Metal Folk Protest — Let’s Impeach the President
In case you haven’t heard the buzz, and there’s plenty of it, Neil Young is streaming his new 10-song anti-war album, “Living With War” and it’s expected to be available for free download next week.
“We are the silent majority now, and we haven’t done a damn thing,” Young 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.”
Like many sound artists over the last six years, Young takes advantage of the countless disturbing Bush sound bytes, mixing them into the seventh and most talked about song, “Let’s Impeach the President.” While the technique isn’t novel, it drives the message home.
A few lyrics:
Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war
Right now, you’ll have to listen to the album from start to finish, as Young wants listeners to absorb the whole narrative of his anti-war treatise. The website also includes lyrics, presented in a “ticker” format floating across the screen.
There’s plenty more here, on a Living With War blog, including media coverage and info on how to host the music on your own site.
Unsurprisingly, the conservative spin machine is already slamming Young, calling him “angry and sad.” John Gibson from Fox News, said Young and musician Pink “blame the wrong leaders” and “couldn’t be more wrong.”
Despite this right-wing vitriol and corporate control of the airwaves, “Living With War” will likely move fast and far, thanks in part to Young making the album so accessible. And who knows, since lawmakers have so far failed to galvanize an impeachment campaign, maybe music has the power to move it forward.