(crossposted at the blog "Music For My Daughter," a future conversation with my daughter about good music, and why it's important to her dad. I crosspost here once in a while because I love the conversations that unfold in the comments. Apologies if this isn't exactly substantive)
Neil Young is another artist I can't praise enough. He made beautiful and important music, and to me, he almost embodies the musician/artist/troubadour/poet archetype (which probably only exists in my mind, anyway). Let's just say that in my opinion, few people have given us more than Neil Young has with his various projects. And it seems that no matter what style of music you prefer (hard rock, country, folk, pop, etc.), you could find a Neil Young record to fit that bill.
I picked this song because it has a lot of meaning to me. It talks about some hard, serious issues we Americans face (or, more likely, deny and avoid). I listened to this album a LOT while stationed overseas, in the ramp up to Desert Storm. We were getting ready to "liberate" a country run by an oil-rich monarchy, a monarchy which disbanded its parliament and didn't let women (and a large population of foreign servants) vote.
And so I'm alone in a middle east country, getting ready to help some king and all his princes regain their palaces and yachts, and I'm hearing this song:
"I see a woman in the night with a baby in her hand
Under an old street light near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life and what she's done to it
There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool."
It doesn't hurt that this track just rocks.