Neil Young's LIVING WITH WAR

[SFBill]

Hello all
Neil Young has released an incredible album
give it a free listen!

http://livingwithwar.blogspot.com/

[DaveM]

Plenty of righteous anger there, and more power to him. I'm looking for a copy of the album already....

[SFBill]

Plenty of righteous anger there, and more power to him. I'm looking for a copy of the album already....

Hi Dave
righteous anger is right---glad you connected with it, too

this album gives me goosebumps and hope.

its on sale at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI9OSG/sr=8-1/qid=1147432115/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-3190454-0062239?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[DaveM]

Cheapskate that I am, I have been hoping it will turn up at the local Target, as I have a gift certificate that would cover the cost. Not sure if it's going to happen, though....

[DaveM]

I found that album, and it's great....shades of the classic electrified Neil Young, my only (minor) gripe being the choral rendition of "America The Beautiful" which concludes the album, suggesting that perhaps Neil was a bit short on new songs.

To paraphrase another reviewer, the question most in my mind on listening to this was not why Neil Young is so angry, but why, in present circumstances, the rest of us are not.

[pulmike]

Bought a copy at Hastings Friday. Nice work Mr. Young.

[SFBill]

Neil Young's album was reviewed today in the SF Chronicle.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/14/PKGNSGU6021.DTL

My favorite line from the review reminds me of Janis!

This album -- written and recorded in a blistering nine days -- is a testament to the musician's unruly muse and his sense of the enormous responsibility of an artist to sound an alarm when things are going so morally and politically awry.

:)

[Dee]

Dubya’s faults, as catalogued by Young:

(1) He’s close-minded: “Don’t need no terror squad / Don’t want no damned jihad / Blowin’ themselves away in my hood / But we don’t talk to them / So we don’t learn from them / Hate don’t negotiate with good” (The Restless Consumer)

(2) He’s not accountable: “Won’t need no shadow man / Runnin’ the government” (After the Garden)

(3) He violates civil liberties: “I join the multitudes / I raise my hand in peace / I never bow to the laws of the thought police” (Living With War)

(4) He is a warmonger... “A hundred voices from a hundred lands / Need someone to listen / People are dying here and there / They don’t see the world the way you do / There’s no mission accomplished here / Just death to thousands” (The Restless Consumer)

(5) ...who hides the horrors of combat: “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” (Shock and Awe)

And so on. The album’s vitriol reaches its apex on the seventh song, Let’s Impeach the President. Young, backed by a chorus of 100 vocalists, rages into his microphone: “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.” Those lyrics are paired with clips of Bush’s Texan twang, expounding on Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other American controversies. “We’re gonna smoke ’em out... Bring ’em on... A wiretap requires a court order... It is true that much of the intelligence has turned out to be wrong...” You get the idea. It’s a long list, and adds to a damning indictment.

Living With War is no sonic marvel. The album was recorded over three weekends at Young’s California ranch and during one 12-hour studio session in Los Angeles. The rush shows. The music is a lot like Crazy Horse’s Rust Never Sleeps — live and loud, raw and caustic. Young has described it as “metal folk... a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan.” The guitars are appropriately crunchy, and punctuated by an intermittent trumpet. Young shouts as many lyrics as he sings.

“This is about exchanging ideas... it’s about getting a message out. It’s about empowering people by giving them a voice. I know not everyone believes what I say is what they think,” Young has posted on his blog dedicated to Living With War. “But like I said before... ya know... red and blue is not black and white. We’re all together. It’s a record about unification.”

Those are strong words, to be sure. Neil Young is Canadian by blood, but on Living With War, he declares himself an American patriot.

excerpted from
This Note’s for W
Neil Young indicts George W. Bush
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/neilyoung.html