Neil Young: Music Can’t Change the World

At the Berlin Film Festival last week, Neil Young told reporters that he doesn’t believe music can save the world.

“The time when music could change the world is past,” he said. “I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age. 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.”

In defending his reasoning, Young released this comment:

A Song Alone.
By Neil Young

No one song can change the world. But that doesn’t mean its time to stop singing.
Somewhere on Earth a scientist is alone working. No one knows what he or she is thinking. The secret is just within reach. If I knew that answer I would be singing the song.

This is the Age of innovation. Hope matters. But not hope alone. In the age of innovation, the people’s fuel must be found. That is the biggest challenge. Who is up to the challenge? Who is searching today? All day. All night. Every hour that goes by. I know I am.

My friends write to me don’t give up. I am not giving up. I know this is the time for change. But I know that it’s not a song. Maybe it was. But it isn’t now. It’s an action, an accomplishment, a revelation, a new way. I am searching for the people’s fuel. Will I find it? Yes. I think so. I don’t know why I may have been chosen to help enable a discovery of this magnitude. I know I can only write a song about it when I find it. Until then I can write a song about the search or spend all my time looking. But a song alone will not change the world. Even so, I will keep on singing.

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I don’t quite know how I feel about Young’s comments.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe the time that music could have an affect on the world is in the past.

Today’s music does not have the importance or impact it once had.

It’s a bit disheartening to think that such a great song writer and amazing musician like Neil Young feels that the art of song has lost it’s power to change things.

It’s also encouraging to know that he won’t give up on the power of music.

A song alone will not change the world, no. But, a song alone may change a person, it may change people and only people can change the world…

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