Neil Young has been writing protest songs for almost half a century, and there’s no way he was going to stop in 2016, of all years. The “Heart of Gold” singer released the video for his new song, “Indian Givers,” yesterday. Young’s take on the ongoing protest against oil pipeline production near North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux reservation joins his pantheon of American civil-disobedience songs, alongside “Ohio,” “Southern Man,” and pretty much anything he’s written since the turn of the century. In his new song, Young flips the concept of an “Indian giver” on its head, in addition to name checking Dale “Happy” American Horse Jr., who was among several protesters arrested after he chained himself to construction equipment. As Young explains, “There’s a battle raging on the sacred land/Our brothers and sisters had to take a stand.”
