Neil Young wants to impeach the president

1. Review of "Let's Impeach the President"
by Neil Young

Neil Young is angry about President Bush, but Young's being very polite about it by naming his latest protest song "Let's Impeach the President" from his latest album, Living with War .

The use of "let us" or its derivative, "let's," is a way to soften the blow of a command. It's also a way to direct that command to a more communal audience. If he had named the song "Impeach the President," it would be a demand specifically to the House Judiciary Committee to begin deliberations on whether to conduct an impeachment inquiry, then go to the full House of Representatives for permission to conduct such an inquiry, then vote on articles of impeachment, then forward those articles to the full House for a vote, then send them on to the Senate for a trial. He wouldn't even be asking for a conviction by the Senate — merely that charges be brought against Bush. Plus, it would sound like a crankier, more feedback-filled version of Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill."

By adding the "let's," the meaning changes into a collective call — a helpful suggestion, if you will — to all Americans to demand their president be held accountable for the war in Iraq, high oil prices and the blockbuster success of "My Pet Goat," as well as for the House Judiciary Committee to begin deliberations ... and so on.

"Let us" or "let's" is not a construction that one would think fits well in most rock music, or any other genre that purports to reflect the baser, more emotionally direct instincts of its listeners. "Let us" is a construction used much in less threatening, more outwardly communal venues, such as the Christian church. "Let Us Pray." "Let Us Break Bread Together." "O Come Let Us Sing." It's not a demand, it's an invitation to action.

Sure, there's a hint in the construction that the speaker of "let us" or "let's" strongly suggests you take action. In the rock and pop venue, "let us" and "let's" have had their greatest success when used as titles for songs that, even among audiences that accept directness, might be a little too harsh, or sound like a command given a child — particularly songs that are sly invitations to sexual activity, and, even more particularly, such songs performed by Prince. Let's chart some songs to see how it works (see, if I hadn't put "let's" at the start, it would be as if I were ordering you to chart the songs):

Artist
Song Title
Meaning
Meaning Without "Let's" or "Let Us"

The Cure
"Let's Go to Bed"
Sly invitation to sexual activity
It's past your bedtime

Al Green
"Let's Stay Together"
Heartfelt plea to save relationship
Don't get lost in the mall

Black-Eyed Peas
"Let's Get Retarded"
For purposes of fun, we will let loose
Lose some IQ points

Prince
"Let's Pretend We're Married"
Sly invitation to sexual activity
I'm a four-year-old girl trying to get someone to play house

Judas Priest
"Let Us Prey"
We shall feast upon the weak
We are the weak

David Bowie
"Let's Dance"
Everybody on the dance floor
Yosemite Sam is shooting bullets at your feet

Billie Holliday
"Let's Do It"
Sly invitation to sexual activity
I will no longer accept inaction

The Cars
"Let's Go!"
Get ready to party hearty
Hit the accelerator already, grandma

Chet Baker
"Let's Get Lost"
Sly invitation to sexual activity
Scram, toots

Jermaine Jackson
"Let's Get Serious"
Sly invitation to long-term relationship
What are you, stupid?

Wilbert Harrison
"Let's Stick Together"
Heartfelt plea to save relationship
Damn Elmer's

Prince (again)
"Let's Go Crazy"
For purposes of fun, we will let loose
I order you to lose your mind

Earth Wind & Fire
"Let's Groove"
Everybody on the dance floor
Watch out for that long, narrow furrow or channel

Marvin Gaye
"Let's Get It On"
Sly invitation to sexual activity
Bang a gong

Dead Kennedys
"Let's Lynch the Landlord"
Call for community action against rapacious building owners
Meet my landlord, Lynch

Prince (king of the "let's")
"Let's Work"
Sly invitation to sexual activity
Command from your annoying peppy aerobics instructor

Ice-T
"Girls Let's Get Butt Naked and Fuck"
Not-so-sly invitation to sexual activity
Come-on from lipstick lesbian Web site owner

KISS
"Let's Put the X in Sex"
Really not-so-sly invitation to sexual activity
Pay attention to your Scrabble game!

Certainly, this can work the other way. John Lennon's "Imagine" counts on an individual's intimacy and rumination for its power, pathos and ability to inspire. "Let's Imagine" sounds like it would be sung by Barney the purple dinosaur.

Young is no stranger to the "Let's" genre. What makes "Let's Impeach the President" somewhat surprising in some quarters is Young's post-9/11 recording of "Let's Roll." That was inspired by the command Todd Beamer gave to his fellow, shaken United Flight 93 passengers in their fatal and celebrated attempt to take over their plane from hijackers. For Beamer and the song, "let's" is used as a polite way to suggest strong action. Saying "roll" would make you sound like Cecil B. DeMille.

