Just released: Neil Young lyrics

[i miss america]

Four songs are now available here: http://www.neilyoung.com/lww/lww.html

Excerpt:

Lookin' for a leader

Lookin' for a leader
To bring our country home
Re-unite the red white and blue
Before it turns to stone

Looking for somebody
Young enough to take it on
Clean up the corruption
And make the country strong

Walkin' among our people
There's someone who's straight and strong
To lead us from desolation
and a broken world gone wrong

Someone walks among us
And I hope he hears the call
And maybe it's a woman
Or a black man after all

Yeah maybe it's Obama
But he thinks that he's too young
Maybe it's Colin Powell
To right what he's done wrong

America has a leader
But he's not in the house
He's walking here among us
And we've got to seek him out

Yeah we've got our election
But Corruption has a chance
We got to have a clean win
To regain confidence

AMERICA is beautiful
But she has an ugly side

We're lookin' for a leader
In this country far and wide
We're looking for a leader
With The Great Sprit on his side

Someone walks among us
And I hope he hears the call
And maybe it's a woman
Or a black man after all.

Copyright 2006 Neil Young

:applause:

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. Thanks for the post.

Keep on rockin in the free world!

[melody]

2. Isn't Neil Young a Canadian?

He also was waving a flag awfully heavily post-911. Ever since his "southern man" nonsense, I've had little
use for him. He seems to be, to borrow an aging metaphor, leaping onto the tanks with Yeltsin.

[NWHarkness]

3. What was wrong with Southern Man?

It's an indictment of racism. What makes it nonsensical?

[tatertop]

12. "Southern Man" rocks. Anti-slavery, someone had to say it.

[melody]

18. It's hypocritical. The very title is racist. n/t

[tatertop]

19. No, it is a seminal reminder of how racist the South was

Let us never forget lest it happen again.
Bush, Hatch, and Trent Lott would reinstate slavery
in a New York second if we let them.

[melody]

21. It was never more "racist" than the north

... except to the disagree that ignorance tends to pool up in poor, rural places and the south (due to neglect and violence from outside) is poorer and more rural than many others.

Right now, the south is as anti-Bush as the north.

Hatch is from Pennsylvania (he now lives in Utah - still not the south), Bush is from Connecticut (he only does photo ops in Texas) and Lott's insane. To counter Lott, there is Gore, Carter, Clinton and countless other southerners, but we never think of them, do we?

And George Lincoln Rockwell was from Illinois.

If you want to make a case for a group of people being racist (and southerners are ethnically one people), you are yourself being racist. There will always be exceptions to any rule. Always.

[LiberalPartisan]

43. I disagree

The South was always more racist than the North and at the at the time of Southern Man remained so. To think otherwise is an excercise in cognitive dissonance.

[melody]

46. No, to think as you do suggests Northern bigotry

Most of our greatest liberal figures have come from the south.

[NWHarkness]

57. Sorry, but I consider that a lot of bunk

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. You feel that making any reference to the legacy of slavery is an insult to the south. I feel that your comments are an insult to the legacy of the thousands of northerners who died to end it.

[melody]

65. Jefferson Davis' best friend Michael North was an abolitionist -- fixed it

An ironic name, but he was as dixie-fried as Davis. It cost North his childhood friend.

The Civil War wasn't about slavery. Plenty of northerners AND southerners died for a lot of things.

You could only accept the essential tenet of that song if you think that southern man = slavery. That assertion is incorrect, imho.

[RoyGBiv]

70. WHAT?!?

That is the most absurd thing I think I have ever heard said about this subject.

Jefferson Davis was a slave owner throughout the entire war. He is known to have personally inflicted punishment on those he enslaved at one time, and when he found it personally distasteful to him, hired an infamous slave driver, a person who would whip a slave and then pour brine down the victim's back.

This is anti-slavery?

[melody]

72. Sorry, my fingers got ahead of my brain lol

Sorry, the problem was in my phrasing. I'm late to an appointment, so I'm rushing. Anyway, I've changed the title to my actual point. lol See the dangers wrought in haste?

Thanks for the exchange.

[melody]

17. The title

Since you're wearing the avatar of a southern man ...

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. He pays US taxes

His wife is a US citizen and so are his kids.

Watch this interview
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=991934

[melody]

16. He seems to be Canadian when it's unsafe to be American

Just mho

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I strongly disagree

He is (as are we) a citizen of the planet.

