Neil Young Is Living With The War, But Doing Something About It

04/17/06 6:30pm

Neil Young has a lot on his mind about the war in Iraq — so much that he recorded a new album based on that theme in just three days earlier this month.

"I just finished a new record — a power trio with trumpet and 100 voices," the 60-year-old rock icon wrote on a scrolling message across the bottom of his website. "I think it is a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan.

"Metal folk protest? It's called Living With The War."

The lyrics to the title track, which is the second of 10 songs on the album, are also currently scrolling on the site. More lyrics will be added in the coming days.

Filmmaker Jonathan Demme, who produced the recent Young documentary, Heart Of Gold, wrote this in an email to Harp magazine:

"Neil just finished writing and recording — with no warning — a new album called Living With War. It is a brilliant electric assault, accompanied by a 100-voice choir, on Bush and the war in Iraq. Truly mind blowing. Will be in stores soon."

While Young provides lead vocals and guitar, he's joined by Chad Cromwell on drums, Rick Rosas on bass, Tommy Bray on trumpet, and the choir.

"The session was like being at a 12-hour peace rally," choir member Alicia Morgan wrote on April 7 in her blog. "Every time new lyrics would come up on the screen, there were cheers, tears and applause."

Morgan added that the choir session was recorded in analogue in the A room at the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles and that the opening line to one of the songs is "Let's impeach the president for lyin'."

Despite being born and raised in Canada, Young has been an American political activist through his involvement in Farm Aid and other causes, and has written such politically charged songs as "Ohio" and "Keep On Rockin' In The Free World" in the past.

But he supported the Patriot Act — which gave law-enforcement officials additional powers, and has been criticized by some for its potential detrimental effects on civil liberties — after the Al-Qa'ida attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. So this overt denunciation of the current Bush administration may come as a surprise to some.