"There’s big crime in DC at the White House," Neil Young sings in the scathing new track.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse performing live (Credit: Andrew Briscoe)
Neil Young has once again slammed the Donald Trump administration, sharing a new song called Big Crime yesterday (29 August) that alludes to the U.S. President in its fiery lyrics.
The defiant track was recorded by Young and his band, the Chrome Hearts, during soundcheck for their concert in Chicago earlier this week (27 August). It was then promptly posted to YouTube.
While Trump’s name never appears in the lyrics, Young takes aim at the President’s previous legal challenges, as well as sarcastic references to his recent policy moves, which include deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and taking over the city’s police operations.
Trump cited “the precipitous rise in violent crime” as reasoning for the deployment of the National Guard and takeover of police operations. However, earlier this year, the Washington Police Department and U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves stated that the city was actually facing a 30-year low in crime.
The new single also fires at Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again (MAGA), by singing “No more great again.”
“There’s big crime in DC at the White House,” Young sings in the chorus. The song also features passages such as:
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“Don’t need no fascist rules / don’t want no fascist schools / don’t want soldiers walking on the streets,” and “Got to get the fascists out / got to clean the White House out… no more money to the fascists, the billionaire fascists.”
You can listen to the song below.
As The Guardian notes, this isn’t the first time that Young has criticised Donald Trump in song.
In 2020, he updated the lyrics to his 2006 song Lookin’ For A Leader. He sang, “America has a leader building walls around our house / Who don’t know Black lives matter and we got to vote him out.”
The original song was about then-President George W. Bush and pointed to Barack Obama as a potential replacement. Young also fired at Bush with the track Let’s Impeach The President.
Young also sued Donald Trump for using his 1989 song, Rockin’ In The Free World, at presidential campaign rallies without permission in 2016 and 2020. He ultimately decided to voluntarily drop the lawsuit.