[melody]

23. We're all citizens of the planet

Neil likes the Yankee label when it suits him and shuns it when it doesn't.

Some of us don't have a choice.

[RoyGBiv]

26. Examples, please n/t

[melody]

30. I'm not about to take the time to dig up sources.

It's just my opinion, based on my reading.

[RoyGBiv]

34. That is truly obnoxious ...

When people throw out something like this, something that will obviously provoke a disagreement, and then walk away from it with "not going to dig up sources" I have to wonder why they bother.

If you don't want to defend your opinion, then I hope you'll forgive me for dismissing it entirely.

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. That is total bull

I have been a HUGE fan since 1966. He is a brilliant political lyricist. You obviously haven't listened to much of his music. Especially Southern Man, since you don't understand what it is about.

How about 'Ohio'?
"When the United States began involvement in the conflict in Vietnam, the response was uproarious and rampant. Many young Americans despised the idea that their country was involved in an armed conflict that in no part was their own fault, and did not even directly effect them. They believed that the United States had no real business in Vietnam.

One of the most outspoken songwriters of this era and calling was Neil Young. Whether it was with Buffalo Springfield or with his other group, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Neil Young expressed his opinion at every opportunity that presented itself. In his song Ohio, he expresses both his opinions about the war, and about a specific event that took place on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio.

ohio-kent-rage-taunt.gif

"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio."

http://www.thrasherswheat.org/fot/ohio.htm

[melody]

41. Ohio is a song about the events in Ohio

I have no problem with songs about "Los Angeles" that knock it -- I have a major problem with people asserting ALL people from Los Angeles are "fill in the blank".

I'm in favor of rationally examining our own prejudices, not just those of others.

I'm please you like Neil. I don't. We're all allowed that right.

[proud2BlibKansan]

50. Using your logic,

I could say that OHIO is a song that says the whole state of Ohio is violent. Or full of tin soldiers.

Wait a minute - what about Suite Judy Blue Eyes? I realize Stephen Stills wrote it but Neil did sing backup. Maybe Stephen can't spell?

[melody]

55. Lets look at it this way

OHIO is a non-entity -- it's a game rule, an assertion, it doesn't exist except in the minds of people. Southern men are a group of people.

There's an old song called "Coloreds is Crazy" that talks about black people in very racist ways. So, by your logic, there's nothing wrong with the logic of that song, simply because we must stand back from "Ohio" per your assertions?

[proud2BlibKansan]

59. Here you might want to hold hands with someone here

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=26551825&postID=114575492657780276

[melody]

62. So I disagree with Neil Young, so I must be a Bushite?

That's about as reactionary (and therefore not-liberal) as it comes.

[donheld]

82. You could not be more wrong than you are with this

I think your own bigotry is showing big time.

[pacalo]

87. Please watch the video provided by proud2Blib...

The fact that Neil Young is Canadian was brought up by the interviewer, who meant it as a dig (as if to say, who do you think you are, dissing my president -- you're Canadian). He has lived in the U.S. for 40 years, long enough to have earned the right to complain, & his wife of 40 years is an American; of course, their kids are American, too.

Please watch the video; it's clear that he's not claiming to be a Canadian "when it's unsafe to be American." :)

[RoyGBiv]

5. "Southern Man" Nonsense?

Explain, please.

OnEdit: Let me rephrase. What about "Southern Man" do you find objectionable? Room certainly exists to be a bit critical of the song for some sweeping generalizations, but, in the context of your remarks, I don't perceive that to be what you're saying.

P.S. I did a little checking around to see where this sort of thinking of Neil Young might originate. I noticed it in an interview with Young posted here yesterday when the talking head referred to Neil Young's American flag-waving. Turns out this is a neatly packaged RW-talking point that somehow or another wormed its way into common usage.

You can see some of it here, in a RW review of Young's latest record:

http://www.flagstuff.com/blog/2006/04/15/canadian-neil-young-once-again-wraps-himself-in-the-american-flag/

[melody]

15. OMG

Why is it everyone around here is coiled up to react to disagreements as "right wing talking points". I promise you, I've been liberal longer than the vast majority of the people on this board have even been alive.

My problem with the song -- its TITLE. The automatic assumption is that a "southern man" would think that. It's one of the most reactionary, simple-minded of songs because of its title.

[RoyGBiv]

25. Wasn't a reflection on you ...

As noted, the talking point had made its way into general usage. I was just noting some origins in the apparently mistaken belief you might want to know it.

