By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Prairie wind: Neil Young's mise-en-scene
Via Scott Macauley at Filmmaker, singer Alicia Morgan‘s blog describes a dramatic scrap of mise-en-scene while recording Neil Young‘s post-Neil Young: Heart of Gold 9-day insta-album. “Have you, like me, been recalling the great protest songs of the sixties, and wondered where the new protest songs are? Yesterday, I found out… On Wednesday, I was at work when I got a call for a Neil Young session the next day…. I was excited about it—Neil Young is one of my musical heroes.” Arriving at the studio, “we found 98 other singers, a collection of L.A.’s finest. All I knew was that we were singing on a new Neil Young record, but when the lyrics we were supposed to sing flashed on the giant screen, a roar went up from the choir. I’m not going to give the whole thing away, but the first line of one of the songs was “Let’s impeach the President for lyin’!” … The session was like being at a 12-hour peace rally. Every time new lyrics would come up on the screen, there were cheers, tears and applause. It was a spiritual experience. I can’t believe my good fortune at being a part of this… I’ve never been at a recording session that was more like being at church. Heck, I’ve never been to a church that was more like a church than that session… We finished the session by singing an a capella version of “America the Beautiful” and there was not a dry eye in the house.” Morgan says Young told her the record should be out mid-to-late June; predictably, a spell of rants ensued in Morgan’s open comments, such, as “if this is true and neil young is actually going to help get some more of our soldiers killed by emboldening the suicidal maniacs of persia, then i am going to dump him. i have been enjoying young’s work since 1970 but i will ****can everything i own from him if he’s truely going to further risk the lives our guys for the sake of his moody brand of capitolism.” The album is called Life in War and Howie Klein has heard it and gets… excited.