Neil Young: Music Can't Change World

BERLIN — Neil Young has a pessimistic message: Music has lost its power to change the world.

The 62-year-old singer brought his new movie, "CSNY Deja Vu," to the Berlin film festival Friday. The film was shot during the 2006 Freedom of Speech tour by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Young, who directed the movie under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, wasn't making any big claims about its effects.

"I think that the time when music could change the world is past," he told reporters. "I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age."

Young added: "I think the world today is a different place, and that it's time for science and physics and spirituality to make a difference in this world and to try to save the planet."

"CSNY Deja Vu" intersperses footage from the tour, which featured performances from Young's "Living With War" album, with archive and television news material _ and unfavorable reactions from critics.

"If we didn't do that, it would just feel like a bunch of old hippies up there saying what they thought _ and who cares?" Young said.

Young said he called his fellow band members before the tour and told them: "This is all I'm going to do, I won't be doing anything else and I don't want to sing any ... pretty songs; we can only sing about war and politics and the human condition."

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"The goal was to stimulate debate among people, and I hope that to some degree the film succeeds in doing that," he said.

"CSNY Deja Vu" is showing outside the main competition at the annual Berlin festival, which runs through Feb. 17.

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On the Net:

Berlin Film Festival:

http://www.berlinale.de/en/HomePage.html

Neil Young:

http://www.neilyoung.com/

Comments

[isis]

Living with War was an important release and you can change the world with music but thanks to Lowry Mayes it goes much more slowly.

[InstantDogma]

Anything can change the world for better or worse. Truthfully most folks don't care if their art makes the world a better place or not. Som e artists do.
Some artists (like the above mentioned FZ) look at the impact of their efforts and do have a moral compass. Now if only thje average person would just gain a moral compass, abandon the delusions and arrogance of self-interest and consider whast the impact of our behaviour. It aint gonnas' happen. Folks ant cel phones, wireless internet access and giant screen tvs and fuck everything else.

[SmootyBooty]

Frank Zappa had a moral compass? He must not have been able to find it in the mess that was his personal life...

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

What personal mess? He was married for 25 years to the same woman (Gail Zappa), and they had 4 children, none of whom ever ended up doing drugs or indulging in idiotic celebrity behaviour....

[rektruax]

You obviously haven't a clue of whom you speak. Perhaps you're confusing Zappa with someone else.

[transendentilist]

You don't know dick about Zappa's personal life. Frank Zappa definately had a moral compass. He was a family man, he didn't use drugs, and he took on the establishment like nobody ever did. His art and musical genious is pretty amazing. His music is quite complex.

[Eoin45]

What BS. Zappa was drug free and married for 25 years and his children are fully functioning mature adults. And you, SmaootyBooty, simply don't know what the hell you're talking about. Why don't you just STFU.

[Citizen54]

What??? Are you talking about THE Frank Zappa? A phenomenal electric guitarist (one of the best ever, really), prodigious composer, and freakingly brilliant musician, he was notorious for being very strait-laced. There's an old story that he kicked Jagger & Richards out of his house for pulling out a hash pipe. He was by all accounts quite the family guy.

[rektruax]

What about a conscious effort to make the world a worse place? What's wrong with merely entertaining for that matter?

People tend to take events too personally I've noticed. That and they wish to include themselves in things they had nothing to do with. I can't help but think (looking back) perhaps most of the popular recording artists of Young's era were at best just preaching to the choir. In effect changing nothing. The bottom line is despite the efforts of musical artists, war, famine, death, hate, murder, rape, etc. still occur and always will.

The only thing wrong I find in Neil's comments is his reluctance to include his own generation's efforts into the equation.

[NelsonJ]

Neil:

I am an old hippie too (72 yr). The new CSNY album captures my soul, but it is true - this is a different world. I think the population has been propagandized into a cynical unreachable position.
I hope that CSNY continues to sing out clearly using the strongest language possible. Especially,
to shoot at th BS propoganda.

[transendentilist]

The draft made a huge impact on the music scene. Kids now a days don't have to chose between the military or prison. If you weren't rich enough to go to college, you most surely would wind up in Nam, prison or Canada. This makes a huge difference.

[PaxMundis]

".I hope that CSNY continues to sing out clearly using the strongest language possible. Especially,to shoot at th BS propoganda"

I don't see CSNY giving free concerts or actually doing anything other than making themselves rich.

[Paz3]

Sorry Neil, but I have to tell you that many of us over 40s (I'm 66) who work in non-profit social service are very familiar with your work, and it helps a lot of us keep going.

One of our particularly dedicated and inspiring staff members has "Rust Never Sleeps" scrolling across his PC monitor screen as a screen saver. That's just one example, among many. Also, quite a few of us in this work are big U2 fans.

Small change, maybe, and maybe we are mostly keeping our fingers in the dike, but remember that human beings learn most effectively via eaxmple.

Don't sell yourself short, Shakey.

[isis]

You're right. Neil's music does keep me going.

[kipmartin]

music changed me and dozens of my friends. thats a start.

its excruciatingly difficult to change the world, but you CAN change yourself--if you work at it.

[bar1ed]

KIP --- i could not have said it better --- one step at a time - one moment at a time - one person at a time - peace !!

[transendentilist]

Like John Lennon used to say....."Think globally, act locally."

[myownwings]

Sometimes people get cranky when they get older, mostly because they themselves are no longer able to hope in the light of things such as the Bush years and so many other aspects of life in the 21st Century. From the comments, we could say that maybe a few younger people get that way too. You're tired, Neil - it's okay. The truth is that music has moved people in various directions for many centuries and will continue to do so. Put your feet up, take a day off and listen. Or not. Just don't make the decision for the rest of us.

