go back to Canada you dopey, pot smoking, over-aged hippie. Nobody needs your mindless crap.

  • Another sample of great protest song by Jackson Browne. Interesting that it came out in 1990, but very relevent for today. Wouldn’t you agree?

    “…And there’s a shadow on the faces
    Of the men who send the guns
    To the wars that are fought in places
    Where their business interest runs

    They sell us the president the same way
    They sell us our clothes and our cars
    They sell us every thing from youth to religion
    The same time they sell us our wars
    I want to know who the men in the shadows are
    I want to hear somebody asking them why
    They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
    But they’re never the ones to fight or to die
    And there are lives in the balance
    There are people under fire
    There are children at the cannons
    And there is blood on the wire”

  • Joe W said:

    “I doubt it will get the airplay in today’s media culture. Back when Young wrote his scathing ‘Ohio’, AM radio pretty much managed to keep it off it’s air. At that time, FM was fairly renegade, so it got plenty of play there. Today’s FM is very much like the AM radio of that day. Safe, corporate approved play lists are the rule. I hope I’m wrong and that Young’s position in the industry will get it through, but I don’t think I can hold my breath that long.”

    You are right, that this is mostly the case with classic rock radio today. But Neil’s 2002 release, “Let’s Roll” about the heroes of Flight 93 on 9/11 got a lot of airplay, at least on the classic rock station in New York City, Q104 at 104.3. They claim to be the largest classic rock network in the world, so if they play the new Neil song (and I think they will), it might be heard by a lot of people. And that’s the good part.

  • You got a love Neil. Loved his last album can’t wait for the next. Hope goes on tour! Bush is all about lies and deception. With out a doubt the oworst presidetn ever in the history of the US.

  • So Neil Young has decided to put out some “protest” music. Hopefully it’s better than the crap he’s been releasing for the last two decades. Mr. Young has also announced that he’s addicted to pot, thus making him a victim. And explaining why his music has been getting progressively worse since 1979. Hey Neil, you’ve never liked the ‘ol USA, but you sure do like our American Greenbacks. Shut up and try and write another Harvest album with what little brain cells you have left.

  • Neil Young, Have You Forgotten?

    The Neil Young fan who wrote this song last year, after Neil Young’s father passed away:

    Father’s Day Song of Sympathy for Neil Young
    words and music by Dr. BLT (c)2006 Broken Records
    http://www.drblt.com/music/FathersDayYoung.mp3

    swears he’ll never take back those words, but he has officially offered an objection to Neil’s latest effort and has protested his protest with this song:

    Neil Young (Have You Forgotten)
    words and music by Dr. BLT (c)2006 Broken Records
    http://www.drblt.com/music/neilyoung.mp3

    bonus tracks:

    United 93
    words and music by Dr. BLT (c)2006 Broken Records
    http://www.drblt.com/music/unitedninetythree.mp3

    Let’s Roll (written, recorded and aired prior to Neil Young’s Let’s Roll)
    words and music by Dr. BLT (c)2006 Broken Records
    http://www.drblt.com/music/LetsRoll.mp3

    For more information, reply to this email

    http://www.drblt.com

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