The singer has a big tour this year – about 30 cities. He often asks the people in the amphitheater “What’s your favorite planet?” The question has got the signature Neil Young not-fancy clarity, like something you would say on a bar stool. But then the more you think about it, the question’s throw-away quality is replaced by some very hard choices. It is the call to join a revolution, because that is what we would do if our loved one was threatened.
The common sense logic of the question leads to another more radical question by the end of the concert in his sing-along: “Love Earth. We can bring our seasons back. Love Earth. Imagine that.” You leave the show wanting to tear apart an oil refinery with your bare hands and with the same bare hands, plant organic seeds.
I’ve been wanting to interview the Neil-heads several days after the experience of this concert. First of all the crowd in the amphitheater, numbering from 5k up to 25k in size, is confronted by a giant stage curtain with the title of the tour LOVE EARTH, and this has the effect of marking the Earth lyrics in the long trail of hits, from Cortez the Killer to Harvest Moon to Vampire Blues which starts with “I’m a vampire baby suckin’ blood from the Earth, sell you twenty barrels worth” but then ends with “Good times are comin’, I hear it everywhere I go!”
“Love Earth” – if we actually did love the Earth, then we would not permit the fossil companies to put toxins in the air day after day, hour by hour. The corporate marketing departments would not be able to persuade us that we need to stay polite in the face of the violence of climate change. After a while this common sense leaves us moving easily from “Searching’ for a heart of gold” to “I’m a vampire baby…”
If we loved the Earth, and demanded our seasons back, on the old schedule that organized the lives of the Earth’s plants and animals… If we really loved the Earth and made survival of life our demand, then we would find the courage that we remember from revolting against slavery and Jim Crow, the women would get the vote again and our Peace marches would end the colonial wars that seem to never end. (Nothing is worse for the Earth than war, and people are the Earth, too.)
The instruction “Love Earth” says it all. What we love, we will protect. If the Earth is our loved one, then we have taken all our earthly love and added our partners and children and parents up into one love, and we will protect that loved one – the gathering of all our loved ones – with our lives. And sitting on the bar stool with the question “What’s your favorite planet?” – we quickly follow the answer to the fact that saving life here on this planet is now legally banned; is now a prescription for such inconveniences as jail-time and injury and the ultimate sacrifice.
The billionaires raking in the oil profits have every reason to believe that we won’t “Love Earth.” They expect us to do what they are doing with the Earth. Use it and lose it. They tell us – go ahead – the Earth is ours to extract from and dump our waste into, and we can let the seasons crash and the terrible silence of extinction grow because we’re moving our living into the virtual reality of Consumerism anyway, the life of products.
But no, the simple question “What’s your favorite planet,” honestly answered, leaves us remembering that our loved ones are part of the Earth, and we are a part of the Earth, and we will stop acting like we are living in some second place. Much as the billionaires want to burn fossil fuel to rocket to another planet, no, this is where we live. Here, with the people and plants and animals that we love. That’s a sing-along to live by.
If we “Love Earth” we would be willing to risk our lives for our loved ones which the Earth has given us. Risking our lives for our continued life is the basis of the history of American revolutions, from the abolition of slavery to the fight for the right to love in the way that our personal desire evolves. But – so far, anyway – we have not expressed our hunger for the right to survive this fossil economy. We have stayed more or less passive, as if we are waiting for something.
Of course, the time for waiting is long gone. The 200 mph wind in the approaching storm has that message for us. Canada’s 900 wild fires last year have this message for us. The silence of the Sixth Extinction carries the meaning like a haunting.
The Earth tells us in many languages: Our life is being stolen and only love has the revolutionary force to bring it back. The gentle phrase “Love Earth!” becomes a battle cry for life.