Neil Young To Donald Trump: Comes A Time To Quit Using My Song – Now!

Anyone who has followed Young’s career knows that he’s not going to endorse a Republican, let alone Trump, so a rebuke seemed inevitable. The situation brought to mind that time in 1984 when a sitting GOP president tried to glom on to a rock star. That’s when Ronald Reagan — a former SAG president, you might recall — told a crowd: “America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.” Remember, that was as the Boss’ single “Born In The U.S.A.” was all over the radio at home and abroad. Funny how Trump and Reagan both chose to call attention to records that might seem jingoistic on the surface but, if the lyrics are given more than just a slight amount of actual thought, certainly are not.

Sample lines from “Rockin’ in the Free World” for Trump’s staffers to think about: “There’s a warning sign/on the road ahead/There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead.” By the by, think the Donald ever checked out that hat Young wore on the cover of Freedom, the album that kicks off with “Rockin’ in the Free World”?