Politically Incorrect

While never being overtly pro-Bush, Young did publicly back the Patriot Act. Addressing a gathering for the People for the American Way in December 2001 he said, "We've only given up our rights for a while to fight something that preys on our freedom and our vulnerabilities and our openness."

Conservative Fox News commentators Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke swooned at Young's political song and dance. Kondracke invited the Canadian to become a full-fledged American, while Barnes hyped the song on Fox and followed, "He's not really a conservative, but he did say nice things about Reagan back in the '80s, and the liberal rock crowd went crazy. They may go crazy again." It's doubtful the Beltway Boys will be sending Neil Young any adulation today.

While Young, like many Americans, approved of some of Bush's policies in the wake of 9/11, he had turned around by 2003 with the album and film Greendale, a small-town morality tale, which Young characterized in a Rolling Stone interview as representing a time of "great inner turmoil for the majority of the American people." He continued that the Bush Administration had a "holier-than-thou attitude towards the rest of the world--that is not classically American."

But for all his iconic political dalliances, Young is not a particularly keen observer of current events. His manager, Elliot Roberts, once described him as a "that-day guy. If he sees something in the morning on the news, he'll talk about it that day--but a week later it's gone," according to Jimmy McDonough, author of the Young biography, Shakey.

Perhaps because of this, Young's history of political involvement is as diverse as his oeuvre: He went from peace movement liberal to Reagan backer who once angered his liberal fans by telling reporter Jason DeParle, "So what if [Reagan's] a trigger-happy cowboy? He hasn't pulled the trigger."

On welfare Young has opined that the poor should "stop being supported by the government and get out and work. You can't always support the weak. You have to make the weak stand up on one leg, or a half a leg, or whatever they got." But he also mocked George H.W. Bush's social policies in his ambiguous protest anthem "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World": "We got a thousand points of light/For the homeless man/We got a kinder, gentler, machine-gun hand."

Young is hard to categorize politically, but he appears to be something of a populist libertarian and humanitarian, with a penchant for cantankerous contrarianism. His altruistic endeavors include being an outspoken advocate of relief for family farmers as an original member of Farm Aid. The father of a son with cerebral palsy, he also founded a school for the children with severe speech and physical impairments, which he supports with annual benefit concerts. And he has consistently been against war.

But according to manager Roberts, "Neil doesn't read newspapers, he doesn't really read Time or Newsweek very much. It's gotta be something he sees--if he watches TV on the road and there's a CNN special on Bosnia, Neil wants to do a record and a benefit within two days. Or he can ignore it forever if he doesn't see it." While we're sure to hear charges that Young is a Canadian, America-hating, rock and roll anarchist, he actually seems more akin to that creature that pundits and politicians are so enamored of: the independent voter.

Living With War appears crafted to appeal to independents. Young steers clear from any partisan commentary. On "Looking for a Leader," he suggests that anyone from Barack Obama to Colin Powell--"to right what he's done wrong"--could be destined to lead America out of our "desolation." In other songs, such as "Families" and "Roger and Out," Young evokes the war's toll on soldiers and their friends and families. And in "Flags of Freedom," a song that references Bob Dylan's 1960s protest anthems, Young attempts to wrestle the patriotic imagery from the prowar zealots who wrap themselves in the flag.

Young's body of work may lack the political sophistication of Bob Dylan's early songs, but his best ones, protest or otherwise, have an introspective immediacy that comes out of a romantic longing. The emotional heft of "Ohio," for example, which he wrote in a fury after seeing that iconic Life magazine photo, comes from the lines: "What if you knew her/And found her dead on the ground?/How can you run when you know?" Young's inward focus is tailor-made for moral outrage.

That outrage is amplified by Young's complicity in the political atmosphere after 9/11. Like many other Americans, he appears to feel duped by the Bush Administration's lies in the run-up to war. His latest album seems to be an attempt to spark a revolt of those who had given Bush the benefit of the doubt after 9/11 and now have turned against him.

"We are the silent majority now, and we haven't done a damn thing," Young recently told the New York Times. ''We've stood by and watched this happen. But there's more of us than there is of them, and we have to do something. When people start talking and see they can get away with it, it's going to happen everywhere. It's going to be a landslide, it's going to be a tidal wave. This is just the tip of it."

One rock album can't change the entire political discourse, but there is something happening here. A tide in pop culture has turned. If an independent-minded rock star can cause such a stir by calling for Bush's impeachment, just think what might happen if the Congressional Democrats did.

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