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(Not) Lookin’ for a Leader



Living with Neil Young’s Living With War

A friend of mine turned me on to Neil Young’s new album, entitled Living With War. It’s being marketed smartly on the web, featuring a Blogspot address dedicated to it, a Myspace account, Neil’s own website, video interviews seeded on popular websites, and the coup de grace - the full album is available to listen to online.

And it’s actually pretty decent, to top it all off.

Neil Young is one of those singers I hated when I was younger, on account of his weird stringy voice, but several years ago I overcame my personal boundaries and started getting really into him. If you’ve missed all the hype, this album is anti-war, and fervently anti-Bush. It even features a track called “Let’s Impeach the President.” A lot of times, I personally find strident protest music to be kind of boring, because it’s more about pushing a message than about sharing the experience of being alive. But I think this album is actually fun.

It’s emotional and it’s clearly heartfelt, and Young is careful (but not in a calculated fake way) to make sure you know that this album isn’t remotely anti-America. It’s just anti-bullshit. For that reason, it’s sort of a breath of fresh air. It has a real sort of throwback to a simpler more straightforward ethic of both music and just living as a conscientious person.

All that said, I don’t agree with all of his message on this album. And those personal differences come out especially for me in the song entitled, “Lookin’ for a Leader.” Some choice selections from the lyrics to that song:

Lookin’ for a Leader
To bring our country home
Re-unite the red white and blue
Before it turns to stone

Lookin’ for somebody
Young enough to take it on
Clean up the corruption
And make the country strong

Walkin’ among our people
There’s someone who’s straight and strong
To lead us from desolation
And a broken world gone wrong

Someone walks among us
And I hope he hears the call
And maybe it’s a woman
Or a black man after all

Yeah maybe it’s Obama
But he thinks that he’s too young
Maybe it’s Colin Powell
To right what he’s done wrong

America has a leader
But he’s not in the house
He’s waling here among us
And we’ve got to seek him out

Now, I appreciate the sentiment here… Wait - actually, I don’t. I mean, I get what he’s saying and I understand he’s looking for solutions to work within the system and that’s great. But what I don’t like is the sort of Messianic qualities of this song. What I don’t like is that (1) we need a leader at all, and (2) that we should actively seek this person out and (3) that this magical mysterious figure is going to swoop in and save the day. What I do like about this song though is that - I think - he’s trying to get you to sit there and be like, “Hell, maybe I’m that leader.”

Or at least, that’s how I read the song. And that’s sort of cool to imagine just for a second that you’re the president. And maybe what we should be looking for isn’t one single new president, but a body of people, each of which is the sovereign ruler of their own life. Each of us is a “president” so to speak and ought to claim our own authority, rather than necessarily handing it off to some other hopeful Return of the King type figure.

If we follow in that same vein then, we could read the song about impeaching the president as impeaching ourselves for ever letting things get this bad in the first place. I don’t really think that’s what Neil had in mind here. But my point is that if you look for a solution inside rather than (exclusively) outside of you, then you might also have to try to root out the problems both inside and outside yourself. Either way, this album is inspirational, fun and just a solid rock album however you interpret it - whether or not you’re looking for a leader.

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14 Reader Responses

  1. Gary Says:
    May 1st, 2006 at 4:49 pm

    Tim,
    It’s funny but I have always disliked Neil’s music because of “stringy” voice, too. But I also “overcame my personal boundaries” and started listening to and enjoying his music. What I find disagreeable about this particular tune you posted, however, is not the message - like you say it is open to interpretation - but instead the cheesy rhymes and its sledgehammer like message delivery. Even good folksy rebellion counter-culture can demonstrate some artistry by way of subtltry. Still, I may look it up anyway.

  2. Tim Boucher Says:
    May 1st, 2006 at 4:57 pm

    Overall, I sort of like the kind of hit you over the head quality of the lyrics in this album. It’s kind of cheesy, but it’s kind of like “make no bones about it” either.

    One other thing I meant to mention. In that video interview, the woman asks him essentially why he put this album out now, when everybody already hates Bush. There’s really little to no risk in making this type of statement artistically right now. I think it’s a valid point, and I’d like to research whatever they said Young said in support of Bush in the past…

  3. Edd Says:
    May 1st, 2006 at 6:01 pm

    Maybe, at the moment, It’s more likely that a good leader might come along than everyone will suddenly become aware of themselves, and what they can do. Obviously, a good leader wont solve all the problems, but he/she could solve some, it doesn’t seem too far fetched a wish.

    I don’t think it’s a bad thing to hope for, just not the best.

    I have never listened to Neil Young before, so i may be way off the mark.

