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“Freedom” è il disco della redenzione, il ritorno di Neil Young alla ribalta.
Viene alla luce nel 1989, alla fine di un decennio in cui Neil cercò di distruggere il suo mito, abbracciando nuovi generi: dall’elettronica di “Trans” al rockabilly di “Everybody’s Rocking”, senza però lasciare il segno. Esce non a caso nel 1989, sull’onda degli eventi che portarono un vento di libertà in diverse parti del mondo. L’anthem trainante è infatti la celeberrima “Rockin’ in the Free World”: un pezzo tirato come ai bei tempi, sfrondato da qualsiasi retorica, con un testo rappresentante l’America targata Reagan-Bush come una terra desolata, pronta a incendiarsi. Un brano che ha fatto epoca, specialmente nella devastante versione datagli da Neil al “Saturday Night Live”, sigillo alla sua resurrezione.
L’anno di uscita è significativo anche per il contesto musicale del periodo: l’alternative americano si appresta ad affiorare in superficie, e Neil Young ne è l’indiscusso ispiratore. Non a caso Sonic Youth, Pixies e Dinosaur Jr omaggiano quell’anno il Canadese nel tributo “The Bridge”.
Il sound di “Freedom” è estremamente variegato ed eclettico. Gli assalti elettrici che avvolgeranno il successivo “Ragged Glory” – vera e propria pietra miliare della stagione grunge – sono limitati alla già citata “Rockin’ in the Free World”, ai riff al vetriolo nella distorta “Don’t Cry” e all’assolo che suggella l’innodica “No More”. La vena politica è presente nella dylaniana “Crime In The City (Sixty to Zero Pt. 1)”, strascicato affresco della decadenza di certe metropoli americane. Tale episodio è a dir poco maestoso, e deraglia verso inusitati lidi folk-jazz.
Altrove Neil ripercorre i bucolici sentieri di “Harvest”, in ballate sopraffine come “Too Far Gone”, “Hangin’ on a Limb”, o la marziale “The Ways of Love”, accompagnato in queste ultime dalla suadente voce di Nicolette Larson. Ma l’uomo dell’Ontario sa incantare senza dover per forza riannodare i fili del passato. In tal senso è splendida la vena soul/blues che sorregge sia “Wrecking Ball”, sia la cover di “On Broadway” dei Drifters, laddove la visionaria “Eldorado” aggiorna le atmosfere di "Zuma” con squisiti elementi spagnoleggianti.
Ammaliante quanto un tramonto sulla West Coast.
Elenco tracce testi e video
01 Rockin' in the Free World (03:39)
There's colors on the street
Red, white, and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
We'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan
But I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
I see a women 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.
That's one more kid
That will never go to school
Never get to fall in love
Never get to be cool
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
03 Don't Cry (04:15)
Don't cry my sweet girl
Nothin' I say is written in stone
Don't cry my sweet love
You won't really be alone.
I'll help you pack your things
I'll walk with you out to the car
I'll hold on to the ring
I won't forget the way things are.
My sweet love.
Your disappointed eyes
Are haunting me like my big lies
I see you glaring now
I see you staring in the fire.
My sweet love.
Don't cry my sweet girl
Nothin' I say is written in stone
Don't cry my sweet love
You won't really be alone.
My sweet love, my sweet love.
Don't cry my sweet girl
You won't really be alone
Don't cry my sweet girl
You won't really be alone
Don't cry my sweet girl
You won't really be alone.
05 Eldorado (06:05)
In the crystal ball
The gypsy sees the villa
The riders on the hill
The fire in the fields
She sees the mission bell
Swinging in the silence
Now the shooting starts
The bullets pierce the hearts
The seqoritas crying at the well.
Up in the Gold Hotel
The money hits the table
The heavies all are there
That's why the deal's goin' down
Beautiful women all dressed in
Diamonds and sable
Down upon the street
Beside a garbage heap
A Mariachi band begins to play.
Somewhere a blues guitar
Plays echoes in the alleyway
The Tijuana dawn
Claims another day
The golden sun
Rises on the runway
The pilot understands
The money changes hands
Inside the jet the briefcase snaps. Goodbye.
In Eldorado town
There lives a great bullfighter
His eyes are screaming blue
His hair is red as blood
And when the gate goes up
The crowd gets so excited
And he comes dancin' out
Dressed in gold lami
He kills the bull and lives another day.
07 Someday (05:42)
Wake up all you sleeping beauties
More are being born while you rest
They're pipin' music in
We all have to sin
Someday
We all have to sin
Someday.
Rommel wore a ring on his finger
He only took it off when he flew his plane
Once he told me why
He said we all have to fly
Someday
We all have to fly
Someday.
The T.V. preacher can't be bothered
With those petty things
He stays a step removed so they say
He's pipin' music in
We all have to sin
Someday
We all have to sin
Someday.
Workin' on that great Alaska pipeline
Many men were lost in the pipe
They went to fuelin' cars
How smog might turn to stars
Someday
Smog might turn to stars
Someday.
Hold me baby, put your arms around me
Give me all the love you have to give
Tomorrow won't be late
We won't have to wait
Someday
We won't have to wait
Someday.
08 On Broadway (04:59)
They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway
They say there's always magic in the air
But when you're walking down the street
And you ain't had enough to eat
The glitter rubs right off and you're nowhere (on Broadway)
They say the women treat you right on Broadway
But looking at them just gives me the blues
'Cause how you gonna make some time
When all you got is one thin dime
And one thin dime won't even shine your shoes (on Broadway)
They say that I won't last too long on Broadway
I'll catch a Greyhound bus for home, they all say
But They're dead wrong, I know they are
'Cause I can play this here guitar
And I won't quit till I'm a star on Broadway (on Broadway)
12 Rockin' in the Free World (04:42)
There's colors on the street
Red, white, and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
We'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan
But I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
I see a women 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.
That's one more kid
That will never go to school
Never get to fall in love
Never get to be cool
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
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