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Living with War

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Living with War is a 2006 Grammy and Juno Award-nominated studio album by Canadian-American musician Neil Young. The album's lyrics, titles, and conceptual style are highly critical of the policies of the George W. Bush administration; the CTV website defined it as "a musical critique of U.S. President George W. Bush and his conduct of the war in Iraq"[2]. Written and recorded over the course of only nine days in March and April 2006,[1][3] its lyrics are in line with the early 1960s albums of folk artists such as Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan, though it is set to what Young calls "metal folk protest music"[4] courtesy of Young, bassist Rick Rosas, drummer Chad Cromwell and trumpet player Tommy Bray.

The Cromwell and Rosas rhythm section and "Volume Dealer" co-producer, Niko Bolas, were also at the core of Young's 1989 album Freedom, itself largely an angry criticism of Reagan-George H.W. Bush America. There are other links - Bray also performed on Freedom and Freedom's hit single "Rockin' in the Free World" also contained a quote of a President Bush: "a thousand points of light".

Production and release

Sessions were recorded on 16 track analog tape and mixed to a half-inch analog two track master, then transferred to high-resolution digital for CD and DVD manufacturing.[1]

On April 28 2006, the album was given a pre-release premiere in its entirety on the Los Angeles radio station 95.5 KLOS by Jim Ladd.[1][5] The album was released onto the Internet on May 2 2006 before entering into retail in May 2006.[1] Young has expressed that his intent is that the work be considered as a whole, and the streaming audio internet release was the whole album, rather than individually selectable songs.

"That first impression is so important," ... "Instead of just going to "Let's Impeach the President", people will have to absorb the whole thing. To understand the songs, you need to understand where the whole album's coming from. It protects my right as an artist to have the work presented the way I created it." - Neil Young

The rush release and political nature of the tracks also draws comparison to Young's 1970 song "Ohio".

The album was nominated for three 2007 Grammy Awards in the categories of Best Rock Album, Best Rock Song and Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance (both for "Lookin' for a Leader").

Commenting on the lack of artists writing songs critical of American politics at the time, Young said: "I was hoping some young person would come along and say this and sing some songs about it, but I didn't see anybody, so I'm doing it myself. I waited as long as I could."[6]

Track listing

All songs (except "America the Beautiful", written by Katharine Lee Bates) written by Neil Young.

  1. "After the Garden" – 3:23
  2. "Living with War" – 5:04
  3. "The Restless Consumer" – 5:47
  4. "Shock and Awe" – 4:53
  5. "Families" – 2:25
  6. "Flags of Freedom" – 3:42
  7. "Let's Impeach the President" – 5:10
  8. "Lookin' for a Leader" – 4:03
  9. "Roger and Out" – 4:25
  10. "America the Beautiful" – 2:57

Personnel

  • Neil Young – guitars, harmonica, vocal
  • Rick Rosas – bass
  • Chad Cromwell – drums
  • Tommy Bray – trumpet
  • Neil Young & Niko Bolas – producer
  • L.A. Johnson – assistant producer
  • Mix-down at Redwood Digital with Niko Bolas and second engineer John Hausman
  • Mastering by Tim Mulligan at Redwood Digital
  • Hi-def digital videography for Shakey pictures done by L.A. Johnson's crew for possible full-length video documentary
  • 100 voice choir by arrangement with Darrell Brown, conducted and recorded by Rosemary Butler[5] in one 12-hour session at Capitol recording studios in Los Angeles. According to Neil Young: "This is the same studio where Frank Sinatra performed and recorded many of his big hits."

Charts

Chart (2006) Peak
position
Canadian Albums Chart #7
UK Albums Chart #14
U.S. Billboard 200 #15
Irish Albums Chart #24

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart on May 27, 2006, with approxmiate sales of 60,000 copies. It remainded on the chart for 14 weeks.

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c d e f Living With War timeline.
  2. ^ CTV.ca | Neil Young's new album takes a stand against war
  3. ^ Petridis 2006
  4. ^ Neil Young's new 'metal folk protest music'
  5. ^ a b Butler 2006
  6. ^ Rayner, Ben. "U.S. musicians slowing warmed to burning Bush", Toronto Star, 2 November 2008.
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