Is This Really Him?? | First Time Hearing - Neil Young - Rockin In The Free World Reaction

[@CubsFan2023]

There's a reason Neil is called the Godfather of Grunge. Edit: For something just as heavy-rocking, check out "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"

[@alexshkoditch4593]

Neil is clearly a member of the highest level of rock royalty. In common with all the other members, his (vast) musical catalog has many different musical styles. Oh yeah, when he rocked - he rocked hard and loud.

[@poutine57]

YAY!! Neil Young is soooo good. Peace and Love from Canada ❤

[@mojorider8455]

Hey brother, this tune is one of Neil's hard hitting songs, he held the mirror up to us and showed us our society-- drugs, -crack addiction, ecological disasters, politics and political leaders of the time. Makes you think, man.

[@jurgenschmidt2759]

This is 50% of who Neil Young is, 30 percent is the folkie and the rest a mixture of styles. And he's great at all of them. And there is also the acoustic version of Rockin in the free world on the same album

[@bobschenkel7921]

Neil Young is The MAN! He can play anything from super folksy songs like "Heart Of Gold" and "Old Man", to super heavy songs "Powderfinger" and "Cortez The Killer". "Rockin' In The Free World" is definitely more on the super heavy song description. Neil has a very wide selection of styles in his arsenal, and having seen him four times, I can say, he ain't afraid to use them. Any time any where.

[@patbinkley2107]

Pearl Jam/ Soundgarden opening for Neil Young in Toronto. Show changed me!

[@MikeWalsh-f1g]

Amazing reaction Stan! I've never seen someone so stunned in the first 5 seconds of a song. Check out his Live Rust album from the 70's. It has an amazing mix of the Neil Young most people are used to and rockers like this 👍

[@DrStrangelove3891]

He can do both. Check out Powderfinger or Like A Hurricane for some more rocking Neil.

[@NBKenC]

That whole album is great. One of my faves!

[@tonydelapa1911]

Hard. HAAM. 🧨❤️‍🔥👨‍🚒🧨

[@kentclark6420]

I saw the look on your eyes during the song and I could tell what you were thinking! As others have said, this isn't the only songs he rocks with.

[@lindasalaki9404]

Hey Stan, I think I got whiplash too😅😅😅 Fantastic reaction to a fantastic song 🔥🔥🔥

[@stannelson8306]

Great album!

[@noppawut3442]

🎉🎉 Neil Young 🎉🎉

[@cmzeman]

He played the solo too.

[@chrisjeneson3763]

Like your style Stan, no interruptions. Iiked and subscribed😊

[@michaelccozens]

Great reaction, thanks! You can hear a lot of similarities to this song in the 1970 Young-led song "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, which was in response to the National Guard opening fire on peaceful anti-war student protesters at Kent State, killing 4 of them and wounding many others (at least one of which was permanently paralyzed). Lot of similarities to the current calls for the National Guard to attack peaceful anti-war student protest encampments by people claiming to want to "combat antisemitism" while antisemitically conflating white-supremacist Zionism and Judaism (protip; when someone who is part of the modern Zionist movement, of which the vast majority are US Evangelicals who explicitly want to eliminate all Jews via the white-supremacist colonization project, claims to care about "defending Jews", take that assertion with as much salt as you can find). This song has a lot of references to the politics of its time, but the themes, unfortunately, continue to resonate even-more-strongly with the issues of today, some 40 years later. The "Thousand Points of Light" program was one touted by HW Bush in his 1988 election campaign that was meant to reward people for finding inefficiencies in government operations (nothing really came of it, as has been the case with so many modern conservative "we'll pay for tax-cuts for the wealthy with the government inefficiencies we can't specify but are totally there, trust us!" campaigns), and his claims to a "kinder, gentler conservatism", after people had tired of Reagan's full-throatedly jingoistic and scandal-filled far-right approach, rung very hollow to Neil, who noted that it still included absolutely nothing for the poor except yet more (in some cases, literal) demonization ("Don't feel like Satan/But I am to them/So I try to forget it/Any way I can" (eg drugs). The "drugs" reference is even more potent now, since it's been proven that the crack epidemic was deliberately created by Reagan and Bush in order to both undermine Black solidarity while funding Reagan's illegal war efforts alongside his vicious fascist "Contra" death-squads in Nicaragua). You can feel the anger in Young's vocals about the horrific hypocrisy of touting the US as the "leader of the Free World" while so many of its citizens were deliberately condemned to brutal poverty as a matter of policy, and about the refusal of the wealthy "freedom" fans like Bush to take responsibility for the externalized costs of their conspicuous "greed is good" consumption that they forced upon anyone who couldn't fight-back (indirect connection here to the concept of "environmental racism", in which the pollution generated by wealthy, usually-white folks is forced upon poor, usually-racialized communities). This was also the dawn of the mainstream environmental movement, part of which was driven by the realization by the public of the huge ozone hole created by the irresponsible use and release of CFCs. The parallels to the current climate crisis created by the same mechanisms of wealthy irresponsible consumption paid-for by the most vulnerable are stark.

[@Judy-et4ex]

Correct.

[@StrandedLifeform]

Open your eyes. What's happening on campuses today is far from peaceful. If you think breaking into and vandalizing buildings, blocking students from going to their classes, actively mobbing and beating people simply because they're Jewish is "peaceful", you need to reevaluate your definition of peace. Plus most of those "protestors" aren't even students, they're paid activists brainwashing people into supporting a terrorist group.

[@laurakali6522]

Check out his set from 2018 FarmAid in Hartford CT with Lukas Nelson’s band as his backup band.

[@Bluewizard7131]

Check out the live version with Neil and Pearl Jam! kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYLPhYOOq7Snpac

[@PML78]

I was about to request this version too... I remember watching it and was like... wow what a performance... Neil went off 🤘🏽😎

[@konradv7]

Neil Young is a chameleon. Slow and folky and hard and fast are both him.

[@sigxxxx]

Great Reaction... Terrific Rockin' Song... If you want more Hard Rock - 4 Way Street Live - "Southern Man" - kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYWXp3eHmq5jpqM and "Ohio" - kzbin.info/www/bejne/jICpf3-HqaqKkJo.