Neil Young Update

This is very exciting: Rolling Stone is reporting that Neil Young's new album, Living with War, will begin streaming for free from his web site starting tomorrow. And the album will be released to "digital retailers" (I'm guessing that means the iTunes Music Store as well as Napster and Rhapsody) on May 2. No word on release as a hard-copy CD.

Here are some more details on some of the tunes from the British music magazine, NME:

The political tone is set by opening track 'After the Garden', which kicks off with the lyrics : "Won't need no shadow man runnin' the government." It's followed by the title track, which incorporates part of 'The Star Spangled Banner' as Jimi Hendrix famously did at Woodstock in 1969.

'Shock And Awe' refers directly to the bombing of Baghdad with the lyrics: "Back in the days of shock and awe, thousands of children scarred for life/ Millions of tears for a soldier's wife, both sides are losing now."

'Flags of Freedom' returns to the theme with the lines: "Today is the day our younger son is going off to war."

'The Restless Consumer' is built around the refrain "Don't need no more lies" while 'Let's Impeach The President' is even more forthright, with the words: "Let's impeach the president for lying, misleading our country into war/Abusing all the power that we gave him and shipping all our money out the door."

Other titles include 'Lookin' For A Leader' and 'Families' and the album ends with another Iraq song, 'Roger and Out', which includes a 100-piece choir singing 'America The Beautiful'.

I'm really, really looking forward to this and will be buying from iTunes as soon as it's available. (In other patriotic purchasing, I'm also mulling over pre-ordering blogger Glenn Greenwald's book, which is #1 with a bullet over at Amazon.) However, if this isn't your style, there's always The Right Brothers...