I still don't understand your problem with it. Your explanation doesn't really elucidate anything other than refining the criticism to a specific kind.

Is it that the song generalizes about Southerners or what?

[melody]

47. My problem with it is quite simple

My "mistaken belief"? There is no such thing as a "mistaken belief". lol

Again I say, the problem is the irrational rhetorical structure of the song. If the song was called
"Black Men" and was filled with derogatory generalizations, I would be just as incensed, and so would you. What makes it wrong isn't just that it's "wrong to degrade black men", what makes it wrong is the irrational basis of the argument.

[NWHarkness]

60. The title is Southern MAN

Not Southern MEN

[Berserker]

8. No Neil Young Is and American

and a Patriot he was born in Canada and is proud of it. He was waving the flag like everyone else and like most of us still do. I still love my country and my flag the repukes don't own it we all do.
How can anyone condemn him for changing his mind and if you were a fan of his you would know many songs he has released that kick ass. And unless someone condones slavery what is bad about this song?

Southern Man Lyrics

Southern man
better keep your head
Don't forget
what your good book said
Southern change
gonna come at last
Now your crosses
are burning fast
Southern man

I saw cotton
and I saw black
Tall white mansions
and little shacks.
Southern man
when will you
pay them back?
I heard screamin'
and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

Southern man
better keep your head
Don't forget
what your good book said
Southern change
gonna come at last
Now your crosses
are burning fast
Southern man

Lily Belle,
your hair is golden brown
I've seen your black man
comin' round
Swear by God
I'm gonna cut him down!
I heard screamin'
and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

Neil Young

[melody]

14. He's Canadian when it's comfortable for him and American when it's okay

Sorry, I still think he's a hypocrite.

As for your contention about the lyrics, what you seem to be missing is the TITLE of THE SONG: Southern man

THAT is what is wrong with it. It's the assertion that "Southern Man" would feel that way as an absolute.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. Have you ever even bothered to LISTEN to that song?

Guess not. sheesh

[melody]

24. Obviously I have

You aren't getting the point -- what about the title "southern man" ISN'T racist?

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. Intelligent people

listen to the song, understand its meaning and realize the title isn't the least bit racist.

[melody]

39. I'm an intelligent person -- I'd suggest you aren't seeing your own bias

Perhaps see it as "not the least bit racist" because you agree with Young's default contention -- that all southern men were slave-holders or are their descendants.

If someone wrote a song called "People Called Liberal" and defined liberals by a march of allegations, would you "realize" something beyond the obvious?

Neil appears to hate southern people - he is therefore racist.

[RoyGBiv]

42. Hogwash ...

Okay, here, at least, you begin to answer the question. I even asked directly if this was your problem with the song/title, and you never bothered to say "yes" or "no."

Neil Young is not "anti-Southern," although some did take a poke at him for the generalization he made with that song and "Alabama," most notably the members of Lynard Skynard. But that trumped up controversy is not exactly what you seem to think it is.

In the context of the times in which he wrote the song, the meaning was clear and appropriate.

[melody]

45. So you know the mind of God but no one else does? :)

I think the song betrays Young's own bigotry. As I said in another post, replace the word "southern" with "Black" or "Asian" or any other ethnic group and then tell me you wouldn't be offended by a song filled with derogatory generalizations. I know I would be. The problem is the irrational structure of the song -- it has nothing to do with Lynrd Skynrd or what-have-you.

[RoyGBiv]

53. I don't know anything about God...

I know quite a lot about Neil Young specifically and also Southern and anti-Southern rhetoric, art, and culture generally. Neil Young is only slightly more anti-Southern than I am, and then only because he hasn't been raised with Southern culture surrounding him.

And I think you missed the point of the Lynard Skynard reference. As I assumed you were aware, a controversy about this song (and "Alabama") erupted at the time it was released, and Skynard released a response in the song "Sweet Home, Alabama," which pretty much everyone proceeded to misinterpret just as disastrously as I believe you are with Young's song. Skynard was tweaking Neil, letting him know that, "Hey, not all of us are like that, and you might want to tone it down a bit or risk alienating everyone..."

Neil Young probably did have a bias when he wrote "Southern Man," a bias that, unfortunately, was created by a lot of very real things happening at the time. He wasn't intimate with the South or Southerners, but he knew what was taking place in the South, and he spoke out against it, as I hope we'd all do.

