In politically liberal Seattle—particularly among his peers in the music community—the right-leaning musician sticks out because of his worldview. But he believes entertainment and activism should remain separate. “Like Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes—I think he’s a phenomenal singer/songwriter and artist,” Jurado says. “He’s a very talented guy. But as soon as he opens his mouth about politics, it turns me off. I don’t care. Can you imagine if you went to a baseball game and before Randy Johnson throws his first pitch for the game, he wants to talk to everyone about the election? No one cares. They came to watch a sports game. There’s a time and a place for politics, and I don’t feel that the public arena in music is the place for it. [It] doesn’t change anybody’s mind. A Slayer song never made me want to go sacrifice my family with a hammer. And a Bruce Springsteen song never made me want to vote for Kerry.” (Emphasis added.)

Artists have to follow their muse, and if the muse leads them to speak out politically, then that’s what they do. You might not agree with what they have to say, but you cannot deny their right to say it. Jurado is entitled to his own opinion, of course, and he shares it with a lot of people these days. Maybe even you. Me, I don’t think that artists should be espousing self-censorship. I would put that pretty damn close to last on the list of good ideas. Art is meant to provoke reaction and, one hopes, thought. It does a million other things as well, of course, but if there’s no point of view, there’s no art. (And as much as I’ve loved the game of baseball at various times over the years, it is a game and not an art. Randy Johnson has a point of view, but Mr. Snappy most assuredly does not.)

As to whether or not music can change anybody’s mind… one song, by itself? No, probably not. But it might inspire a listener to re-examine her beliefs, to delve deeper into the issues raised in a song. Most artists would be pretty happy having accomplished that much, I think. People can and do change their minds.

Take, for example, Neil Young. (Betcha were wondering when I was gonna get to him, weren’t you? Me too.) Neil’s politics have been a little tricky to get a fix on from time to time. The same guy who wrote “Ohio” came out in favor of Ronald Reagan twenty years later, a stance which he recanted afterwards. Within a month of September 11, 2001, Young released “Let’s Roll”. The song was written from the perspective of Todd Beamer, one of the passengers on Flight 93 who wrested control of the plane from the hijackers and crashed it in a field somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Let's roll for freedom,
Let's roll for love,
We're going after Satan,
On the wings of a dove,
Let's roll for justice,
Let's roll for truth,
Let's not let our children,
Grow up fearful in their youth

Not his most shining moment as a lyricist, but it was a very emotional time for everyone.

By now I'm sure you've heard about his new CD, Living With War. There's been quite the kerfuffle over it, both online and off. One of the things I’ve always liked about Young is that he’s not afraid to change his mind. I suspect that his near-death experience last year made him re-examine a few things, the war in Iraq being one of them. There’s a famous quote to the effect that Neil does what he wants to do, when he wants to do it. Once his mind was made up, things took off. Recording on Living With War began March 29 of this year; the album hit the street May 8. That’s an amazingly fast turnaround. (I’m still trying to figure out if the package design for this album is a work of genius or desperation on the part of the reprise art department.)

So how is it? Well, I’ll tell ya. Living With War is not one of Neil Young’s greatest albums. It’s good, but it’s not great. And it’s certainly not gonna age well. But that’s all sorta beside the point, really. It wasn’t written for the ages; it was written for right now. This is not so much an album as it is a polemic. Consequently, it’s often about as subtle as a flying mallet. That’s OK, though, because the time for subtlety on these issues is long past. It does what it was meant to do.

The instrumentation of the album is fraught with symbolism. Neil has plugged back in, and while it’s always nice to hear what he does with Ol’ Black, it’s mostly a vehicle for the expression of anger here. No time for the patented unhinged Neil solos, for the most part; he tears off a fierce (if short) one on “Shock & Awe” and there’s an elegiac solo in the middle of “Roger and Out”, but on the whole the lyrics are right up front and center. Bass and drums are nothing fancy, just basic support and drive.

The two new elements are the ones drawing fire from long-time Neil fans. I have to admit, I was intrigued when I first heard that there was a trumpet on a couple of tracks (“Living With War”, “Shock and Awe”, “Let’s Impeach The President”). I think it’s there mostly to bring “Taps” to mind. The fact that the intro to “Let’s Impeach The President” is a quote from that very piece would seem to bolster that theory. Had that been used as a motif throughout the album... well, you'd probably get sick of it pretty quickly. As it is, that quote from "Taps" is really the only time the experiment works. Having the trumpet double the guitar line on “Living With War” undercuts the power of both. The horn solos on “Shock and Awe” don’t really add anything, either. It was an interesting idea, and I can see what they were after, but I can’t really say that they pulled it off.

