Review: Neil Young's "Living With War"
Wed May 10, 07:49 PM by Simon Clopton
Listen to this right now. If you read no further, listen to
Living With War in its entirety. It’s good, it’s free and it’s worth your time.
Neil Young’s latest album has been a long time coming, that’s how I see it. The content: anti-war sentiment, sad warnings about human impact on the earth, and distrust of and frustration with government are not new territory for Young. Subject matter wasn’t the hold up. Nor was it the composing, recording, post production or release-these were all accomplished in less than a month. The distillation of concepts Young has played with for decades has taken time. Living With War is the latest edition of “pay attention, listen up and stand up” brought about by the latest series of events to warrant it.
I’m not going to write a half-witted, skipped-through-the-tracks-once review of the music, critique the lyrics or references, or cover Mr. Young’s recent medical history, there has been plenty of that from the press already. When you listen to the album you’ll undoubtedly hear deliberate musical and lyrical references to other artists’ and Young’s own work from the 60’s and 70’s. You’ll hear Crosby Stills Nash and Young-era harmonies, you’ll hear dark electric chords reminiscent of Young’s more recent work, and you might even hear something a whole lot like the music from Jim Jarmusch’s movie Dead Man. You’ll also hear what a sad state the US and the world are in, and Neil Young’s hope that it’s human inhabitants can and will turn that sad state around.
The world is indeed in serious trouble. It’s high noon, good guys
versus bad, white hats and black, six guns all around. Global temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, oil is rushing towards its extinction and taking vast amounts of flora and fauna along as it goes and we humans are looking at a disgustingly overpopulated, sweaty, disease infested future. Not to be a pessimist but seriously, now is the time to walk instead of drive, eat locally produced food, reuse everything you can, opt for renewable energy when ever possible and do your best to earn that white hat. If there is to be a sound track for the fight to save the planet we all live on, and make no mistake it is a fight- people are getting killed over oil as I write this, Living With War has a good ten songs to contribute.
Living With War Blog
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