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Rockin' in the Free World

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"Rockin' in the Free World" is a song by Neil Young, released on his 1989 record Freedom. Two versions of the song were released, serving as bookends for the album.

According to Neil Young's biography Shakey, while on tour in the late '80s, Young and Frank "Poncho" Sampedro looked at photos in a newspaper of the Ayatollah Khomeini's body being carried to his grave. These images showed mourners burning American flags in the street, which incited fear in Poncho. Sampedro commented, "Whatever we do, we shouldn't go near the Mideast. It's probably better we just keep on rockin' in the free world." Then Young asked if he could make a song out of it.

Released several months prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, because of its chorus, which just repeats the phrase "Keep on rockin' in the free world," it became a de facto anthem for the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The lyrics of the song also criticize the administration of George H. W. Bush. The line "We got a thousand points of light / For the homeless man" refers to Bush's famous use of the phrase "a thousand points of light" in a call for volunteerism. The following line "We got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand" is a cynical take on another of his phrases: during the 1988 U.S. Presidential campaign, he called for "a kinder and gentler nation."

The song received extensive radio play again shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, probably owing both to its celebration of 'life in the free world' and for the lines "There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead / Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them," which was clearly taken as a reference to terrorism; the particular use of the word Satan was seen as reflecting the Islamist of the phrase "the Great Satan" to refer to the United States.

However the song is as much about problems within the United States as those problems overseas. The first line of the song, "Colors on the street / red, white, and blue," while certainly intended to evoke the colors of the U.S. flag, can also refer to gang colors. The second verse is a tribute to a drug-addict who abandons her newborn baby in a trash can before returning to her drugs - in varying renditions of the song, this character is referred to as either a "woman" or a "girl."

A spliced version of the song also appeared during the end credits of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, splicing the talk of war with the phrase "That's one more kid that’ll never go to school / Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool." originally a tribute to the drug addict's abandoned child, now referencing a dead US soldier in Iraq.

[edit] Performances

  • Maroon5 performed it at Live 8, while the Canadian performance of Live 8 in Barrie closed with a group performance of the anthem.
  • Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen recorded two live versions of this song while on the G3 '03 tour. The first can be seen in the G3 Live in Denver video/DVD, and the second is on "Rockin' in the Free World", a recording of a different concert on the tour.[1]
  • On December 1 2006, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci performed the song during the G3 show in Sydney. They also performed it in Melbourne, Australia on both the 2nd and 3rd of December 2006.
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