The songs Neil Young wrote to confront the abortion debate
From environmentalism to his personal life, Neil Young has examined many weighty topics throughout his career. Whilst these issues appear in some of his best-known and arguably most vital works, there is another delicate issue that the Canadian grapples with on one of his albums: abortion.
A traditionally and continually pertinent subject, it seems strange that the two songs in which Young confronts abortion are not as well known as some of his others. This is all the more peculiar when you consider the material’s balance and quality — and, of course, that the songs also feature grunge icons Pearl Jam.
The tracks in question are ‘Song X’ and ‘Act of Love’, both found on the 1995 album Mirror Ball. Notably, the LP was recorded at Seattle’s Bad Animals Studio and produced by Brendan O’Brien, who had previously worked on Pearl Jam albums Vitalogy and Vs.
Neil Young joined Paerl Jam in the studio just 11 days after performing with them at an abortion-rights benefit concert in Washington, DC. Mirror Ball was then recorded in four days of studio time, with the members of Pearl Jam providing Young with his backing band. For the first session in January, Young brought ‘Song X’, ‘Act of Love’ and five other tracks to the studio.
Following this, the Canadian musician introduced two more songs for the second session before another pair were written later that month. Young said that all the tracks, apart from ‘Song X’ and ‘Act of Love’, were written in the four-day sessions that the album was recorded.
Both songs discuss a man abandoning his pregnant lover, despite promising to always take care of her, with each presenting a different side of the argument. In ‘Act of Love’, the man offers to pay for the abortion, but the holy war, which could be a metaphor for debate, makes it a problematic choice for the woman to be faced with.
Young wrote ‘Act of Love’ specifically for the 1995 Washington pro-choice show, but the track refrains from taking sides in the argument. Instead, he leaves it open to the listener to decide which side of the fence they sit on.
“There’s no bias, so you have to make up your own mind, finally,” Young explained about ‘Act of Love’ during an interview with Mojo. “See, personally, I’m pro-choice. But the song isn’t! This isn’t an easy subject to confront head-on. People who say that human beings shouldn’t have the right to dismiss a human life – they have a point. You can’t dismiss that point. But then there’s the reality. There’s idealism and reality, the two have got to come together, yet there are always major problems when they do.”
Young first played ‘Act of Love’ with his long-time backing band, Crazy Horse, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in 1995, where he was inducted by Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder. The frontman and the rest of his band recorded the performance to quickly learn the song and play it with Young at the pro-choice benefit the following night. This proved to be significant, and Young was so moved by the Pearl Jam version that he wanted to capture it in the studio alongside the quintet as quickly as possible – kickstarting the entire project.
Less than a fortnight later, Young and Pearl Jam linked up at Bad Animals Studio, and after recording ‘Act of Love’, they decided to work on a full studio-length album. Interestingly though, Sony, the record label whom Pearl Jam came under the remit of, would not allow the band’s name to appear alongside Young’s on the album. Therefore, each band member is credited individually in the liner notes.
