Neil Young and the Very Catchy Ditty

I use Rhapsody to listen to music before I decide what to buy. Yes, I pay for it, but $9.99 a month is a lot less than buying crap and not knowing until the shrinkwrap's off. And there is a whole lot of crap out there.

Yesterday, I listened to Neil Young's new album, Living With War. The whole album reminds me of trips across the US with my family, listening to AM radio through Iowa and Kansas, being awake all 29 hours because there was just so much to listen to and see, my mom pulling off the normal route so we could stop by Lincoln's birthplace (and my dad waking up after we stop, wondering where the hell we are). I used to believe that all of the good protest songs were already written and that I was simply born too late. I was wrong.

The album is a protest album in the traditional sense of the phrase. Roger Friedman over at Fox News (which has actually posted the full lyrics) calls Living With War "an incendiary, moving, totally American document of peaceful protest that is going to make a lot of people crazy one way or another." He's right. With songs like "Looking for a Leader" (a prayer for someone who can "bring our country home"), "Restless Consumer" ("How do you pay for war and leave us dyin'/When you could do so much more/You're not even tryin") and "Living With War"(the most beautiful song on the album...I'm serious), you'll either love or hate this album. Like as not, if you're reading this, you'll love it.

Check it out from your favorite album preview site, then buy it. Here are the lyrics for "Let's Impeach the President," the aforementioned catchy ditty that Roger Friedman calls "a melodic, rocking campfire ode" that's the "catchiest protest song since Country Joe and the Fish’s anti-Vietnam ditty, "I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die.""

Let’s impeach the president for lyin'
And misleading our country into WAR
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door

Who’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
They bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let’s impeach the president for spyin'
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking ev'ry law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones

What if AL-QAEDA blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?

Flip...flop

Let’s impeach the president for hijackin'
Our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected

Thank GOD he’s crackin' down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lots of people lookin' at big trouble
But of course the president is clean

Thank God

The album comes out Friday. And don't forget: the Dixie Chicks have their new album out on May 27th.