‘Rockin' in the Free World’ is a song by Canadian-American singer-songwriter, and musician Neil Young, released on Young's seventeenth studio album Freedom (1989). Two versions of the song bookend the album, similarly to ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)’ from Young's Rust Never Sleeps album, one of which is performed with a predominantly acoustic arrangement, and the other predominantly electric. Rolling Stone magazine ranked ‘Rockin' In the Free World’ number 214 on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The song is included on Young's Greatest Hits (2004) release. It reached No. 2 on the Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
Young wrote the song while on tour with his band The Restless in February 1989. He learned that a planned concert tour to the Soviet Union was not going to happen and his guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro said "we'll have to keep on rockin' in the free world". The phrase struck Young, who thought it could be the hook in a song about "stuff going on with the Ayatollah and all this turmoil in the world.” He had the lyrics the next day. Meanwhile Young and Sampedro, were musing on global events as they traveled to Portland. "There was supposed to have been a cultural exchange between Russia and United States," Sampedro recalled to Mojo in a 2018 interview. "Russia was getting Neil Young and Crazy Horse and we were getting the Russian ballet! All of a sudden, whoever was promoting the deal, a guy in Russia, took the money and split. We were all bummed, and I looked at him and said, 'Man I guess we're just gonna have to keep on rockin in the free world. He said, 'Well, Poncho, that's a good line. I'm gonna use that, if you don't mind.'"
"So we checked into the hotel in Portland," the guitarist continued. "And we needed a song. We needed a rocker. We'd written some songs and they were good but we didn't have a real rocker. I said, 'Look man, tonight, get in your room, think about all this stuff that's going down - the Ayatollah, all the stuff in Afghanistan, all these wars breaking out, all the problems in America… "Keep On rockin in the free world," you got that: put something together man, let's have a song!' And the next morning, we got on the bus to leave and he says, 'OK, I did it!'"
Young performed the song live in September 1989 for the television show Saturday Night Live. In concert, Young would typically play the song well into the set, when the band's energy is at a high. To achieve the same level of energy, Young worked out with his trainer 30 minutes prior to the performance. He explained to author Jimmy McDonough: “I don't like TV. Never have. It always sucks and there's nothing you can do about it. I was trying to get to the place where I would be when I did ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ during my live show. To do that I had to ignore Saturday Night Live completely. I had to pretend I wasn’t there. I had a dressing room, a little place with an amp in it, in another part of the building. And I walked from there into Saturday Night Live—and then left. I developed a whole new technique for television. I had my trainer, and we just lifted weights and I did calisthenics to get my blood to the level it would be at after performing for an hour and twenty-five minutes—which is usually how long I’d be onstage by the time I did that song. To perform that song the way it’s supposed to be performed, you have to be at peak blood level. Everything has to be up, your machine has to be stoked. You can’t walk on cold and do that or you’re gonna look like a fuckin’ idiot. So that’s what I did. I tried to warm up and come on, like, y’know, not part of the show. Like they changed the channel for a minute." Comedian and former SNL cast member Dennis Miller would later say that ‘Rockin' in the Free World’ was the single greatest performance on the show in its history.
Label – Reprise
Songwriter – Neil Young
Producers – Neil Young, Niko Bolas
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]There’s colors on the street
Red, white, and blue
People shuffling their feet
People sleeping in their shoes
There’s a warning sign on the road ahead
There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead
Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it any way I can
[Chorus]
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
[Verse 2]
I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
There's an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she put the kid away and she’s gone to get a hit
She hates her life and what she’s done to it
There’s one more kid that’ll never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool
[Chorus]
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
[Electric Guitar Solo]
[Verse 3]
We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand
We've got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive
[Chorus]
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world