‘The Monsanto Years’: Neil Young’s failed attack on corporate control
Despite his reputation as a rock ‘n’ roll truth teller, a protest singer par excellence who isn’t afraid to stick a thumb in the eye of those in power, Neil Young is probably the last person who’d actually agree with that assessment. For all his screeds, Young is no Billy Bragg or Chuck D. He doesn’t craft manifestos or dedicate songs to political thinkers. He writes from the heart and always has done.
So, when he does get political, they are less about science and more about the emotional feeling of being silenced and being oppressed. In a way, that’s his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. The reason it’s his strength is clear, the emotional truth on display makes his music cathartic and exciting. ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’s venomous, satirical bite is just as satisfying as its chugging guitar heroics.
If you want to connect with people, that’s how to do it. There’s a reason why he’s almost certainly sold more records than both those previous artists combined and doubled. However, while the personal is absolutely political, the political often needs to be expressed with a clear head. Young’s political songwriting being so personal can often come across less as him having a point to make and more him being a cantankerous, grouchy old man.
While that’s a description of him that Young would cop to with a song in his heart, it can make some of his political songwriting a lot less compelling. Case in point, The Monsanto Years, a record made in 2015 in collaboration with Lukas Nelson’s band Promise Of The Real. This is a record that, on the surface, is about the evils of the Monsanto corporation, forcing farmers to use genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to create their produce or lose their livelihoods.
Where this Neil Young record goes wrong
So far, so good. It’s a worthy cause, and having a powerful figure to strike against always makes for great political art. This is especially true when considering how invested Young is in this particular cause, having founded Farm Aid 30 years earlier as a way of fighting this particular fight. However, look a little deeper, and you’ll find that this isn’t really a record about that; it’s a record about Neil Young’s weariness.
There’s something a bit too blunt and first-draft-like about a lot of the records political commentary. Take the title track with lyrics like “The farmer knows he’s got to grow what he can sell, Monsanto, Monsanto / So he signs a deal for GMOs that makes life hell with Monsanto, Monsanto”, or ‘A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop’ with lines like “Yeah, I want a cup of coffee, but I don’t want a GMO / I like to start my day off without helping Monsanto.”
It’s the music equivalent of the comedy concept “clapter”, where you say something not to get a laugh but that everyone agrees with, so they’ll applaud, and you’ll get a reaction that way instead. Not to say this isn’t stuff worth saying, not at all, but as a piece of art it sounds tired and tiring. This may be the point, though, as the most vital and engaging song on the whole record is the track ‘People Want To Hear About Love.’
This is a song about how people want love songs and not about the things destroying the planet. It’s not quite as insufferable as it sounds on the surface (though it’s not far off), but it gets to the flaw in the record as a whole. It can’t decide whether it wants to be a spirited, rabble-rousing rock album sticking it to the man, or an exhausted cry of helplessness in the face of ‘the man’s’ comprehensive victory over the little guy. Thus, it ends up being the worst of both worlds.
A record with all the preaching and finger-wagging of a sixth-form activist that also has all the jaded bitterness of a boomer raging at his TV. When a record is at its best when you’re researching the themes that inspired it rather than actually listening to it, something’s gone terribly wrong. Even when an icon like Neil Young is responsible for it.