[suntzu]

Music has NEVER been able to change the world, but it helps to make life a little more tolerable. The way to prove this is to imagine your life without any music at all.

[ThinkinAboutIt]

I believe there was a time when music did change the world, and I'm fairly certain it's the time Mr. Young was referring to: the 60's, when a goodly portion of young people were inspired by artists and their compositions: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, CSN&Y, Frank Zappa, The Buffalo Springfield, to unfairly name just a few. They not only addressed current issues directly but encouraged introspection and new ways of looking at the world. While that time period has become something of a cliche, if you study the (pop)history of the time, it becomes quite apparent that young people in the U.S., and across the world, were united for change by music. I won't say the music was better then, but it seems like eveyone of a certain age bracket was listening to the same music piped from some collective cosmic ipod, and responded en masse.

[PaxMundis]

Yeah, whatever. Don't get me wrong, I've been listening to a lot of Dylan for the last little while, but Dylan himself would argue that he would have been nothing without Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and countless blues and gospel performers. My point is not that the 60s music wasn't great - it was - but that it didn't emerge from a vaccuum, and it didn't disappear. There are many, many artists out there who are saying great things. Rap is an oft-maligned genre, but look at Kanye West, who actually has something to say.

[Eoin45]

Obviously you didn't live through the 60s as I did. Music had a huge impact on the world and the way we live now.

[RoseMerry]

If you read a number of biographies, you see that unless the subject dies young, the final chapters are never the best. I love Neil and I am just as prone to fall in the darkness of despair as anyone but the man is so, so wrong. Music has enriched my life and often provided meaning in a life that might otherwise would not have been worth living.

I am so sick of hearing that "today's music does not have the same soul". There are so many great, great young new artists, you just have to look past the noise of the megacorp idols that the Monsters of Distraction want to force feed us. The Wide World Web provides a great bypass of the this monster. Just takes a bit of effort on one's part.

We have changed the world - hey, did you ever think that a black man would win the Presidential primary in George Wallace's Alabama!!! I never dreamed I would live to see that!

This southern man is so glad that Neil Young is and was but he is so wrong in this - as wrong as Lynard Skynard was about his song.

[transendentilist]

The difference isn't the quality of musicianship, its the content and variety of music during the late 60s and 70s. The draft and the rapidly growing anti-war movement, and drug experimentation combined to make that great music great.
Listen to old bands like QuickSilver Messanger Service, Dylan, the Beatles, the doors and many others.

[PaxMundis]

"Listen to old bands like QuickSilver Messanger Service, Dylan, the Beatles, the doors and many others."

I will, if you listen to Kanye West, the White Stripes, Feist, Ani DiFranco, Radiohead....

[ChristianEcon.com]

I am so sick of hearing that "today's music does not have the same soul."

__________________________________

I disagree wholeheartedly. Music today is poseur-istic, derivative, formulaic, and extremely technology-aided and inhuman. There's very very little originality or musical passion, compared with the 60's and early 70's, imo. I think there was a LOT of idealism back then that drove creativity. The last time I really felt there was an exception was RATM in the late 90's.

[transendentilist]

Alot of what passes for music these days is just crap. It's almost all me, me ,me. It's about consumerism, like bling and gangsta rap. It's materially oriented.
When people begin to realize that change, real change, comes from within, not without, the world may become a better place. When people start to care more about each other and less about how many toys can I afford, then music will return to the power it once had.

[mouselion]

Feeling like NOTHING can change the world, all day today, actually.

Still, there's that refrain from Graham Nash's song Chicago (the one about Convention'68)...
"We can change the world,
Rearrange the world..."

Maybe I'll be in a better frame of mind tomorrow.

[isis]

Who put sponge in your bells?

[rixhex56]

Putting messages in music that reaches people who don't pay attention to other sources can help change minds. That is where change always begins.

[moguro]

"I think that the time when music could change the world is past..."

By inspiring people to vote, "Yes We Can" by will.i.am may do more to actually change the world than any Neil Young song ever did.

[RickO]

I guess you had to be there when Ohio came out right after Kent State. That really created a shock wave. The music that accompanied the Vietnam protests was very influential at the time. I only wish that "Yes We Can" would have that kind of impact. I think the theme song for these days should be Zappa's "Dumb All OVer".

[JonathanTroy]

Or "I'm the Slime"

or

"The Central Scrutinizer"

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

Dumb All Over is still potent, despite being recorded 27 years ago....

[transendentilist]

The slime on your TV set. Great commentary on how television has created such a hypnosis. Or as Morrison said in Unknown Soldier...."Television children fed.
Unborn living, living dead.

Or Peace Frog Blues. Blood in the streets.

[ClaudiaJean]

oh

my

god

some one needs to cut off the Kool Aid. really.

[JimReed]

"I think that the time when music could change the world is past,"

But you still have to try.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Well we all know that your music couldn't change shit.

[DrPaulProteus]

Watch it, pal.

[wadenelson1]

You're a total beginner if you think Neil Young's music didn't change anything.

[PaxMundis]

What exactly did Neil Young's music change, other than his bank account?

[Eoin45]

Please go toy our greatgiginthesky ASAP. You don't know WHF you're talking about.

[Eoin45]

That's go to your great...I'm a crappy typist.

[transendentilist]

That's the dumbest thing I have heard in a while, and it's campaign season!!
Thousands of people changed dramatically by his music, and the Beatles and the Stones.

[GrouchoMarxist]

Gee, thanks for the update, Neil. In other news, water is still wet and Bush is still an idiot.