Michael Moore directs new video

November 28, 2004 9:42 AM

The new video for "Rockin' In The Free World" by Neil YoungThe new video for "Rockin' In The Free World" directed by filmmaker Michael Moore is now posted on the Warner Reprise site as reported by Baron on BNB. The video intercuts footage from the film Fahrenheit 9/11 and performance footage of Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing the song on the 2003/4 Greendale tour. Much of the audience footage appears to come from the May 18, 2002 broadcast of the Rockam Ring Festival in Nurburgring Racetrack, Eifel, Germany.
posted by Postroad (24 comments total)

Wow. I like Young and Moore but that was just lame. Seems like a spotlight grab for both of them rather than accomplishing anything. What was the point, exactly, not of your post, Postroad, but the video? A song we've heard a million times; images we've all seen. Two great tastes that taste great together? WTF?
posted by dobbs at 9:51 AM on November 28, 2004

Not that this matters AT ALL, but this isn't exactly "the new video for" Rockin' in the Free World, as the song is heavily edited and much shorter than the original. It's unlikely that you'll see this version of it played on MTV (not that anyone at Metafilter would ever watch MTV).

Just sayin'...
posted by Electric Jesus at 9:58 AM on November 28, 2004

He edited out the most apropos lyric:

"Don't feel like Satan/ but I am to them/ so I try to forget it any way I can"
posted by ism at 10:05 AM on November 28, 2004

Gave me chills and made me tear up. but I'm a big mush.
posted by clubfoote at 10:14 AM on November 28, 2004

What I find so odd is that with the removal of the Satan lyric you can really read the film two ways ... as the anti-war anthem I'm sure both Moore and Young intend it to be but also as a sort of rah-rah pro-war testosterone wash chest thumping pro "free world" anthem.

It left me feeling kinda sick, actually.
posted by anastasiav at 10:16 AM on November 28, 2004

What was the point, exactly, not of your post, Postroad, but the video?

Surely most people who watch music video channels today are too young to be well-acquainted with Neil Young or to have heard that song more than a dozen times. The song has probably enjoyed a resurgence in popularity thanks to Moore, and so Warner wants to capitalize on that. As for the images, I don't think it would be possible to show or see them too many times....
posted by onshi at 10:16 AM on November 28, 2004

Electric Jesus: Maybe not on MTV in the USA, but the worldwide MTV channels, plus locally-based equivalents, may well eat this up like pudding.
posted by onshi at 10:18 AM on November 28, 2004

Surely most people who watch music video channels today are too young to be well-acquainted with Neil Young or to have heard that song more than a dozen times.

Huh? I didn't think there were people too young to have heard of Neil (or the Stones or Dylan or the Beatles or Pink Floyd or the Eagles...). I shut off my radio a long time ago but I coulda swore just about every major city in North America has a station that plays this shit to death like it just came out last week. Are you telling me there are people who haven't heard Cinnamon Girl? I don't know whether to laugh at them or be jealous.
posted by dobbs at 10:38 AM on November 28, 2004

If Neil Young is collaborating with Michael Moore, it seems oddly apropos to quote:

"The Southern man don't need him around, anyhow."
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:15 AM on November 28, 2004

The windows steaming link is all choppy on my machine. Anybody have a better version yet?
posted by Space Coyote at 11:34 AM on November 28, 2004

Didn't Neil Young make a song called "Let's Roll", based on what Jeremy Glick said - whoops, didn't actually say - on 9/11, and which eventually became a Bush power-slogan?

Funny.
posted by fungible at 11:36 AM on November 28, 2004

That looked more like a commercial for Fahrenheit 9/11 than a music video.
posted by afx114 at 11:58 AM on November 28, 2004

Surly this new Moore opus will remove Bush from office!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 12:15 PM on November 28, 2004

hmmmm rust dust.
posted by clavdivs at 12:23 PM on November 28, 2004

Surly this new Moore opus will remove Bush from office!

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz.....
posted by Space Coyote at 12:46 PM on November 28, 2004

i wish neil young would hurry up and die like the decade that spawned him.

the 1940's?
posted by chococat at 1:02 PM on November 28, 2004

Gawd...has Michael Moore ever even seen a music video?
the editing on that - visually and aurally - sucked like an electrolux! a few rules for you Mike:
1) never cut to a talking head unless you can hear what the head is saying.
2) don't assume people know who the talking heads are.
3) don't start the video in the middle of the song...

Young could have tried to remain relevant, and given this song a true update, by letting someone re-mix the song (I'd love to hear what a decent dip-hop artist would do with it...DJ Shadow, anyone?), and given the video chores to another group, like the cats at GNN who did Eminem's "Mosh" video.
NOW THAT would have been interestng.
posted by Al_Truist at 1:25 PM on November 28, 2004

Hilarious. The original apologist for post-9/11 jingoism has returned to his late-80s Dukakisism.

No one has the answers
But one thing is true
You got to turn on evil
When it's comin' after you

You got to face it down
And when it tries to hide
You got to go in after it
And never be denied

Time is runnin' out, let's roll

Let's roll for freedom
Let's roll for love
Goin' after satan
On the wings of a dove
posted by PrinceValium at 1:34 PM on November 28, 2004

I really hope that video was only "directed" by Michael Moore in so far as they used footage from a movie which was directed by him. It looks to me like it's something Warner marketing threw together to pump up Christmas sales of a DVD and a CD.
I mean, I already have an incredibly low opinion of Moore, but I can't believe that even he we would be stupid enough to lead into a music video with a voice over that has another background track playing under it. (In addition to everything else mentioned above).
posted by cosmonaught at 1:53 PM on November 28, 2004

Six degrees of separation from Neil. Note how connected Neil is to Bob Dylan and The Beatles' John Lennon and Paul McCartney?! Whoa...

what the fuck. that article is a lobotomy.
posted by Satapher at 4:06 PM on November 28, 2004

> What was the point, exactly, not of your post, Postroad, but the video? ... Two great tastes that taste great together?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Dash, speaking of answering your own question! You made not just my day but at least the next week. I smile broadly until Saturday.
posted by jfuller at 4:24 PM on November 28, 2004

> Surely most people who watch music video channels today are too young

> to be well-acquainted with Neil Young

You do not, I perceive, hang out much on rec.music.makers.guitar or alt.guitar. (But then I suppose folks who do would only watch music videos to try to see the fingering, and music videos are seldom very helpful there. Useless damn shit...)
posted by jfuller at 4:29 PM on November 28, 2004

i wish neil young would hurry up and die like the decade that spawned him.
posted by quonsar

the 1940's?
posted reply by Chococat

Quonny, being that Neil was born in Nov. 45 and Bush in July 46, let's just say that my vote would be for the latter, which would be the only time I'd vote for that name.

But as for the video itself, what does it really show:

That both Neil Young and M. Moore are capitalist pigs exploiting their own art for financial gain? Probably not. Warner Reprise execs, probably more likely thinking along these routes.

Egomaniacs in self-masturbatory excess? Debatably possible.

Clinging desperately to their hopefilled ideals that they can make a difference in this nation seemingly on a downward slope of moral ignorance disguised/manipulated/confused as Patriotic fervor and self-defined good Christian Morality? Probably most likely, in my pathetic, tree-hugging opinion.
posted by Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III at 6:38 PM on November 28, 2004

Moore should have done the Carcass cover: "Keep On Rotting in the Free World". That would have been way better.
posted by baphomet at 6:54 PM on November 28, 2004