Face The Music

In offices on opposite coasts, we listened to Neil Young's powerful message, Living With War. While Jon Iverson composed his review, I came up with this.

Living With War
Reprise

The impact is shaking my computer screen. If I could stop my feet from stomping so hard, itd be a little bit easier to type. If my fingers weren't at these keys, my fist would be in the air. And my fingers are only at these keys because I feel so compelled to follow Neil Young's lead and shout out, happily, in this way:

Let's impeach the President for lyin'!

Have you seen the CNN interview? The interviewer asks a simple question: "You've got one song that's called 'Let's Impeach the President.' What is this song about?"

She couldn't have made it easier for Neil Young: "Well, it's a song that pretty well follows the title, just with a bunch of reasons. It's a long song."

Clearly, Neil Young felt he had a lot to say. He wanted to make his points obvious — as JI notes, the album has no hidden metaphors, no double meanings — and he wanted to waste no time about it. After all, we've already had five years of Bush Co., five years of living with war. So, just seven months after the release of Prairie Wind Neil Young is back, but this time, he's brought triumphant trumpets, wonderfully messy drums, recklessly strummed guitars, and a 100&#150voice choir.

There's some straight&#150up Crazy Horse madness here. In "Reckless Consumer," Young sounds as angry as he did when he addressed some other southern man, only now, "bullwhips cracking" have been replaced by this "Madison Avenue War."

Young charges forward, taking the fight right to his opponent's home turf, shooting out Texas&#150styled blues riffs and Latin&#150flavored brass, before ending with a hopeful rendition of "America the Beautiful," making his point — "America is beautiful, but she has an ugly side" — both loud and clear.