This is not to say that all the songs with "let's" succeed on their own terms. I'm one of the biggest Neil Young fans going, but "Let's Roll" stunk. "Let's Impeach the President" is better, and has some of the raggedness that was the boon — and bane — of the 1995 Mirror Ball album he recorded with Pearl Jam. But in these songs, "let us" or "let's" is necessary to impart the need for action without trying to order people to do things they might not want to do, or might not do just to spite your controlling ass.

(Bob Cook -- bob@flakmag.com)


2. Neil Young and the Restless
When it comes to really putting Bush and Rumsfeld on the spot, why did a comedian, a former general, a rock star, an ex-CIA analyst and an average citizen in North Carolina, go where reporters often fear to tread?
By Greg Mitchell

For centuries, The Press acted as surrogate for The People. Now, at least in regard to the Iraq war, the reverse often seems to be true.

While reporters and commentators continue to tiptoe around the question of whether Bush administration officials, right up to the president, deliberately misled the nation into the war, average and not-so-average citizens have raised the charge of “lies” and caused a stir usually reserved for reporters. Is America, or just my own head, about to explode over Iraq?

The latest example of citizen journalism occurred Thursday, with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern’s persistent questioning of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld at a forum in Atlanta. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, interviewing McGovern later, told him he had gone where most reporters had failed to tread. Whether Anderson meant this as self-criticism was impossible to tell.

This comes on the heels of satirist Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday -- publicized primarily by Web sites and blogs -- and this week’s streaming-on-line debut of Neil Young’s “ Living with War ” album, which proposes impeaching the president “for lying” (and “for spying”). It has already earned more than a million Internet listeners, and on Saturday reached #3 in sales at Amazon. "Don't need no more lies," Young sings repeatedly in one song.

McGovern, Colbert and Young are hardly grassroots Americans, but we also have the recent example of Harry Taylor, who on April 6 rose at a town meeting in Charlotte, N.C. and asked the president about his domestic spying program, among other things, saying he was ”ashamed” of the nation’s leader.

But this “people pressure” has been the story of the war at home all along, at least in personal probing of the engineers of the disaster. It was a U.S. soldier, after all, whose questioning of Rumsfeld in 2004 about the lack of adequate armor for personnel and vehicles in Iraq brought that issue to national attention.

Even on the editorial pages, it has required at virtually every newspaper an outside contributor to propose a radical change in direction on Iraq. Witness the op-ed on Thursday in the Los Angeles Times by retired Gen. William E. Odom, calling for the start of an American withdrawal. For more than a day it was the most e-mailed story at the paper’s Web site—just as The New York Times’ belated story on Colbert was #1 at that site for 24 hours or more.

While reporters have produced acres of tough journalism on issues related to the war, they have generally failed to ask Bush and Rumsfeld truly pointed questions (saving that experience for punching bag Scott McClellan), and refused to use the word “lie” in news stories and editorials. At the same time, the public now has many more opportunities to act as presshounds, at public forums that either did not exist, or at least were not televised, years ago.

Still, it would be nice to see reporters following ex-CIA analyst McGovern's example on Thursday, directing chapter-and-verse examples of misleading statements, or downright lies, at Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and others (beyond Tony Snow) whenever they get a chance. Certainly, every poll shows that the American public is behind them on this--or should I say, ahead of them?

Now it will be fun to watch the media reaction to the CD release of the Neil Young anti-Bush broadside next week. A Washington Post music critic has already weighed in with a pan, declaring, bizarrely, “the urgency is somewhat strange, given that the album doesn't appear to be inspired by any recent events.”

If you are a Neil Young fan -- politics aside -- you will no doubt appreciate his return to slashing guitar work and full-throated singing. The lyrics are consistently biting, always topical, and occasionally humorous, with war the focus but with side trips to American consumerism and environmentalism.

He even refers to the prohibition against the media showing pictures of coffins returning form Iraq: "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 ground." And in another song: "More boxes covered in flags/ but I can't see them on TV." Don't forget, Young is the son of a well-known newspaperman.

He closes with “America the Beautfiul” sung by 100-voice choir. It’s true, Young is a Canadian, but he has now lived in this country for four decades, which should count for something.

The best song is not “Impeach the President,” a mediocre melody highlighted by audio clips of embarrassing Bush statements (“We’ll smoke them out” etc.), but rather the blistering “Shock and Awe,” which includes not only specific antiwar lyrics but the more philosophical “history is a cruel judge of overconfidence.”

The press response will be fascinating, but, no matter what, it is not likely to top John Gibson’s gaffe on Fox News this week. On April 28, Gibson blasted Young, charging that he must be suffering from "amnesia" about the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He suggested that Young go see the new movie, "United 93," about the hijacked flight that went down in Pennsylvania that day. Gibson even offered to buy Young a ticket.

Whoops. It was Neil Young who wrote one of the highest-profile songs about 9/11, right after the tragedy -- "Let's Roll," which paid tribute to the passengers on United 93.

(Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor and Publisher.)