I love his music. I have a shitload of his CD's and vinyl going back decades.

But.

Like his songwriting, his politics can be just as hit-or-miss. He can be crassly opportunistic and wrongheaded. For every "Tonight's The Night" work of brilliance, there's two "Hawks and Doves" or "Trans" destined for the remainder bin.

He can empathize with the scared person, sure enough. In the wake of 9-11, he was saying we should give up some of our civil liberties for security. He wrote "Let's Roll" in a fit of pseudo-heroic posturing. I almost thought he was going to tour with Toby Keith. I thought, "Fuck him, he's a Canadian, what right does he have to tell us what to do with our civil liberties?" No wonder Ronnie Van Zant (another Neil Young fan who understood the frustrations and contradictions that come with being one) wrote "Sweet Home Alabama".

It's any way the wind blows with Neil. I cringe when I think of how he supported Reagan in the 80's. I loved how he 'redeemed' himself when he slammed Bush Sr. on his "Freedom" album. I loved "Living With War" just about as much as anyone here. I could almost kind of forgive "Are You Passionate?" as a result. Some may defend his all-over-the-map rationalizations as quirkiness or independence - I prefer to think of it as too much fucking weed and coke over the years.

I suppose, like RVZ and many others, I have to live with the fact that his songwriting genius is just as occasionally and maddeningly compromised and limited as his world view at times. I take his views on impeachment with the same molecule of sodium chloride as his boner for Reagan.