The other novelty here is the 100 voice chorus Young assembled for the sessions. For the most part they add a sense of community and a shared purpose. This concept works to varying degrees. The a cappella, gospel-tinged take on “America The Beautiful” that closes the disc actually made me choke up the first time I heard it, and still does most of the time. Otherwise… it’s kinda hit and miss. Maybe it’s just me, but between the way “Living With War” is structured and the choir singing it sounds just like some Methodist hymn form my childhood. (OK, we didn’t have bass and drums in the church, and we sure didn’t have anyone bashing along on an overdriven Les Paul. I’d probably still be going to church if that were the case.) And those massed voices add just the right tone to “Families” and “Flags of Freedom”. On “Restless Consumer” though, aside from the backing “Don’t need!”s, they mostly just point out which note Neil was reaching for & couldn’t quite hit. “Let’s Impeach the President’ would seem to demand as many voices as you could throw at it, but in practice it just muddies the impact. It would have been much more effective to strip their contribution down to reinforcing the first line of each verse and the multiple “Flip… Flop”s.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m telling Neil Young how to make records.

Given the haste with which the project came together, “After The Garden”, “The Restless Consumer”, “Families”, “Flags Of Freedom”, and especially “Roger And Out” have the most potential for living on after the end of the reign of Bush II. Young writes from several different perspectives; that of a soldier serving in Iraq (“Families”), a family watching their youngest son shipping out (“Flags Of Freedom”), and a Vietnam-era vet remembering a lost comrade (“Roger And Out”). That goes back to the idea of making this an inclusive statement, I think, and by and large it works. As much as I agree with the sentiments behind “Lookin’ For a Leader” and “Let’s Impeach The President”, I think with a little more time they could have been polished a bit.

What I find interesting is the way religion seems to be creeping into Young’s work. For someone who’s an avowed pagan – to the point where he plans recording sessions around propitious times in the lunar cycle – there’ve been a number of tunes lately with overtones of Christianity. Last year’s Prairie Wind ended with “When God Made Me”; this time out, we’ve got the aforementioned hymnal sound of “Living With War” and “America The Beautiful”, plus one of the reasons given for wanting to impeach the president is his “hijacking our religion and using it to get elected”. I don’t know if it means anything or not – it’s just an observation.

Given all that, Living With War still makes the cut for me because while it may be flawed, it is flawed in the service of an idea. It works often enough, and the message is important enough, that I’m willing to cut Young some slack. Your mileage may vary; I’m generally willing to cut him a fair amount of slack anyway, being the fanboy that I am. Just, y’know, in the interest of full disclosure. That being said, this one really does rise above its problems.

Most of the criticism of Living With War that I’ve seen takes issue with the fact the Neil Young isn’t even American – he is, in fact, a Canadian citizen. Gasp! A furriner sayin’ we should impeach President Flightsuit? How fuckin’ dare he! Well, yeah, Young does still carry a Canadian passport. Be that as it may, he lives in California and has done so for quite sometime. I’m guessing that he’s paying some sort of taxes on income made here, both as a musician and as the owner of Lionel Trains. (I know the state of California is getting money from him; when I moved from Oakland to Seattle, those bastards taxed me on income I made after I’d moved.) So even if he’s not a citizen, decisions made in Washington still affect him. And even if he still lived in Ontario, that would still be the case. The neo-cons make much of the fact that ours is now a world with only one superpower. In that case, wouldn’t the decisions of the leader of that power affect everyone, no matter their citizenship? Doesn’t that give them the right to speak out when they see that leader making bad choices? Free speech is not just a privilege of American citizenship; it is the innate right of all people everywhere. You either believe in it or you don’t, and if you don’t you are unfit to call yourself an American.

Blind patriotism is no patriotism at all. This country was founded in dissent. There is nothing more American than speaking one’s mind, and those who would tell you otherwise are wrong. They may as well be pissing on the graves of everyone who gave their life in defense of the Constitution and what it stands for. Why are the people who are ostensibly bringing “freedom” to people half a world away doing their level best to snuff it out in their own country? Every time George Bush violates his oath of office by holding himself above the law, every time your civil liberties are abrogated by fear-mongers who justify their actions by saying “none of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead”, every time someone dies in a trumped-up war waged for the sake of empire and profit, that’s another step taken toward the nullification of truth, justice, and what used to be the American way. And when you see that happening, it’s your duty to speak up – not just as a citizen, but as a human being.

This is why you’re seeing the upsurge in discontent with the status quo, among artists and the general public. For all the shit I’ve flipped Conor Oberst – and I’ve mocked him pretty much since day one – at least he’s been trying to say something. Bands like Michael Franti & Spearhead, Sleater-Kinney and, lest we forget, The Dixie Chicks and Green Day, have been vocal all along as well. I don’t think there was much mystery about which side Pearl Jam would come down on, either. And now it’s gratifying to hear folks like the Flaming Lips coming out against the administration. Apparently Paul Simon gets a couple of digs in on his new album, too.

For those of us who’ve said all along that Bush couldn’t lead a campfire sing-along, much less a nation, there’s a temptation to ask where some of these people have been for the last five years. But y’know, “I told you so” isn’t gonna get us anywhere, and it has an especially bitter taste to it, given the body count involved. So yeah, Living With War would have been a bit timelier about three or four years ago, but I’m glad to see it now. Better late then never, as they say.

Living With War is available through Reprise Records - a major label, so no link here. Buy it from your local independant music store.