Dear Neil,
I want to thank you for your honest new album Living With War. See, I am a child of the sixties, no really, I was born in ’66. My mom was a non-active hippie but a later active feminist with ERA and George McGovern signs on our lawn. Though she now teaches art history and has illustrated two children’s books, she was a campaign photographer for Tom Daschle in the early eighties. My dad was a Marine and they divorced when I was two and I ended up with my mom. And I was a mistake. I listened to you as a kid, but I didn’t “get” you because, well, I was young.
Like a normal kid, I rebelled against against my mom. She rebelled against my grandfather who was a Marine aviator in WWII.
Know what I did? I grew up and became a Green Beret. I was just in time for Reagan/Bush I and was assigned to Latin America in 7th Special Forces Group. Unfortunately, I am still paying for that with guilt and shame that comes with my recently diagnosed PTSD, but hey, those are the forgotten dirty wars of the US.
Now I will be 40 next month and I rediscovered you a few years ago. I’ve been listening to your “old stuff” as if it was a new discovery for me because now I “get” it. As well as the NY band Sonic Youth (you produced them once or twice, bravo), The Clash, Audioslave, Rage Against The Machine, and a host of others.
But you are the master. I’m not being a syncophant here, it’s your experience from the sixties/seventies that’s replaying a tragic story today. I only wish you didn’t have new material to draw from. Nevertheless, your new album speaks to me just as your “old stuff” spoke to my mother’s generation (I rediscovered CCR too, BTW).
Neil, unfortunately your message applies today just as it did when I was six years old and I wanted Nixon to be reelected because he had the same first name as I do – ah, the comphrehension of children!
So I do enjoy your new album. It’s remarkable. It gives me hope and motivation to correct the personal wrongs I did as a perpetrator and help my younger brothers and sisters in the Armed Forces as they will have a heavy burden for the rest of their lives. They may not realize it now, but it comes back, later in life, when one is out of the military subculture and one realizes what they have done.
So thank you, for your message of my mother’s generation; and thank you for speaking to mine. It’s just a shame that we didn’t listen to it and learn the first (?) time around.
Hey JD,
Wouldn’t happen to have a link for that new song would you? I’m somewhat of a Neil Young fan. With the anniversarry of the Kent State murders coming in a few days, his songs have been on my mind a little more than usual.
I too am a child of the sixties. ’62 to be exact. My mother was a very active hippy and she brought my brothers and me along on more than a few marches late in the decade. Unlike you, I grew up with no desire to join the military. I never saw it as bad in and of itself, but the results of the orders it followed were bad, plus you know, I didn’t want to get killed. My Mom could raise the hysteria a little back then.
Anyway,nice diary, and all those bands you mentioned, some of my favorites too.
Peace
here it is: http://www.hyfntrak.com/neilyoung2/AFF24046/
It’s great, it’s free, enjoy!
The entire album is available for streaming:
http://www.neilyoung.com/
PS: Really like your sig line – good taste in films!
uNf!
Back in the days of shock and awe
We came to liberate them all
History was the cruel judge of overconfidence
Back in the days of shock and awe
Back in the days of “mission accomplished”
Our chief was landing on the deck
The sun was setting on a golden photo op
Back in the days of “mission accomplished”
Thousands of bodies in the ground
Brought home in boxes to a trumpet’s sound
No one sees them coming home that way
Thousands buried in the grund
Thousands of children scarred for life
Millions of tears for a soldier’s wife
Both sides are losing now
Heaven takes them in
Thousands of children scarred for life
We had a chance to change our mind
But somehow wisdom was hard to find
We went with what we knew and now we can’t go back
But we had a chance to change our mind.
Yea, in my zealotry for the new music I didn’t converse about your other points, sorry. Background: my undergrad BA was in Russian and Eastern European Studies from U. Mich. (so that I could market myself as a good spook) and I studied in Moscow in 94/95. I remember some Russians descibing the fall of the USSR when the tanks were in the streets, it was very recent then.
Do you know how they disarmed the soldiers? The chanted that “the people’s army doesn’t attack the people”. So, yea Kent State and “Ohio” from Neil is a little ironic, even the Soviets wouldn’t kill their own harmless students. Kinda puts into perspective, doesn’t it?
I rebelled, my mom tried to forbid my 12″ GI Joes and toy guns and playing army in the backyard. I guess my grandfather was a strong rolemodel for me then. Then I realized only recently that he had the same illness as I: he would never speak about the strafing of Japanese soldiers on Okinawa in his Corsair. And my grandmother hated Pappy Boyington (TV series BAA BAA Blacksheep w/ Robert Conrad) she said he was an uncouth boar!
Not wanting to get killed was never a question for me. I think it was part of my self-destructive addictive behavior and addicted to the rush of life-threatening situations.
Thanks, musical taste and opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one!
My grandfather was an aviator in the Pacific too, like yours. Army Aircorp I think. Thing is I didn’t meet him until I was 17, and had a very short time with him after that, as he died 4 years after I finally met him. There was one night though when he opened up with me, over a few beers, about his time there. He didn’t seem troubled by it though. . Seemed to take it all in stride. That’s the impression I’ve gotten from lots of WWII vets. Different era? I don’t know.
