Neil Young has famously never given much of a shit about what people think about him; for more than 50 years, the legendary rocker has drifted between genres, hung out with Pearl Jam, and loudly promoted his own ideas about the “right” way to listen to music, all without ever treating other people’s opinions as much more than a series of deeply amusing jokes. That cantankerous wit got a workout this week, though, when The Daily Beast informed him of one of his most vocal haters: NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch, who—when she’s not busy getting dunked on at town halls by teens—has spent the last few years waging an unflagging Twitter campaign against Young and his “dying cow fart” of a voice.
“When I tell Young this, he cracks up,” writes TDB’s Marlow Stern, recounting the rocker’s incredulous reaction: “The spokesperson? That woman? She doesn’t like me?” She does not: In fact, Young’s music is apparently one of Loesch’s top pet peeves, right alongside “people not having guns, all the time, everywhere,” and “anybody who doesn’t know what ‘fisking’ is.” Loesch has frequently complained about Young over the years to her followers, a judgment that does not appear to have bothered Young in the slightest when he learned of it this week.
“Why doesn’t she just shoot me?” he asked after hearing some of Loesch’s tweets, before apparently thinking better of inviting an audience of gun-toting NRA fans to treat him as target practice. Still, his amusement at this latest addition to his haters hall of fame was clear: “What’s her name, huh? Well, I’m glad I got under her skin.”