[melody]

58. I know "Sweet Home" and agree with it

And I know the songwriter had the same reaction to "Southern Man" that I did.

We're all human beings -- we all have flaws -- even Neil Young.

[RoyGBiv]

68. You agree with it?

Tell me, then, what does "Watergate does not bother me" mean to you?

[melody]

69. It's the songwriter's assertion that Watergate was a northern phenomenon

I think that's a valid contention.

In other words, "bad things happen here ... bad things happen there". That's fairly obvious.

[localroger]

83. You forgot the best part

After the Southern Man / Sweet Home Alabama thing, Neil Young made peace with the members of Skynard and they became friends. When the plane went down, Neil Young got up on stage and paid tribute to them by singing Sweet Home Alabama himself.

[cascadiance]

80. His wife and kids are American...

Shouldn't be allowed to be worried about their future! I wish more native AMERICANS were as concerned about their American kids' futures!

[pacalo]

88. Please see post #87. :)

[tom_paine]

9. Southern Man is a great song, which shone the light on Busheviks

of the 60s, back when they were disenfranchising black people a lot harder (with rope & torches) than their new methodology of voting machine shortages, phony felon lists, and electronic hocus-pocus.

That was back when they were still Democrats because the Yankee Liberals that made up the Left Wing of the Republican Party before it became the Party of Lee, whipped their asses and made them free those Uppity Nigras.

Oh, and by the way, "Alabama" is a lovely song, too.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Neil was in Buffalo Springfield too

Who can forget this song:

There's somethin' happening here,
What it is ain't exactly clear.
There's a man with a gun over there,
Tellin' me I gotta beware.
I think it's time we stop,
Hey, what's that sound,
Everybody look what's going down.

[melody]

13. LMAO - you can sure tell when the faithful have been crossed here

"Southern Man" "shone the light" in the wrong direction. Bush is not southern - in fact, his whole family is the antithesis of the south.

The "Niggras" (your word) ARE the south. There aren't two people there -- there is one. The poor south is the poor south, we just have a range of colors. Anyone with any familiarity with the culture, knows that. Muhammad Ali is half Irish. Most "white southerners" have Cherokee or African relatives.

Just like Europe and the US, there is just as much chicanery going on in the north as there is the south. It's just that we've a system of sneering set-up in the north to blame everything on the south (as some in the EU would like to blame everything wrong in the world on the US).

Sorry, I think Neil Young is a hypocrite. We're still allowed difference of opinion here, right?

[RoyGBiv]

28. We're allowed differences ...

I just think some of us would like you to explain in more precise terms what the basis of your difference is. Obviously we don't see the same thing you do, so examples and other details that flesh out your problem with Neil would be helpful.

[melody]

32. I've stated my problem with Neil Young

When Young understands what he did in writing "Southern Man", maybe I'll rethink my position. It's just my opinion - what do you care?

Incidentally, in response to all the anti-south PMs, I'm from CALIFORNIA.

[RoyGBiv]

38. Not really ...

What you've stated is that you don't like Neil Young and followed that up with "because" statements that are really nothing more than further assertions without much apparent basis. It's sort of like if I said I don't like dogs because they're mean and someone coming along and asking me to explain that. If my only response is, "They're just mean is all" or "They bite," I haven't really said anything.

What do I care? Do I really have to bring up the "this is a discussion board" response? I started out wanting to understand what you're saying, but the defensive posture of your replies, which lack substance, leaves me wondering just what this is about. Call it curiosity.

I don't really care where you're from. That's irrelevant, actually. In my response here I was just trying to prod you into elucidating your comment about the title. Since one of the two words in it is "Southern," I thought possibly that might be it. I guess not.

Still confused over here...

[melody]

44. "Prod me"?

Thanks, I'm my own Zen Master. lol

I think Young is biased against southern people in the US.

In analyzing rhetoric, look to the structure of the written object. Replace "southern" with "Black" or "Polish" or any other group and tell me you wouldn't be insulted, if it was filled with polemic against those groups.

[RoyGBiv]

49. Allow me to introduce myself ...

You won't find a more ardent opponent of the vast generalizations thrown at Southerners on DU or elsewhere. Since I now understand your problem with the song, I can at least say I see where you're coming from. I still believe you are wrong because the song had a specific context in which it was written and addressed that context.

And, yes, I was trying to prod you because, as I and others kept trying to say, I didn't understand you.

