Neil Young's Latest Single Uses F-Word for Tesla, Critiques Detroit Big Three
The artist's version of “This Land” also worries about China's auto industry.
Neil Young, like many rockstars, is a gearhead. His book, “Special Deluxe,” was an autobiographical look back at the 79-year-old folk rocker’s life through his cars. At an age when many of his peers are slowing down, Young can still be spotted out and about cruising in his custom cars, such as his “LincVolt” restomodded 1959 Lincoln Continental. He’s also, not surprisingly, penned at least a half-dozen songs about cars. His latest, “Lets Roll Again,” shows just how much Young is keeping up with the auto industry, and calls out GM, Ford, Stellantis, and Tesla in the wake of increased Chinese competition.
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Written to the tune of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” “Let’s Roll Again” starts out with shots fired at the Detroit Three. “Come on Ford, c’mon GM, come on Chrysler, let’s roll again,” the song starts, before continuing, “Build something useful that people need, build us a safe way for us to be. Build us something that won’t kill our kids, that runs real clean.”
Young, who is a proponent of cleaner electrified cars, then spends a later verse detailing his wishlist for future product from Ford and GM, singing, “Build us some small vans for city streets, and spend a clean day delivering. Don’t want no loud sounds coming from the back, spewing a buncha poison—it’s not a racetrack…”
The song’s chorus’ discusses a story MotorTrend has been paying particularly close attention to: increased competition from China in the form of the country’s electric cars. “On down the highway from place to place, come on America let’s get in the race. Now China’s way ahead, they’re building clean cars. Some days are like that, it doesn’t matter. Some days are like that, so taste your freedom,” he sings.
Young’s final verse calls out Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk, the latter of which has been in the news lately for his outsized role in the Trump administration, singing “If you’re a fascist, then get a Tesla. If it’s electric it doesn’t matter. If you’re a democrat than taste your freedom. Get whatever you want and taste your freedom.”
You can listen to the song yourself below:
I generally like writing—especially when it’s about cars—but I hate writing about myself. So instead of blathering on about where I was born (New York City, in case you were wondering) or what type of cars I like (all of ’em, as long as it has a certain sense of soul or purpose), I’ll answer the one question I probably get most, right after what’s your favorite car (see above): How’d you get that job? Luck. Well, mostly. Hard work, too. Lots of it. I sort of fell into my major of journalism/mass communication at St. Bonaventure University and generally liked it a lot. In order to complete my degree senior year, we had to spend our last two semesters on some sort of project. Seeing as I loved cars and already spent a good portion of my time reading about cars on sites such as Motor Trend, I opted to create a car blog. I started a Tumblr, came up with a car-related name (The Stig’s American Cousin), signed up for media access on a bunch of manufacturer’s websites, and started writing. I did everything from cover new trim levels to reviewing my friends’ cars. I even wrote a really bad April Fool’s Day post about the next Subaru Impreza WRX being Toyota-Corolla-based. It was fun, and because it was fun, it never felt like work. Sometime after my blog had gotten off the ground, I noticed that Motor Trend was hiring for what’s now our Daily News Team. I sent in my résumé and a link to my blog. I got the job, and two weeks after graduation I made the move from New York to California. I’ve been happily plugging away at a keyboard—and driving some seriously awesome hardware—ever since.
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