Living With War (2006)

My brother was stationed in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. Luckily, he was one of the ones who came home. Neil wrote Living With War for the ones who didn’t and their families. In 2006, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were raging on, five years after the tragic event that incited them. What was first positioned as a righteous defense of American freedoms had become a tragedy of its own. Continuing the same political frustration laid out in Greendale, Neil has become even more incensed. As Neil says in the “Let’s Impeach The President” making of video, “I didn’t want to write this.” Saddened to read a USA Today article about a flying hospital that focused more on the medical breakthroughs than on the suffering of the soldiers in the hospital, he started writing the song “Families.” Once he began writing, he couldn’t stop. The album was recorded in less than two weeks, then immediately released for free online, mirroring the quick recording and release of “Ohio” in 1970 (see CSNY/Déjà Vu below).

The mix of pride and frustration on Living With War is something I can relate to. One of the messages of the album is that expressing frustration with the war itself is support for the soldiers. I had many conversations just like that at the time and I was always bewildered by folks who were fine with continually sending their family members back to fight a war. For some, I have no doubt it was seen as a war of religion, making it a modern crusade, a holy war. That never made sense to me. But Neil saw it pretty clearly when he talked about the “new morality” of George W. Bush’s America during Greendale, the holier-than-thou, religious fundamentalism of the right.

Living With War was released in two versions, the main difference being that the original release had a 100-person choir featured throughout. The In The Beginning release a few months later removes the choir and any other overdubs. On the whole, I prefer this more stripped down version (no surprise). The choir is used well in some places, but overall it muddies the songs too much for me. That said, the mix on this album is not great to begin with, perhaps due to the rushed nature of its recording and release.

“After the Garden” starts the album out with essentially a rock lament, specifically a lament for when we ruin the Earth through war and climate change. Giving us the first taste of choir on the chorus here, it’s one of the best instances, but I still like hearing Neil sing it alone. Big fan of the trumpet on “Living With War.” This is the song I’ve been humming the most since listening to it. The concept of this song is that war has become so much a part of our lives, it’s on television and pervading every thought and conversation. In 2006, the Iraq war was still on the news every day and night, inescapable. What does that do to a society? Desensitization is inevitable.

A huge scandal during this time was that dead soldiers were arriving home but that there was a policy to not show their caskets coming off the plane. My memory is that Cheney was adamant that US viewers not see the cost of the war in that way. “The Restless Consumer” gets in to this, along with a slew of other things common to consumers at the time (drug commercials became popular at this time). One of the lines in this song that sticks with me the most (and was incredibly provocative in this time period) is this one: “But we don't talk to them/So we don't learn from them.” The standard policy of the US and that everyone in the country was adamantly familiar with post-9/11 was “we don’t negotiate with terrorists.” I like the message of this song, but Neil delivers it in the strangest shout-rapping I’ve ever heard. I’m sure it’s on purpose, but strikes me as way too awkward to make an impression.

Neil’s songwriting on “Shock and Awe” is really well done here, cinematic and visceral. The music sounds pretty similar to the rest of the album, though. There’s a sameness to Living With War that shows the problem with Neil writing all the songs in a short period, then immediately recording them. The trumpet is back on this song, though. In the middle of the album is the song that started it all, “Families.” I really like Neil’s phrasing on this one, and the chorus melody is memorable. It’s a straightforward rocker, written for maximum catchiness. I think Neil decided to make all these songs similar so that they could be easy to remember and easy to sing along with. That’s what protest music usually strive for.

There are little making of videos for each song on Neil Young Archives, and in some of them Neil walks Rick Rosas and Chad Cromwell through the songs on an acoustic. I have to say, I really think these songs might have been better as solo acoustic folk songs. There’s something a bit overwrought about the electric performances that obscures the emotional weight of each song. It’s difficult to focus on the words. Which is apparently by design. In the “Lookin’ For A Leader” making of, he talks about using the electric to take focus off the words, so that it’s not so serious and “overbearing.” A very odd attitude to have for protest music. Some of Neil’s best lyrics in years are on this album, too. “Flags of Freedom” is particularly evocative.

