Neil Young Unveils “Rockin’ In The Free World” – And Makes A HUGE Comeback!

Keep On Rockin’ In The Free World!

Saturday Night Live’s seen all kinds of great performances: from Paul Simon’s iconic ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ dressed in a turkey costume, to Sinead O’Connor’s incendiary performance that got her banned from the show for life, odds are that if you watch Saturday Night Live you’ve seen your favorite artist at least once. Our personal favorite, Neil Young, made his first appearance in 1989 where he performed ‘Rockin’ In The Free World‘ live for the very first time. In what was hailed as Young’s big comeback – note his Elvis t-shirt, a nod to Elvis’ big ’68 comeback special – ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ proved to be wildly successful and one of the show’s most critically acclaimed performances, and for good reason: it quite literally rocked!

Fun Fact: Neil’s Elvis t-shirt in his Saturday Night Live appearance is a nod to Elvis Presley’s ’68 comeback special, which reintroduced the King to the world as a legend.

Neil is in rare form, jumping and duck walking around the stage in a performance that can easily be seen as the grandfather of the grunge movement that would hit about a year or so later, and it’s easy to see that Neil’s letting himself have as much fun playing as we do watching him play. In a world where things are getting progressively darker and more tense, the least we can do is take a page from Neil Young’s book and keep on rocking – it’s great for the soul!

+ Rockin’ In The Free World lyrics +

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.

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.

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.