Neil Young sounded off on President Donald Trump yesterday (July 6) in one of his signature scathing letters after Trump used his music at another one of his rallies. But Young had another suggestion cued up.
Over the weekend, Young expressed his disdain for the Commander-in-Chief on Twitter when he played his classics “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Like a Hurricane” during his Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota’s Black Hills, a sacred area to the Lakota Sioux where Indigenous people arrived to protest the president’s event.
In his latest letter to the president posted on his Neil Young Archives website, the 74-year-old rocker wrote, “Although I have repeatedly asked you to please not use my music because it indicates that I support your agenda, you have always played my songs anyway at your gatherings, with no regards for my rights, even calling me names on twitter,” while addressing the July 3-dated event in South Dakota.
But when Young outlined his next course of action, he directly stated he wouldn’t be taking legal action on the matter.
“Because you are in charge of the Covid 19 response here in the USA, I will not sue you, (as certainly is my right) potentially distracting from your important work at hand protecting and saving American lives,” the former CSNY member stated while sending his well-wishes for the nation’s leader for protecting and unifying Americans during the pandemic.
As for his playlist suggestion for Trump’s next rally, Young insisted he play the new version of his 2006 track “Looking For a Leader” as part of Young and his wife Daryl Hannah’s latest “Porch Episode” on his website. The Canadian-born singer-songwriter, who officially became an American citizen at the beginning of 2020, originally wrote the political tune when former President Barack Obama announced his first presidential run ahead of the 2008 election against then-President George W. Bush.
This time around, as the 2020 election nears, Young calls for Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden to step into office while calling on listeners to vote out Trump. “Yeah, we had Barack Obama and we really need him now/ The man who stood behind him has to take his place somehow/ America has a leader building walls around our house/ Don’t know Black lives matter and we got to vote him out,” Young crooned during his acoustic guitar performance.
Watch Young’s “Looking For a Leader 2020” rendition here.
