Is Neil Young a political songwriter?
Not many songwriters are as revered as Neil Young. Affectionately hailed as ‘The Godfather of Grunge’, the Canadian musician has enjoyed a career quite like no other, with almost everything he’s touched turning gold. Although he has experienced many lows, the highs have provided a suitable foil to this, with his efforts to make the world a better place speaking for themselves in the musical and charitable sense.
After cutting his teeth in a variety of formats in Winnipeg and Toronto, and a brief flirtation with the iconic record label Motown, he joined the California band Buffalo Springfield, alongside Stephen Stills. They weren’t together for long, but they gave us various countercultural classics, including the protest song ‘For What It’s Worth’, ‘Bluebird’ and the Young-penned ‘Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing’. The group split after two years in 1968, so Young did what anyone who oozes creativity would do. He decided to go solo.
He released his eponymous debut album that year, and in 1969 after linking up with Crazy Horse, he released the masterpiece Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, which boasted tracks such as ‘Cinnamon Girl’ and ‘Down by the River’. Young then took a short break from his solo career to join up with Stephen Stills in the super-group Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, alongside former Byrds member David Crosby and Hollies legend Graham Nash. The quartet became one of the most important acts of the era, with their 1970 studio album Déjà Vu an unquestionable masterpiece, boasting anthems such as ‘Carry On’, ‘Woodstock’, ‘Teach Your Children’ and the Joni Mitchell-inspired, ‘Our House’.
The original era of CSNY was gone in an instant, but not before they had delivered a body of work that contained substantial musical and thematic power. Afterwards, Young resumed his solo career, going from strength to strength, releasing a host of classic records that includes, After the Gold Rush, Harvest, Zuma, On the Beach, Zuma and Rust Never Sleeps.
Even prior to the release of 1971’s After the Gold Rush, Young had confirmed himself as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation. He was able to be introspective and melancholy, as well as anthemic and high-octane in the blink of an eye, delivering many stellar moments from both ends of the stylistic spectrum. Whilst with these records, he laid the foundations for the genre that would eventually become known as grunge, Young also gave us many moments of political acuity, wherein he laid out his beliefs for how the world should be. This was no surprise to his fans, as Young was a countercultural hero whose writing had always been inherently political, with Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For What It’s Worth’ and the CSNY track ‘Ohio’, two of the foremost protest songs of the era.
He then carried on this trend with the likes of the anti-racism ‘Southern Man’ and environmental caution ‘After the Gold Rush, from the album of the same name, and the Graham Nash collaboration, ‘War Song’, which was released in support of George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign against Richard Nixon. Elsewhere, other political tracks came from the likes of ‘Revolution Blues’ from On the Beach and the 1989 George H. W. Bush critique ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’.
It’s an interesting point, but Young often gets lumped in with more “confessional” songwriters such as Joni Mitchell. However, his songs speak for themselves. Aside from being the progenitor of alternative rock and grunge, Young is a naturally political songwriter. Despite the critiques certain squares might send his way, imploring him to keep his beak out of the political sphere, this would never sway him. He started Farm Aid, for heaven’s sake; it’s a prerequisite that his music is political.
When speaking to Jian Ghomeshi on Q in 2014, Young was asked about the people who argue he crosses “the line” when his music gets political and those who say, “I liked his music but stay out of politics”. He gave what is possibly the greatest account of his art that he’s ever done and destroyed all of his detractors who believe music shouldn’t be political.
He said: “What line did I cross? Musicians should stay out of politics, is that right, did somebody say that? Is that a great Canadian belief? Is that it, that your profession should be considered and weighed carefully when deciding whether you have freedom of speech? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Those are ludicrous comments that have nothing to do with reality.”
Trashing his critics, he explained why he’s always been political: “Those are defensive manoeuvres, deflecting the truth away from people’s sense of what’s going on. People should wonder what am I up there for? What am I doing up there? What does it matter? Have I always written about and sung about what concerned me? From ‘Ohio’, to ‘Southern Man’ to ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’, to all of these crazy songs that I wrote about things that were going on, that people sang, that I sang, to all things I said? Are they saying that now, those were all ‘Be-bop-a-Lula ‘ and I shouldn’t talk about anything? That’s ridiculous.”