“Flags of Freedom” delves into the irony of flying our flag to signify making war on another country. “Do you think that you believe in yours / More than they do theirs somehow?” is brutally succinct. The music is again catchy, with small moments that recall “Powderfinger” and “Thrasher” throughout the song, interesting parallels to make. Perhaps Neil is just trying to remind people of what he was about in the 70s and why they were fans of him in the first place.

While I didn’t really listen to this album when it came out, I definitely remember “Let’s Impeach The President.” Here you have a still popular artist who knows how to make the news making an anthem that starts out with “Taps” and calls for the President’s impeachment. The lyrics aren’t clever or poetic, just a straightforward list of grievances wrapped around a simplistic chorus. Again, this would have been better as an acoustic folk anthem. “What if Al Queda blew up the levees / Would New Orleans have been safer that way?” does not play around with its metaphors. I really dislike the “Flip! Flop!” refrain on this song (which isn’t helped by the fact that he sold flip-flops on this tour and played the guitar with one of them during this song). Gotta hand it to him, though. He went there and played this song all over the country in huge arenas (see below).

“Lookin’ For A Leader” has some of the most interesting music on the album, but in a prescient moment, he refers to Obama before he ever announced his campaign. This song was written after the famous DNC speech that put Obama on the world stage, of course. In the making of documentary, Neil says “I think his time is going to come sooner than he thinks” and it’s like he’s telling the future looking at it now. I like “Roger and Out” but the mix really lets it down. It’s the slowest song on the album and the mix makes it feel like a drudge through mud, unfortunately. That said, it’s a lovely piece of writing, remembering a soldier who died in the war.

The album closes with a rendition of “America the Beautiful” by the 100-person choir. It’s nice and poignant at the end of this album, but is only available on the original album, not In The Beginning.

Do I think this album was successful? Despite feeling it might have been better as an acoustic album, I do think Neil accomplished what he wanted to: provoke a conversation and critical look at the war amongst a particular demographic. The songs are mediocre by Neil standards and it’s not something I see myself revisiting, but I’m glad he stood up for what he was feeling at the time.

Top 3 (In The Beginning):

1. Living With War
2. Families
3. Flags of Freedom

Cut song: the choir. Just listen to In The Beginning.

CSNY/Déjà Vu chronicles the 2006 Freedom of Speech tour with CSNY. Neil brought his old comrades together to tie Living With War even more tightly to the protest era of the 70s. It’s a remarkably powerful documentary that covers the album recording, the tour, and most importantly, the reaction. For some, it was unpatriotic and elicited vehement responses (not sure what they expected). For others, it was a tearful validation of all the frustrations, mixed emotions, trauma, and horrific loss they were experiencing.

There’s a great interview with drummer Chad Cromwell that sums up one of these sides:

How was the tour? You’re playing “Let’s Impeach the President” every night when at least half the country didn’t feel that way at all.
For us, it was weird. Before we were allowed to go onto the venue site, they had to have bomb-sniffing dogs from a SWAT team brought into every venue we played at because there were death threats. There were some pretty extreme right points of view about the opinions of these guys and the songs Neil had written.

You’re guilty by association. You’re on deck with these guys singing “Let’s Impeach the President” and you’re in Atlanta, Georgia, which was one of the more memorable nights. You could hear people go, “Fuck you! You piece of shit! Go die!” This was going on between each song. That’s pretty unnerving when you’re strapped to a drum set and you’re basically nothing more than a sitting duck for some nut job that wants to get rid of these guys that want to get rid of the president. (Interview with Chad Cromwell, Rolling Stone, 2021)

While the documentary’s political and social content is incredibly well portrayed, the downside is that CSNY doesn’t really perform well. It reminds me of recently seeing Brian Wilson attempt to sing Beach Boys songs. Neil remains Neil and has great performances before him, but CSN…are just not able to conjure the energy (or health) to perform with any vitality. You can instantly tell who the force behind this tour is, the only one of the group who has been relentlessly and continuously touring in the intervening years. That said, I applaud their full throated support of doing this tour and standing in the gap, so to speak. It’s important for artists to stand up and make people recognize injustices and tragedy. They did it in 1970 with “Ohio” and they did it with this tour. Despite the lackluster performances, it provoked discussion and emotion. That’s true art.

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