[melody]

52. But it applied to all southern men the actions of a few

I'd made that point in other posts -- it's hard to remember to whom I've replied. lol

I think we need to kick our own tires as soundly as we do others'.

[RoyGBiv]

54. A rather severe understatement, that ...

What was happening in the South at the time was not limited to the actions of "a few" in any sense of the word.

[melody]

56. No, it was limited to a few

It was much like what goes on among Barrio youth gangs now -- a few nasty sociopaths, a whole lot of borderlines, and a lot more flawed human beings who were/are simply afraid.

I speak as the great-granddaughter of a Klan member. I'm also the great-granddaughter of a man responsible for running the Klan out of his southern town. My grandparents (as southern as it comes) were staunch civil rights activists. And my grandfather was a "southern man".

I remember very clearly the bias my family went through because of their "hick accents". That's still present in the mindset of this song.

[RoyGBiv]

67. No, it was not ...

I'm sorry, but this is one of those positions on which I and pretty much anyone who has studied the South as extensively as I have are intractable. I mean, entire studies have been done on this; it's not a vague issue. The "few" were those like your great-grandfather who was responsible for running the Klan out of his town. These were incredibly noble and brave people, brave because they risked their lives.

This is similar to the often hotly debated issue of slavery in the antebellum South as a factor in the causation of the Civil War. The theory among some goes that because relatively few Southerners at any given time actually owned slaves, then slavery didn't have anything to do with why their g-g-g-grandfather fought for the South in the war. That's a logical leap that fails to take several elements of the question into consideration. "Few people owned slaves in the South" is a true statement. It follows that even fewer people personally used a bull whip on an enslaved person. It does *not* follow that therefore a limited few were responsible for the whipping of the enslaved. The reason is that the culture itself was based on this racial hierarchy and supported it both through action and inaction. Poor, white dirt farmer who never owned a slave and never had any desire to own a slave was still very much a cog in the slave system and of maintaining slavery due to the social dynamics involved. That poor dirt farmer might never commit a single act of violence against an enslaved person, but neither did he oppose that violence and, in fact, encouraged it. Ironically, non-slave holding Southerner were more apt to commit acts of violence against the enslaved because a) the enslaved were the only people on the social scale that were of a lower class than they, b) they indirectly competed with the enslaved for resources, and c) the "dirt farmer" tended to dislike the plantation owner and sought to hurt his interests whenever he could. People in E. Tennessee prior to, during, and immediately after the Civil War were heavily pro-Union, fiercely anti-slavery, and violently racist. They didn't hate slavery; they hated the enslaved.

The South of the Civil Rights era was the descendant of this social system, and the same dynamics existed. A relative few may have been going out and burning crosses or butchering Blacks on the side of the street, but those few who did were supported at various levels by the silence of the vast majority and at times the direct support of those who didn't leave their homes to inflict the violence. This dynamic is shown nicely in the fallout of the murders of SNC workers and other, similar cases. Just a few people carried out these atrocities, but entire communities either supported them silently or outright defended them both in public and private. *That* is what Neil's song speaks to. It errs in not recognizing the few like your ancestor who worked to reverse this system as much as they could, but the overall theme of the song was on target.

[melody]

71. anti-southern southerners are their own breed

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.

The assumption that ALL or even MOST southerners were actively racist in the sense of belonging to the Klan (all people are biased to some degree - as Justice Marshall said, the difference is in an intelligent person's challenge to his own biases) is simply untrue. There were more southern participants in the underground railroad than there were northern participants -- and they were at far greater risk.

[RoyGBiv]

73. That's too easy ...

I tend to agree to disagree with a person when I recognize that we both have a valid basis of opinion and that our interpretation simply runs in different directions. I believe your view of this is rather uninformed in several significant areas.

Just a final few, brief comments

: "...actively racist in the sense of belonging to the Klan..." is a preposterous dividing line for racism. By this standard, very few women in the South were racists, which is also preposterous. This also begs the question of is there such a thing as "inactive" racism?

Pick up a few books on the Underground Railroad. It may (or may not since I don't have numbers handy) be true that more Southerners were involved in the UR than those in the North, but this is by nature of many of those white Southerners having fled the South and of many Blacks in the South working as agents. That doesn't quite support the point you're straining to make.

I will say, just to attempt to find some common ground, that I mostly agree with the very fundamental basis of what you're saying here, i.e. that racism, etc. was not limited to the American South and that there were and are many very good Southern people who actively tried to change things in various ways. But the lengths to which you take this fine sentiment are not well considered.

