Young has never hidden his politics. Other than the odd curveball -- his right-wing slant on 1980's ''Hawks & Doves" -- Young is a hippie at heart. He hammered President Nixon after the Kent State killings on 1970's ''Ohio," and savaged President Bush, Version 1.0, on 1989's ''Rockin' in the Free World."
In this post-FM age, ''Living With War" might not resonate like those earlier protest songs. But it's more committed, so much so that it's both heartbreaking and manipulative, cathartic and clumsy all at once. The segment of Young's audience that misses electric Neil is likely to be pleased. So will the yappers on Fox News, who need a nightly target. Pity the White House aide who loads one of these tracks onto the Presidential iPod.
Because, as Young sees it, Bush is a lying, hypocritical windbag whose war strategy has led to thousands of death s, and whose domestic policies have been ''dividing our country into colors, and still leaving black people neglected."
The music on ''Living With War" harks back to Young's longtime backing band, Crazy Horse, even if they aren't playing on it. But there are two unexpected musical flourishes -- a guest trumpet player and the occasional use of a 100-person choir. When the horn is smartly placed, the solos evoke ''Taps" at a military funeral. When it isn't, the trumpet sticks out like a mariachi band at a bar mitzvah.
The same goes for Young's much-publicized choir. The concept works on the punky sing-along, ''Let's Impeach the President," where the voices add a metaphoric weight, as if these many, diverse singers are registering their own exit poll. Here Young samples Bush in a series of contradictory sound clips, breaking them up with the choir's alternating shouts of ''flip" and ''flop." But on other tracks, the choir muddies the music, especially on the title song and on ''The Restless Consumer," a commentary on a world he feels has been overrun by Madison Avenue types.
