Neil Young's 'War' Marching Online First

[TimmyB]

From www.billboard.com

Young's 'War' Marching Online First

April 21, 2006, 11:00 PM ET

Neil Young's newly recorded protest album "Living With War," including a song calling for the impeachment of President Bush, will be posted for free Internet streaming next week. Starting April 28, fans can log onto Young's Web site and listen to the 10-track set, according to Reprise spokesperson Bill Bentley.

The album will first become commercially available as a digital download beginning May 2, "and we plan to get it into retail stores as soon after that as we can get them manufactured," Bentley said.

He said the label anticipates getting the album into retail outlets between May 5 and May 15. "Neil wants this album out there as soon as possible," Bentley added.

The Canadian-born Young, 60, who has tackled social and political themes through four decades as a singer/songwriter, wrote and recorded his latest studio offering over a two-week period this month, backed by a 100-member choir, according to his longtime manager, Elliot Roberts.

Much of the album conveys a sense of outrage, vowing repeatedly in the title track "to never kill again," mocking Bush's conduct of the Iraq war in "Shock and Awe" and calling for his removal from office in a provocative song titled "Let's Impeach the President."

The album also strikes a chord of empathy with soldiers separated from their families, and features lyrics ridiculing America's consumer culture, political corruption and religious fundamentalism.

Juxtaposed to "Let's Impeach the President" is one of the album's more hopeful selections, "Lookin' for a Leader," with such lyrics as: "Someone walks among us ... and I hope he hears the call. And maybe it's a woman, or a black man after all." The album closes with an a cappella version of "America the Beautiful."

"You're always going to rub someone the wrong way when you sing, 'Let's impeach the president,'" Young told the Los Angeles Times. "But that's what this country's all about -- being able to express your views."

[MoMack]

Neil is awesome. Enough said.