A Slideshow exploring the origins of Neil Young's 1989 masterpiece.

1. NEIL YOUNG
ROCKIN’ IN THE FREE WORLD

2. Oct 10, 1989

3. 1969 1979 2000

4. 1975 1979

5. ROCKIN’ IN THE FREE WORLD
There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' 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.
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.

6. I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts 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 will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.
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.

7. We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We 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.
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.

8. first performed live in concert:
February 21, 1989

9. June 5, 1989,

10. June 19,
1989

11. Nov 9, 1989

12. “LOVE IS ALL WE NEED”
Neil Young in Berlin, 1982.

13. NBC Television
quot;Saturday Night Livequot;
Sep 30, 1989
(10 days before the album release)
Neil Young (g,v)
Frank “Poncho” Sampedro (g)
Steve Jordan (d)
Charley Drayton (b)

14. “Yeah, well I was. I don't like TV. Never have.
It always sucks and there's nothing you can do about it.
You can't just walk on and do 'Rockin' in the Free World,'
or you'll look like a fuckin' idiot.
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, the machine has to be stoked.
To do that I had to ignore Saturday Night Live completely.
I had to pretend I wasn't there.”

15. “I removed myself from the whole fucking scene, went to a
room in the other end of the building, never hung out, never
watched the show, completely ignored the skits.
Steve Jordan and Charley Drayton were playing with us on the
gig and Poncho (Frank Sampedro) and I went up and trashed
their dressing room, fucking graffiti, broke everything in it
and painted it with spray-cans.
In my mind, you gotta be jacked into it, man. It’s fucking life
and death and you’re only as good as your last note. So I had
to ignore what was going on there. I never do live Rock ‘N’ Roll
on TV - that was a huge exception to the rule - and I probably
never will again. I was very, very lucky that I played well and
everything came off good.”

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