Neil Young
Living With War

THE REVIEW

LIVING WITH A WHORE.

…and here we go again.
The wolf loses its fur but not its vice.
Here again trying to review Neil Young with this record that, under the guise of an instant-opera, serves us yet another flat and raw job like a plate of raw beans taken directly from the freezer.
Ohhh yes yes, okay…it's an album AGAINST the war…AGAINST the lies of chubby-Bush…it's a committed and battle-ready album…for heaven's sake… but it's with everything else that my balls go bungee jumping from the top of the foreskin.
Oh yes of course…there's the anger of the past, in every word there's poison, criticism, reflection, words are dry and heavy…but what I'm saying is: why the hell make it an album? Why not take better care of the musical part? Why not attempt to vary at least a bit these 3 chords 3 he lazily gives us in almost every track? Why not try to give some sort of arrangement, even a minimal one, to the lazily and almost unwillingly played songs?
Sure, sure…you'll say it's an album for the people, an album made and thought for the people, born from the generalized anger for the many fallen in Iraq, born from the desire for reconciliation between the Western world and the Middle East, a kind of metal-folk-protest songs, a recovery of the protest songs of the sixties and a thousand of these damn things.
Fair enough, by all means!
But I also say: B A L L S.
This is a terribly boring and limp album that might be salvaged at a literary level but is definitely to be sunk for the musical part, predictable, tired, and self-quoting like few others (see also that half-assed "Greendale"). Neil Young redoing himself in an almost embarrassing caricature without bite, credibility, and, ultimately, listening pleasure.
But yes…yes…calm down…surely there are also those choruses of over 100 common voices (which makes it oh so "social commitment") of "Looking for a Leader" opening with America The Beautiful that almost makes you miss the pacifist and choral ballads of John Lennon…all as expected.
But I keep asking myself: why an album?
Someone like Neil Young who now can do anything and anything will be published for him, well…someone like that, why didn't he write a book on the subject? Why not a nice and substantial article in "Internazionale," an essay, a booklet, a blog or whatever instead of an album full of slogans and predictable and rhetorical clichés (even questionable in some respects)?
Writing song lyrics, as we know, requires a certain level of synthesis which is also a kind of "shortcut" if you will to avoid more articulated discussions and more complex and difficult analyses to argue. But instead of screwing up the speeches a bit and floating in the sea of clichés, choosing thus the easier path, couldn't he have done something else?
So, meanwhile, I'll write a few official lines to Mr. Young and we'll see:

Rome, November 16, 2006.
Dear Mr. Young, if, as they say, you really wanted to "get your balls out," why didn't you address the topic of "war" in a more courageous and "serious" way on means that are more suitable and in-depth? Why retreat to a mediocre disc of entirely avoidable and sloppy songs just to say what in some way your audience loves to hear?
Why ride the wave of second-rate civil engagement with a frankly debatable operation that remains at a superficial and poorly argued level? And above all, what concerns me the most: WHY DIDN'T YOU AT LEAST MAKE A NICE ALBUM like the many you made in the past?
Thank you for any eventual reply…
Your ex-admirer.
Lesto B. ”

(If someone then has the kindness to translate it, I would be tremendously grateful. I will make sure to send it to him. Obviously...)