And I'm done now...this has gone far too far afield.

[melody]

74. It's a question of humility

My ancestor Alexander Job was important to the Underground Railroad. My graduate work was in cultural anthropology, with a special emphasis on ethnology. My own ethnology provided a lot of research material. lol I know quite a lot about the UR. I'm also related to Michael Laden North, so I know a lot about him as well.

I'm willing to agree to disagree with you -- I'm not so happy with myself as to think I know everything about anything -- and much of what I know is from external sources which may themselves be wrong.

If we start looking for "what is wrong in the north", we'll find an equal number of things. The difference is the fingers are always pointing north to south rather than the reverse.

[RoyGBiv]

76. When you have the time ...

I'd be curious about some resources for this Michael North individual. I've got two bios of Davis handy, and neither has the name indexed. I also have several dozen books on or including information about anti-slavery sentiment in the South. I haven't checked them all, but I don't recall the name.

It's been ages since I read the bios, so perhaps it simply slipped my mind, and I also know these particular bios were written with a particular agenda in mind that might have caused North to be ommitted from mention. In any case, this is new information to me, which is rare with this subject, so I'm intrigued. Is North a George Washington Cable type of abolitionist, Grimke Sisters, or more like Andrew Johnson? If you have the chance and inclination to reply, perhaps the American History forum would be a better place for it.

As for what's wrong with the North: Litwack, Leon _North of Slavery_ and Woodward, Comer Vann _The Strange Career of Jim Crow_ are excellent studies that have moved their pointy fingers around a bit.

[melody]

79. Bits on North

I'm not exceedingly well-versed in Civil War era abolitionist movements (I'm more of an American Revolution person lol -- I know about Ben Franklin's and John Adams' allies, in other words), so I'm not sure where North fits in. I do have a biography on him (written by another relative) that I'd be happy to recommend to you. I'll PM you the publishing information, so you can track it down.

I'm sure there are countless people as relatively known but unknown throughout history. lol I probably wouldn't have known about him if I hadn't done the genealogical footwork. My great-grandfather was very important in the history of Forth Smith, Arkansas, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anything about him in history books about the west (usually in the footnotes).

[Mel]

48. think of it this way

Neil Young is from Canada, so to him All of us, here in America, live in the South.

For the record, I am Southern, I am not insulted by the title of Neil's song.

Hell, look at the mess, we have Republicans in control of All the branches of government. I'd say all of us 'down here' got far bigger troubles than a song Neil Young wrote many a moons ago.

Let us not be divided, we gotta' all stand together and wrestle our Country back from a pack of gangster corporatista fascists!

They want us to fight among our selves 'the cover of chaos' (think Iraq) mean while they are stealing all of our booty!

No! Hell, No! We must not let them get away with it we are All far too smart here at the DU!

[tom_paine]

51. Sure, we're allowed differences of opinion. I am expressing mine.

"Nigras" is a southern word. (Negroes, actually, with a southern pronounciation) That is a fact. Don't try and cast it as "mine".

Bush is the antithesis of the South? Actually, he is the apotheosis of the (Neoconfederate) South.

Sure, his family comes from Conneticut, but his "persona" is 100% Texan, or are you going to argue that? His drawl, while as fake as his Texas ranch, projects his "image" as he wishes it to be seen...a Neoconfederate scumbag.

Did I say everything is to blame on the South, of course not?

But if Bush you think the Busheviks aren't the apotheosis of the Ugly South (and sure there is an Ugly North, and it goes without saying that there are good people everywhere North and South), then you might want to study an electoral map.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2004/11/voting_free_ves.html

You say the Imperial Bush Family is the antithesis of the South. I say that Southerners themselves have repudiated that one well enough themselves by the map above.

[graywarrior]

11. No one wants to forgive anyone for any mistakes

That's what America is all about, right?

[melody]

27. I don't forgive or not forgive him - that's not my place

I'm just stating my opinion. I have as much a right to it as Neil Young has to call all southern men "pro-slavery". I'm related to a lot of southern men who suffered extensively due to their abolitionist opinions (at the hands of the south AND the north).