  4. Drew Says:
    May 1st, 2006 at 7:01 pm

    i think that video interview is aweful. the reporter from cnn is obviously more comfortable discussing music and politics with someone like jessica simpson or whoever. anyone who’d read even the most watered down neil young bio would’ve known that: 1, he never puts out music to just to sell records (he was even sued by his record company for putting out albums that wouldn’t sell), and 2, he’s no righty or lefty, he makes his own way.

    i think the “sledgehammer delivery” is just part of the album concept. you can’t really talk about the album, i think, in seperate parts. it only works as awhole. it goes hand in hand with the way young is trying to get the album on the streets as fast as possible via the internet. normally months go by between recording and releasing, but this was recorded like two weeks ago in one day, and now it’s out there. it’s the same way lyrically, he doesn’t wan’t any pretty-ed up delivery to come between you and what he wants to say.

    i felt he did answer the question of why he put this out now, now that everybody hates bush. he makes the point that the album is more about admitting you’ve made mistakes and trying to correct them and take responsibility. i think the statement he’s making artistically is that he’s taken responsibility for suppoting something that was wrong, so he expects the same from the people he supported.

  5. Drew Says:
    May 1st, 2006 at 7:10 pm

    also, in terms of subtlety vs. the sledgehammer, an album that’s mentioned with this one is bruce springsteen’s new album, which is cover of old pete seegar protest songs that are now relevent again. if you think this neil young album is fun, check that out. the most fun, hoot-nany-est album you’ll hear all year.

  6. channel null Says:
    May 1st, 2006 at 10:01 pm

    Dislike Neil Young?

    Neil Young is not a rock star. Neil Young is a ROCK GOD.

  7. Banana Guy Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 1:25 am

    Tim, you should never hate. Even if was when you were younger.

  8. Banana Guy Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 1:27 am

    Neil young, ehh… Not as bad as Tom Robbins, but he kind of reminds me of that old man on the movie “House”… The one who you think is dead but they keep digging him up and resurrecting him and stuff. So how many Neil Young sequels are there going to be now, with how many poorly misinformed disenfranchised generations?

  9. SubstanceM Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 2:46 pm

    I’d like to hear the album. I find it interesting because if anyone remembers, ole Neil a couple years back put out a song called “Let’s Roll” dedicated to the passengers who overpowered the terrorists on flight (# forgotten - movie at a theatre near you soon with said # in title) that crashed on 9/11. I could understand why Neil liked the theme, but it was an odd sort of anthem for him to come out with, and especially in light of evidence that possibly things weren’t all they appeared to be on that famous day…BTW Banana Split Personality up there - what are u talking about?
    Like or lump Neil Young, u gotta admit he is one of a kind.

  10. Gary Says:
    May 3rd, 2006 at 1:30 am

    Banana has something against iconclasts, I guess. Maybe he finds them threatening? Probably has never read any TR or listened to any Neil Young anyway…

  11. Banana Guy Says:
    May 3rd, 2006 at 4:05 pm

    No, I just have something against idiots and lackeys, and there is absolutely nothing groundbreaking about Neil Young. So sorry Gary, not the profound Band Wagon junkie like you. I’d rather stay on top with the real mavericks in the media, you know like Stephen Colbert at the White House dinner. I’m pretty sure Neil Young didn’t get the invite for that, nor would have had the balls or intelligence to do what he did.
    (Cue the lackey generated response)

    In the great words of Lynryd Skynryd, “I hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern man don’t need him around anyhow!”

  12. Banana Guy Says:
    May 3rd, 2006 at 4:11 pm

    haha, I find his website [Neil Young’s] pretty funny and Ironic…It’s dark black with the faint outline image of a car or something and the words, “Please wait till we turn on the lights…” I guess no one else in here can grasp the humor and irony in that. I’ve been coming to this blog for like half a year now and I am STILL waiting for you people to turn on the lights…

  13. alistair Says:
    May 3rd, 2006 at 7:05 pm

    neil young is as corporate as any other “rock” star. they are all in dire need of another hit. (of something or other.) in the seventies i was listening to sabbath, genesis, zeppelin and so on and i still am. no politics, just music. why does everything have to be political………including this forum?myimpression was that it was an exploration of the arcane. it seems to be devolving into a political thingy…….i guess the hit rate is improving though.

  14. Tiger Woods’ Trigger Words - Pop Occulture Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 8:33 pm

    […] Why did Barack Hussein Obama release a memoir at 34 years old? Who does that? Why did Obama, Jack Ryan and Alan Keyes (from Baltimore, who replaced Jack Ryan after he quit the race and then lost to Obama) all go to Harvard? Why did the audio book of Obama’s memoir win a Grammy in 2006? Why did Neil Young mention him specifically by name in his song “Lookin’ for a Leader” on his anti-Bush opus, Living With War? Why is everyone everywhere saying the same two things about Obama: that he is “different” from the other candidates, and that he is a “mirror”? Media sources have mirrored and amplified his everyman image. An October 2006 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show highlighted the ethnic diversity of Obama’s extended family. Noting that his half-Indonesian half-sister is married to a Chinese-Canadian, the program cited descriptions by Obama’s African American wife of family holiday gatherings as a “mini-United Nations.” A headline in The Nation magazine invited comparisons between Obama’s first year as U.S. Senator and the popular 1939 movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, where actor James Stewart stars as an underdog small-town hero standing up to political corruption in the U.S. Congress. Another article in The Nation analyzed Obama’s ability to “transcend race” with predominantly white audiences. Conversely, New York Daily News syndicated columnist Stanley Crouch has questioned perceptions from within the African American community of Obama as “one of us.” […]



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