Neil Young doesn’t need him around anyhow

The headline at Editor & Publisher identifies him as Son of Famed Reporter – a lineage just recently discovered by the American publication – as Neil Young’s penchant for punditry gets him thrust back into the headlines via a new concept album, Living With War. There was a similar wave of enthusiasm preceding his tune “Let’s Roll”, which made Young the first major artist to address the casualties of 9/11, although the meandering result wouldn’t have won any converts to the Patriot Act cause. Now, with 10 new protest ditties recorded in 72 hours, it’d seem like former Ronald Reagan booster Young has marked which side of the political fence he’d prefer to be buried on – seeds planted back at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003, during a press conference for the multi-media project Greendale, where he expressed appreciation for Canada standing apart from the foreign policies of our neighbour. It’s no wonder that Young tried to keep his three-day outburst of sedition a secret, yet by having weblogs squeal on his behalf, anyone who’d be potentially interested in hearing a song called “Impeach the President” will be worn out by the surrounding rhetoric before it’s even released. Details were leaked by ecstatic singer Alicia Morgan, part of a 100-person choir “chanting ‘flip/flop’ and the like” beneath a rap of George W. Bush soundbites, a session subsequently confirmed by Heart of Gold director Jonathan Demme who dubbed it “truly mind blowing”; followed by a claim by the blog Down With Tyranny of having heard the final results: “Will this go down as Neil’s greatest album ever? It will be a contender musically. And the impact lyrically could be profound.” Fortunately, advance criticism of Young has been even more tepid: Left unimpressed by news of new rantings from an exiled Canadian was Wonkette (”Sure, ‘Pass of Motion of No Confidence, Necessitating a General Election That Will Hopefully Result In the Appointment of a New Prime Minister’ isn’t as catchy a title, but if you’re releasing three-day albums now, you can’t be too picky.”); Conservative Party blog vivant Stephen Taylor (scattered observations culminating in quotes from MP Tony Clement); and GOP mouthpiece NewsMax.com (”Some say Young, who hasn’t had a major hit since his 1972 chart-topper, ‘Heart of Gold,’ is looking to revive his career by bashing Bush.”). Neil’s statements are limited to glib scrolling at the bottom of his website – underscoring the notion that, since protest songs will never have Nixon-era potency in this information age, Young might as well bask in his complex contrarian legacy by bashing out a few oversimplified partisan anthems that vindicate his radical past. Meanwhile, news that hometown electro provocateur Peaches would be naming her next album Impeach My Bush now comes off more like performance artist self-parody than the intended attempt to make her tacky exhibitionism look cerebral.