Neil Young has again stepped into the political spotlight, releasing a provocative new video titled As Time Explodes. The two-minute film, shared via his official YouTube channel on Thursday 30 October, takes aim at Donald Trump and the growing influence of tech billionaires.
The video is entirely instrumental, set to a guitar-driven backing that nods to Be The Rain, the Crazy Horse track from 2003’s Greendale. True to form, Young delivers his message without lyrics, letting the visuals – a collage of real-world footage – do the talking.
As Time Explodes opens with stark scenes of the White House East Wing being demolished during a government shutdown, followed by an image of a banner reading “The 1% ruins the world.” From there, the montage builds into a scathing critique of wealth and power in modern America.
Among those featured are Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw, Jeff Bezos during his lavish wedding in Venice, and Apple’s Tim Cook attending a White House meeting. Trump himself appears accepting a luxury jet from Qatar. A screenshot reading, “The oligarchs gather & so starts the looting of America,” flashes briefly on screen, underscoring Young’s long-standing disdain for unchecked capitalism and political corruption.
The video closes with footage from the recent No Kings protests across the United States, aligning Young once more with grassroots movements challenging political and economic elites.
This is far from Young’s first public stand. His career has often intertwined with activism. From the Vietnam-era Ohio to the environmental rallying cry of After The Gold Rush, and more recently, The Monsanto Years (2015), Young has consistently used music as a protest vehicle.
In recent years, he has targeted major corporations as fiercely as governments. In 2022, Young pulled his music from Spotify over Joe Rogan’s vaccine misinformation, later expanding his protest to Amazon Music, Facebook, and Instagram. “Forget Amazon and Whole Foods. Forget Facebook,” he wrote on his website. “Buy local. Buy direct.” Earlier this year, he condemned Meta’s use of AI chatbots with children and permanently left X (formerly Twitter) following Elon Musk’s endorsement of anti-Semitic views.
On his official site, Young declared, “We are stopping all use of X we can control. For reasons that should be obvious to the richest man on Earth, we are taking this action against his company.”
Politically, Young’s opposition to Trump has been unwavering. He once joined Joan Baez and Bernie Sanders on the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, performing in defiance of the Trump administration. His 2024 protest track Big Crime called out “billionaire fascists” and “big crime in DC at the White House,” echoing the sentiment of his new video.
“As Time Explodes” stands as both an artistic statement and a warning – a snapshot of a world where power, greed, and politics intertwine. True to Neil Young’s history, this is another one about accountability.
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