Neil Young, the legendary singer-songwriter who once called for audiences to “keep on rockin’ in the free world,” is now trying to impede a harmless agricultural corporation from doing just that. As reported by Rolling Stone, Young has announced that his next album will be titled The Monsanto Years, and it will be “an upbeat review” of the eponymous company and its genetically modified seeds that may or may not be killing us right at this very moment. Young won’t be putting on one of his wide-brimmed hats and stenciling “This machine kills GMOs” on his guitar so he can fight this battle all by himself, though, as Promise Of The Real—a band that features Willie Nelson’s sons Lukas and Micah—will be helping him out on this heroic quest.
Nelson and Promise Of The Real made their debut as professional Monsanto protestors a few days ago at a secret concert in California. According to Neil Young fan site Sugar Mountain, they played songs with names like “Too Big To Fail,” “New Day For The Planet,” “Seeds,” and “Rock Starbucks.” That last one is most likely a reference to Young’s call to boycott Starbucks after the coffee company apparently joined Monsanto in a lawsuit to stop Vermont from requiring companies to label genetically modified food. Rolling Stone says Starbucks was never actually involved in that lawsuit, though, so “Rock Starbucks” could actually be about how cool Starbucks is. Maybe Neil Young is really hyped on that new S’Mores Frappuccino?
Anyway, The Monsanto Years will be released on June 16, and Neil Young will be touring in support of it this summer.