Song of the Week III

Keep on Rockin' in the Free World by Neil Young. It's just awesome, the lyrics and the music both.

This song kind of makes an apperance at the end of Daughter on Pearl Jam's Live on Two Legs LP. After the songs breaks down (is that the right term?), Eddie starts singing the second verse of Rockin'. I never knew it until recently, I thought it was just some cool little ditty that Eddie made up. I love the lyrics to that part:

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.

Nothing flash, nothing poetic, but it suits the song so well, in fact, it suits the Daughter breakdown better than it does Rockin'. And to me that's what great lyrics should do - suit the song. Some people like Chuck D from Public Enemy think the opposite, that good music just supports the lyrics, gets people to listen to them. That's cool, I understand that point of view, but to me the music is number one.