Neil Young vs. Empire

No one who checks in here regularly will be surprised to hear I’ve spent the past week listening almost exclusively to Neil Young’s new album, Living with War. It’s really more a broadside than an album, and it succeeds powerfully on that level; as an album, not as much.

Inevitably, the songs getting the most media attention — “Let’s Impeach the President,” “Shock and Awe,” and the politically naïve “Lookin’ for a Leader” — are specific attacks on this president and this administration. Most of them stir the emotions, just as Young’s “Ohio” did in 1970. But the tunes we’ll still be linking arms and marching to years from now — in protest against future wars and future presidents — are the album’s more broad anti-war anthems: “After the Garden,” “Flags of Freedom,” and the title track.

Give the finger to Empire. Buy Living with War.