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At his age, Neil Young should be kicking back and enjoying the latter years of his life. Hell, Prairie Wind seemed to be the type of record that indicated that this rock icon might be nearing the age where he put away the Crazy Horse-style electric stuff and became mellow Neil. As always, Young confounds us, at least the pre-release buzz seems to indicate so.
I've got more about the upcoming broadside against Bush over at the other site.
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8 comments:
Hey! I thought you'd left! Or was it just a shallow ploy to draw platitudes of love? ;)
Damn! You're on to me!
Actually, I admire Young alot and am happy to see that he hasn't abandoned his electric side, which was always my favorite aspect of his music.
I'm definitely taking a hiatus from regular posting, as I'm feeling a bit burnt out from it and am trying to figure out what my next steps should be as a writer.
Country Mouse highly recommends his current concert movie. I know its doing the rounds of small Maine theaters.
I love Neil Young. And I love Words Matter. Glad you aren't entirely retired (just tired (o: )
Did you see Neil Young's Living With War blog?
http://livingwithwar.blogspot.com/
Timothy,
Thanks for the link.
J
Nice to see this blog is still going (as I suspected it would :)... But not so crazy about the endless praise for Neil Young.
In case anybody forgot... Neil Young supported Ronald Reagan. And he supported George W. Bush's "war on terror" for a while. And he supported the PATRIOT Act. In fact, he said the PATRIOT Act was "necessary."
Does this make him a right-winger? No, not really. In fact, I did some research of a few interviews, in response to a thread on ChuckO's Another Blog Is Possible... And it seems Neil Young doesn't have any real political outlook; he just changes his political views depending on whatever whim strikes him (and probably somewhat on whichever way the wind is blowing at the time).
So, if you like what he's saying now, that's nice. If you don't, wait a little while and he'll say something completely different, especially if the public mood changes again.
Richard,
I would disagree with you about Young's politics. While certainly hard to pin down (which is an anathema in our need to label everything and everybody--it makes it much easier that way), he clearly values the community over the corporate.
His music (which has given me hope for nearly 30 years) speaks to most of our human emotions.
I can certainly take him to task for some of the things he's said, but viewing him through his music, which is all I really have to go by, I'm not surprised by this new record, as I think he's grown increasingly alarmed by the country's direction.
Some of the comments that I've read from others, shows a serious misunderstanding about music distribution. He obviously feels an urgency to get this product out quickly, provided it for free, until he's able to get it into stores.
His previous effort, Greendale, clearly took issue with much that was happening at the time (death of communities, environmental degradation), etc.
I'm sorry Mr. Young doesn't measure up to the ideologically pure standards of some. The issue, to me, is above and beyond political badges and party affiliation.
IMHO, it's becoming more and more about survival and less and less about politics--but we'll just have to wait and see what history brings.
BTW, some of the criticism I've read is about why Young doesn't attack the system (capitalism)is warrantless; I contend he does (and has--listen to "Endless Consumer").
It's easy to criticise--it becomes harder to try to address the issues utilizing whatever small amount of talent and gifts an individual has. Take a look at the fraternity of artists that make up Young's generation; how many of them are still putting out music, let alone anything that's still relevant to anyone younger than 50?
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