Neil Young tells Bush to f off

Neil's Middle Finger and Rock and Roll's Zero Tolerance for Lies -- by Steven Laffoley

Let's get this straight: at its best, Rock and Roll is an unfiltered musical connection to our raw emotions, a uniquely American middle finger flipped up at anyone who tries to explain away inconvenient truth.

Even at its start, back in the 1950s - in its pelvis-thrusting-below-the-television-monitor, foot-stomping-on-the-piano-keyboard, Good-Golly-Miss-Molly, Great-Balls-of-Fire early period - Rock and Roll was raw, unadulterated teen-aged emotion: raging pure Eros - Goddess of Love (or, at least, Goddess of Lust).

Then, in the 1960s, under the dark weight of racism and war, Rock and Roll changed its spirit. It matured - in a sense - offended by the lies of injustice, political and social. In the 1960s, unfiltered teenaged Eros meshed and mashed with unfiltered Thanatos - God of Destruction and Death - and impatient, narcissistic Rock and Roll suddenly developed a zero tolerance for lies. (And if you don't or can't remember: 1960s America was piled thick with lies, social and political.)

So it was no accident that the 1960s produced Rock and Roll's greatest voices for this explosive combination of Eros and Thanatos, and no accident that Neil Young emerged among its finest messengers. Hear Young's extraordinary zero tolerance for lies in Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's wailing lament for the victims of Kent State: Ohio. Rock and Roll was never more movingly poignant or middle finger pointed. After that - remember it how you want - in 1960s and 1970s America, Rock and Roll stopped a war.

But that was then.

Over the decades since, we watched Rock and Roll humbled, tamed by slick-haired, corporate organ grinders with drum-machine backbeats and orchestrated violins. We watched as money hungry agents built, smooth-voice, hormonal, boy/girl, harmony groups singing maudlin romance and techno-drivel - and called it all Rock and Roll.

But we knew: somewhere along the way, Rock and Roll just lost its nerve. And lost its zero tolerance for lies. Hell, even Neil Young started crooning country music.

But push fast-forward, about forty years after Ohio, and see America's old, ugly racism, again. See America's long, ugly war, again. See America's deep, ugly political and social lies, again.

But also see Rock and Roll's zero tolerance for lies - again.

A week or so ago - arriving like a screaming banshee lamenting the dead along a cold, desolate heath - Neil Young and Rock and Roll suddenly roared back, giving a big middle finger to all that has gone wrong with America, and a big middle finger to all those trying to explain away inconvenient truths, again.

From behind those rolling, raunchy guitar chords, hear the lyrics from Young's After the Garden, the title track from his new, anti-war album, Living with War: "Won't need no shadow man, runnin' the government. Won't need no stinkin' WAR. Won't need no haircut. Won't need no shoe shine. After the Garden is Gone."

Neil's middle finger never stuck out so much.

But this ain't the 1960s anymore. And, oh, how the times have changed. Read today's self-important critics of American politics and culture. Read how they dismiss Neil Young's new album and Rock and Roll's rediscovered zero tolerance for lies. Read how these Fox News minions - those helping the president dish out his lies - offer up dubious details disguised as criticism: "Neil Young's just a Canadian, did ya' know"; "Neil Young once supported Ronald Reagan, did ya' know"; "Neil Young still smokes dope, did ya' know."

Yeah, we know. But so what?

These button-down, pin-striped critics - toadies to the powerful who never inhaled and who now rail against Young's simplistic lyrics and ragged musicianship - wildly miss the point of Neil's Living with War, and wildly miss the point of his well placed middle finger and Rock and Roll's zero tolerance for lies. Of course the lyrics are simplistic and the music ragged. We all know this album ain't a New York Times editorial or lawyerly Senate floor speech - it wasn't meant to be.

Like the Rolling Stones said, "It's only Rock and Roll - but I like it." We like it, because through its simplistic lyrics and ragged musicianship, we can hear in Rock and Roll and in Neil Young's Living with War the unfiltered truth.

So, let's get this straight: Rock and Roll was never meant to be logical, never mean to be intellectual, never meant to be consistent. No, Rock and Roll was meant to be the unfiltered truth - with a zero tolerance for lies.

And by God, it's nice to hear it, again.

"Hey, hey, my, my," once sang Neil Young, "Rock and Roll will never die." For America's sake, and for the sake of peace and truth, let's hope Neil Young is right.

(Steven Laffoley ( stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca ) is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of " Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of An American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason.")