Neil Young to Stream Anti-War CD

Just seven months after the release of Neil Young's laid-back country/rock record Prairie Wind comes it's complete antithesis: the hard-rocking, furiously politically charged Living With War. Cut in two frenzied weeks at a Los Angeles studio, the album will begin streaming for free on neilyoung.com this Friday, before its release through digital retailers on May 2nd. Rolling Stone got its hands on an early copy, and here are some first impressions.

New protest tracks by other artists:

Pearl Jam, "World Wide Suicide"

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The first single from Pearl Jam's new disc is a burst of anger about a world going to hell in a Humvee: Over a torrent of guitars, Eddie Vedder scans the morning paper and reads about a friend killed in Iraq.

Pink, "Dear Mr. President"

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Pink drafts an open letter to the Prez, dissing his positions on gay rights and abortion before tossing in a sarcastic personal swipe: "You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine."

The Coup, "Head (of State)"

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America's funkiest conspiracy theorist -- Bay Area rapper Boots Riley --lambastes a quarter-century of U.S. malfeasance in Iraq, beginning with the C.I.A.'s covert aid to Saddam Hussein.

Bruce Springsteen, "Mrs. McGrath"

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Springsteen's big arrangement of this nineteenth-century Irish ballad, off his new tribute album to Pete Seeger, has a timeless sound but a timely message: "All foreign wars, I do proclaim/Live on blood and a mother's pain."

Paul Simon, "Wartime"

Simon never specifically refers to Bush, the war on terror or Iraq on this mournful tune, but the message couldn't be clearer: "Gone like a memory from the day before the fires," he sings, "People hungry for the voice of God hear lunatics and liars."