Living With War
Neil Young has always been a reactionary. He sees the world. He responds. “Four dead in Ohio,” \"Even Richard Nixon has got soul,” his 1994 tribute to Kurt Cobain *Sleeps With Angels*, his 9-11 homage “Let’s Roll,” and now *Living With War*, his instantaneous reaction to the Iraq war and the world as we inhabit it circa 2006. This blog of today, time capsule for the future, is a rough and ready tumble of hard, distorted rock – diametrically opposite the acoustic gentleness of his previous 2005 *Prairie Wind* release – supported by catchy sing-along melodies (“After the Garden,” “Flags of Freedom,” which directly lifts from Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom”) and no doubt sentiments. “Let’s Impeach the President” doesn’t leave as much room for subtlety as “Rockin’ in the Free World” but “Lookin’ For a Leader” shows true bi-partisanship as he reaches across the aisles to suggest Barack Obama and Colin Powell as two leaders he might likely support. Young’s best moments have the human touch. “Families” and “Roger and Out” address the real cost of human life at a time of war. They’re angry and nostalgic, wishful and sad.
Like Bruce Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, this album features an elder rock statesman making an effective protest record thanks to a raucously communal approach.
An album written and recorded in a heat, designed to let loose Neil Young's righteous indignation as quickly as possible, Living With War is pretty much what its title and origins suggest: an angry shout against the war in Iraq in particular, and the Bush administration in general. It's a blunt instrument of an album…
In a move that deliberately echoes the rush release of "Ohio" in the wake of the Kent State shootings, Neil Young bashed out his 2006 protest record Living with War in a matter of days, sometimes recording songs the day they were written, and then seized the opportunities of the digital age by streaming the entire album on his website only weeks after it was recorded, with the official digital and CD releases trailing several days later.