10. “The Monsanto Years”
The title track of last year’s angry riposte against the agrochemical giant was shocking in its direct assault, even by Young standards. With his new backing band Promise of the Real in tow, Young lashes out at the company’s aggressive overreach, the way it’s allegedly poisoning the food supply and destroying the livelihood of the American farmer. The music is visceral, unapologetic and biting in its overall indictment of this corporate monolith. Granted, this isn’t exactly the kind of material that encourages its listeners to hum along, but the live performances offered in its immediate follow-up, Earth, show that even while railing against the system, air guitars are not inappropriate.
9. “Southern Man”
The lyrics of “Southern Man” are vivid, describing the racism towards blacks in the American South. In the song, Young tells the story of a white man (symbolically the entire white South) and how he mistreated his slaves. Young pleadingly asks when the South will make amends for the fortunes built through slavery when he sings, “I saw cotton and I saw black, tall white mansions and little shacks. Southern Man, when will you pay them back?” The song also mentions the practice of cross burning.
Young was very sensitive about the song’s message as anti-racism and anti-violence. During his 1973 tour, he cancelled a show in Oakland, Californiabecause a fan was beaten and removed from the stage by a guard while the song was played.
8 – Neil Young – Union Man
7. “Welfare Mothers”
6. “Let’s Roll”
This song is about Flight 93, the plane that was hijacked on September 11, 2001, but crashed in Pennsylvania before hitting the terrorists’ target, which was probably a building in Washington, D.C.
Young wrote this after reading about Todd Beamer, one of the passengers who fought the hijackers and crashed the plane. Beamer called an Airfone operator to explain that they were going to rush the terrorists. Before he hung up, the operator heard him tell the other passengers, “Let’s Roll.” This conversation with the Airfone operator was the inspiration for the lyrics.
“Let’s Roll” was Beamer’s favorite saying. He said it to his kids all the time.
5. “Homegrown”
4. “Vampire Blues”
So I ran downstairs
And out into the street
Someone kicked me in the belly
Someone else kissed my feet
I was Rambo in the disco
I was shootin’ to the beat
When they burned me in effigy
My vacation was complete.
3. “Mideast Vacation”
Young is, if nothing else, rather prophetic in his worldview. In 1987, the threats were different but the goals were the same—kill Americans, run rampant through the Middle East and take over through terror. This track, taken from Life, finds Young railing about American policy. The song’s narrator vents the frustration that results from trying to put an end to seemingly endless strife.
I went lookin’ for Khaddafi
Aboard Air Force One,
But I never did find him And the C.I.A. said, ‘Son
You’ll never be a hero
Your flyin’ days are done
It’s time for you to go home now
Stop sniffin’ that smokin’ gun.’
Remarkably, this was written a number of years before the rise of Al Qaida, ISIS and the failed governments of Syria, Afghanistan and Libya. It’s amazing how some things never seem to change.
2. “Rockin’ in the Free World”
Rockin’ in the Free World is a rock song by Neil Young. He was released in November 1989 as a Single from his Album, Freedom. The magazine Rolling Stone put him on course 216 of its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Because of the text in the chorus, the Song is called often falsely Keep On Rockin’ in the Free World.
The lyrics criticize the George H. W. Bush administration, then in its first month, and the social problems of contemporary American life, while directly referencing Bush’s famous “thousand points of light” remark from his 1989 inaugural address and his 1988 presidential campaign promise for America to become a “kinder, gentler nation.” Despite this, the song became the de facto anthem of the collapse of communism, because of its repeated chorus of ‘Keep on rockin’ in the free world’.
1. “Ohio”
The Kent State massacre (englisch Kent State Shootings, Kent State Massacre) were on 4. In may 1970, at Kent State University in the USA, and four students were shot dead and nine seriously injured when the national guard of the state of Ohio during a Demonstration against the war in Vietnam, opened fire on the crowd of unarmed demonstrators. To date, no one has been held accountable.
“Ohio” is a protest song and counterculture anthem written and composed by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, and performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.[1] It was released as a single, backed with Stephen Stills’s “Find the Cost of Freedom”, peaking at number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Although a live version of “Ohio” was included on the group’s 1971 double album Four Way Street, the studio versions of both songs did not appear on an LP until the group’s compilation So Far was released in 1974. The song also appeared on the Neil Young compilation albums Decade, released in 1977, and Greatest Hits, released in 2004.
The song also appears on Neil Young’s Live at Massey Hall album, which he recorded in 1971 but did not release until 2007.
Sources : wikipedia
