Living With War (2006)

I think it’s arguable that Living With War is the best album by Neil Young in the decade of the 2000s but note also it’s his 27th album and fifth decade of making albums, introducing an element of faint praise to this assessment. Not surprisingly, there is a certain level of sameness and familiarity to the tunes in this set, all written by Young except the closing chestnut, “America the Beautiful.” The latter is there partly as the US center-left forces with which Young has always more or less been aligned attempted (vainly, I’m sorry to say) to reclaim ideas like patriotism, self-sacrifice, and love of country from belligerent rightwing forces, even as the folly of the second Iraq war was setting in as conventional wisdom. The other reason the patriotic hymn is there is because the 100-voice choir brought in for this album just sounds so damn good. Young looked to the rush job of “Ohio” in 1970 for inspiration, writing and recording Living With War in nine days. Does it work? Well, they are Neil Young songs, marked by his usual points of melody and charging power. You might not think so scanning the track list, but it’s perfectly possible (and recommended!) to sing along with or at least head-bob to songs like “Living With War,” “Shock and Awe,” and “Let’s Impeach the President” (for lying). Listen to the album a few times and you may likely find yourself singing along against your will. Another point that sets this album apart is the 100-voice choir. Album-closer “America the Beautiful” is where it chiefly gets the spotlight, but it appears on most of these tracks, lending the material a wonderful luster and certain level of celestial awe (no shock). Countering this display of beauty—already countered to some degree by the angry political themes—is an occasional trumpet (played by Tommy Bray), which sounds homely and barely competent yet fits the mood perfectly, playing like a soldier in bandages. It is surprising and apt and satisfying the way Neutral Milk Hotel’s cornet can be. Earlier in the decade, I worried that Young’s tribute to the heroic passengers of flight United 93 on 9/11, “Let’s Roll,” veered dangerously close to a lot of the volcanic jingoism that proceeded out of that day until 2006 and well beyond. But Living With War clarifies any ambiguities of Young with regard to the militarism that followed 9/11. In the era of Donald Trump Living With War already sounds depressingly quaint. But it’s still a pretty good Neil Young album.