Somewhere Bono is crying. The whole "music can change the world" movement (yes, it still exists, if only in the hearts and minds of the innumerable, scraggly old hippies who roam the Denver streets like zombies) took another hit this week when Neil Young expressed his dismay over the limitations of music's ability to affect change.
Said Young: "I think that the time when music could change the world is past... I think the world today is a different place, and that it's time for science and physics and spirituality to make a difference in this world and to try to save the planet."
An odd set of statements given Young's history of topical songwriting, no? This is the man who wrote "Ohio" in protest of the Kent State shootings in 1970 and had it released to radio stations within a couple of days. He's also the guy who composed and released Living With War just a couple of years ago in response to what he saw as an unjust war.
And yet, a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study discussed last week in the New York Times claims that teenagers listen to music for almost two and a half hours a day. How is it, then, that music cannot change the world? That two and half hours a day is far more time than I spent with my parents on a daily basis as a teen. Of course, reading further into the study, we find that during that same two and a half hours of audio enjoyment, teens receive 35 substance abuse references every 60 minutes.
A few months ago, I spoke with rock critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis about Rock 'n' Roll's ability to do good. I asked for their favorite example of a musician who might be a criminal if not for the music they learned to play.
In his response Kot said the following: "I think a lot of the best rock music was made by the middle class. Don’t you think? It’s the middle class people that are kind of thinking about the world. It's not necessarily that we’re saved by rock ‘n’ roll, I think that’s almost kind of a myth – 'My life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll.'"
Derogatis politely interrupted his counterpart, repeating, "It's not a myth. It is not a myth." When it was his turn to respond to the question, his answer was surprising, to say the least. "I think Kurt Cobain was a guy whose life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll," Derogatis said. "It may seem ironic given the way his life ended. But he was an incredibly smart and sensitive guy in backwater Aberdeen, Washington. You know, where going out and shooting a shotgun off, hopefully just at stop signs, but more often than not, at people you didn’t like, was a version of a nice time. And instead he discovered a world of ideas and brilliance."
As an often naive idealist, I'm with DeRogatis on this one, and Kot has Neil Young in his corner. The idea that a creative art form such as Rock 'n' Roll lacks the ability to change the world is a depressing one. But if a message as great and powerful as Martin Luther King's was accompanied by the music of the Staple Singers, why can't today's change agents utilize a vast stable of artists who are able to produce a noise that might make us think, make us question, and make us hope? Neil Young may have said one thing, but his actions tell us another: that he is a thoroughbred in that stable, and one whose music will continue to inspire long after he is gone.
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