A different era and a SENSE OF PURPOSE of actually doing something nasty that must be done for the sake of humanity. Perhaps the last great, pure fight against evil. I’m very anti-war nowadays, but I am no pacifist. I still believe that if I was born into an earlier generation, that I would have picked up arms with other poets against the Fascist in the Spanish Civil War. I feel that it was the last great struggle of progressives. The Left has a reputation of being pacifists but that is not the case (comes from a period during an unjust war called Vietnam): progressives will take up arms and rebel and fight for liberty if it is a JUST CAUSE! And I hate that term as it was hijacked as the name of the operation for the invasion of Panama that I participated in.
But as Jefferson implied – if the government ever becomes so tyrannical…
the final checks and balance depends on the people and the second admendment. This is why I’ve always had disagreements with fellow progressives about gun control. But you know what?, those arguments about gun control have died out since Bush took office. I’m not advocating violence but I find it interesting that those points about the 2nd Admendment are actually being embraced by liberals. In fact, when the administration floated the idea about postponing election if there was a terrorist attack, a very liberal academic colleague of mine said that she would take my old Mauser that I used for dear hunting and march on the whitehouse herself, just like the Bastille. Man! Coming from a very liberal academic feminist, who was so enraged that she would marched armed on the white house was just amazing to me!
The spirit of Jefferson lives on!
ok, spelling, it should be “amendment” and “deer” not “dear” though that could be a freudian slip. Living in a different country, I’m gaining language skills through immersion but losing basic English spelling rules if I’m not careful.
I’m no pacifist either, and the thought of armed resistance, or retrieval of our government, creeps into my thinking more and more. Not so much as an option I would choose or wish for, but more a reality of our future if these criminals continue to place this Nation and the entire planet on such a precarious and dangerous footing. Your colleague is far from alone in her thoughts of scaling the White House fence, armed or not, and I agree with you that liberals have been labeled as purely pascifist when clearly we aren’t. Not all of us anyway. What’s frightening is that such talk is becoming less uncommon and being shared out in the open, like here. Still, I’m not surprised, at all.
I’ve always been a bit of an optimist activist… but lately… I think back on sitting in DC with a few loved ones and looking at the White House and wondering… how many of us could they actually shoot down before we made our way in….
I think the Peace movement has been too nice at times.
I like the idea of some activists make trails of fake blood leading up to their Senators offices.
(((SuperSoling)))
sonic youth is from new york.
other than that, great letter!
I always thought they were from LA, my bad.
And a shout out to Bruce Springsteen. He has a CD of the Seeger songs.
We have a DVD that is a tribute to Guthrie and LeadBelly which has Pete Seeger, Bono, Springsteen, melloncamp, Taj Mahal and others doing the folk songs by the two gentlemen. Incredible stuff!!
Today on CNN which is actually doing some coverage of today’s marches but it also showed Bruce bashing Bush.
Yea, Springsteen, not only talented but just a great human being.
Oh and if you really want your hair to start flaming… listen to an oldie but goodie Phil Ochs. OMG!
So many say there isn’t any anti-war, protest, folk singers around nowadays… but they listen to “mainstream” radio. I moved and am in an area that has a community, reality based radio – KBOO.. and I’m hearing all this great stuff and it’s blowing me away 🙂 We became members even.
missed you friday!
Missed you the other Fridays 🙂
I missed last Friday due to some rather depressing news and house issues. Usually I’m always there.
Yes, KBOO does rock. I like to listen in the am for the news, early evening for great new tunes and then the weekends kick ass!
The Rude Pundit has the links…
Enjoy!
Peace
call life. I honestly don’t believe that we live on earth……..I believe we may choose to come here to learn though. This is the real bootcamp. Real school is in session and none of us are getting off of the planet alive so really it’s just a matter of how we intend to spend our time here together because there will be no WINNER. Walk among headstones and realize the only place and space any of us will ever really make a difference. We are only borrowing and renting this place and this space and this time……..the only thing we own are our souls and nobody can save our souls but ourselves. To thine own self be true because your soul knows….just tune in and listen! We will all succeed and we will all fail many many many times before we return home. I want to get it! My life isn’t a spectator sport and I know love in its many shapes, voices, forms, and levels really does make the world go round BECAUSE I HAVE PERSONALLY WITNESSED THAT HATE CAN STOP EVERYTHING IT SUCKS IN FROM BEING.
and yeah – he was the godfather of grunge. believe it! one nitpick, though:
sonic youth hails from new york and they’re really not punk in musical style. they have much more in common with noise bands, kim’s sultry vocals notwithstanding.
; )
nitpick away! 😉
You are absolutely right. I was corrected above about the location, I just had it in my mind that they were from LA for some reason.
I agree that I catagorized wrongly as well, but I really do grok Kim’s voice – wow!
she hardly played any bass last time i saw them live
Kim Gordon is from LA. Thurston Moore is from Connecticut. The current drummer is from Michigan. the previous drummer was from New Jersey. I dont know where the other guitar player is from and am too lazy to look it up right now. They met originally in New York I think and are rightfully considered a New York band but they used to practice in Hoboken, New Jersey. I have witnessed them kicking some serious ass, musically speaking.
There should be a Thank You Neil Young site like the thankyou Stephen Colbert site. I listened to his whole album for free last night on his site and I’m going to go go to town and buy it today. Yea, thanks Neil. You da man!
The mind obviously has nothing to do with age. They say many people go from left to right as they get older. Well, I’m damn sure going backwards.
It was THIRTY SIX YEARS AGO that I played Neil’s After The Goldrush over and over till I can still remember every note.
He still sounds just as good today. As a matter of fact, the music, although super simple and grungy as ever, sounds better. I just listened to his free stream of the whole album, and I’ll go buy it this week.
This album is really inspiring.