[graywarrior]

84. Mmm. Ok.

[seabeyond]

29. he has lived here 40 years. his wife and children are american

and you are arguing the very thing that the repugs will yell about win htey hear his album. not because young hasnt been a part of our country for four decades and his family are american. but you will hear the unamerican, anti patriot bullshit see he is even canadian crap

i am thankful to young for standing up and making this album. along with pink? who sang dear mr president.

yell about a man that has lived here for 4 decades. good argument :sarcasm:

[melody]

33. No, seabeyond, you're reacting to me because I disagree with you

I'm a real patriot -- I disagree with my country regularly, but I also stand up for it when it's unfairly critized (which it quite often is). I am only an American ... my people came here 350 years ago.

[seabeyond]

36. you are sure the reason my reaction is because you disagree.

so you are real patriot to someone elses false patriotism? and you are going to decide who is the patriot and who is not? are you bothered because he wrote a song against bush? or because it is someone born in canada and has only lived here 4 decades? or because anyone dared to critize bush ergo is not a patriot?

my reaction is you dissing of young because he was born in canada. i get to decide what my reaction to your post is about.

and good for you, your real patriotism. i will acknowledge, embrace and agree with you. who would i be to question your patriotism? not me. what a nasty thing for me to do question your patriotism

oh, am i not a real patriot cause i like neil young making htis album?

[melody]

40. question it all you like

You were disagreeing with me questioning Neil Young -- but you're welcome to question me all you like.

[Bushy Being Born]

81. He was also a Reaganite in the 80s

And I've found him to be generally supportive of Bush post 911. But I'll check this album out, it looks like he got an epiphany.

The Southern Man nonsense by the way also included the equally shitty song 'Alabama'. But Lynyrd Skynyrd sure showed him! ;)

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Check this one out!!

Shock and Awe

http://www.neilyoung.com/lww/4shockandawe_lyrics.html

[i miss america]

7. I am definitely looking forward to buying his CD. Here's another song

Living with war

I'm living with war everyday
I'm living with war in my heart everyday
I'm living with war right now

And when the dawn breaks I see my fellow man
And on the flat-screen we kill and we're killed again
And when the night falls, I pray for PEACE.
Try to remember PEACE (visualize)
I join the mutitudes
I raise my hand in Peace
I never bow to the laws of the thought police
I take a holy vow
To never kill again
To never kill again

I'm living with war in my heart
I'm living with war in my heart and my mind
I'm living with war right now

Don't take no tidal wave
Don't take no mass grave
Don't take no smokin' gun
To show how the west was won
But when the curtain falls, I pray for peace
Try to remember PEACE (visualize)

Copyright 2006 Neil Young

more at Neil Young's site: http://www.neilyoung.com/lww/lww.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. I think that one will be my favorite!!

[spanone]

61. Neil has been Rockin' in the Free World for forty years. True artist.

[edwin]

86. Amen to that! n/t

[LibertyorDeath]

63. Why does this only have 3 Recs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For fucksakes!!!!!!!!!!

[LibertyorDeath]

64. Rec 5 ....that's more like it!

:)

Great Lyrics.

[Fleshdancer]

66. The posts in this thread are killing me

Is this thread about the song "Southern Man"? Did the OP ask about Neil Young's nationality? No, it's about the lyrics to "Lookin' for a leader". Why not start a new thread instead of hijacking this one? :shrug:

Now that I got that off my chest...thank you i miss america for posting these lyrics! My favorite part:

America has a leader
But he's not in the house
He's walking here among us
And we've got to seek him out

Yeah we've got our election
But Corruption has a chance
We got to have a clean win
To regain confidence


I'm impressed that anyone can look at the problems that exist in our country and write a song of hope and inspiration. I wish I could say the same about myself. :toast:

[i miss america]

75. You are welcome GS. Regarding the direction this thread has taken

it's okay. Controversy is a good thing, if it gets people to open up to other ideas and possibly do some thinking.

I've been a fan of Neil Young since I first heard him sing the words "tin soldiers and Nixon coming..." on the CSNY album all those years ago. That was the first anti-war song I remember as a kid.

I hope his new album gets lots of people talking and thinking, and if it does, we'll all be better off as a result.

[RoyGBiv]

77. PS. Thanks for the lyrics ...

:toast:

Sorry, I kinda went off there for a bit. :-)

[i miss america]

78. Hey, it's all good. Cheers!

:toast:

[alcibiades_mystery]

85. Fucking Fuhrerprinzip nonsense

We don't need a "leader." We've had our fill of "leadership." Fuck leadership. We need a democracy, a real democracy: government without leaders.

When are we ever going to get over feudalism?