Young replied: \u201cWell, Poncho, that\u2019s a good line. I\u2019m gonna use that if you don\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Later, Young commented: \u201cIt was such a clich\u00e9. I knew I had to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rockin\u2019 In The Free World would be released in 1989, serving as the lead single for Young\u2019s 17th studio album, Freedom. The song would also end up as one of Young\u2019s most defining anthems.<\/p>\n
You may like<\/p>\n
Rockin’ in the Free World – YouTube
\n![\"Rockin'](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784902047_778_maxresdefault.jpg\")
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Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n In a 2018 interview with MOJO magazine, Sampedro said that Young had written a handful of tracks for this album when he realised he needed something harder-hitting, more up-tempo and direct.<\/p>\n The band were checking into a hotel room in Portland when Sampedro urged Young to look about the world around him for inspiration to help finish the track.<\/p>\n Sampedro remembered: \u201cI said, \u2018Look man, tonight, get in your room, think about all this stuff that\u2019s going down \u2013 the Ayatollah, all the stuff in Afghanistan, all these wars breaking out, all the problems in America.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The following morning, as the members were preparing to leave on their bus, Young informed him that the song had now been completed, taking heavy influence from some of the political unrest across the globe at the tail-end of the \u201980s.<\/p>\n Some of the ire was directed at the newly appointed George H. W. Bush administration, directly quoting lines about \u201ca thousand points of light\u201d and \u201ca kinder, gentler nation\u201d from his presidential campaign promises and inaugural address. Other political references in the song include the line \u201cDon\u2019t feel like Satan but I am to them\u201d from the opening verse, which was born out of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini\u2019s proclamation that the United States was the \u201cGreat Satan\u201d. There\u2019s also a nod to Jesse Jackson\u2019s 1988 campaign slogan \u201cKeep hope alive\u201d in the third and final verse.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n Neil Young – Rockin’ In The Free World (Glastonbury 2009) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Released in between the opening of the Iron Curtain and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rockin\u2019 In The Free World would become the anthem for the European liberation of its time.<\/p>\n In his 2013 memoir Waging Heavy Peace, Young reflected how this kind of social commentary was a \u201cpart of the process\u201d for him.<\/p>\n He reasoned: \u201cI just do what I do and keep my ears and eyes open. Things are happening all the time. You put it out there and shit happens.\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, the main riff to the song has more in common with hard rock and early heavy metal than the folk scene Young had been part of. Palm-muting was used to deaden the strings and bring more of a staccato feel \u2013 a technique famously used by bands like Black Sabbath<\/a>, Iron Maiden and Metallica<\/a>. The palm-muting is abandoned during the verse and chorus sections, allowing the chords to vibrate and ring out naturally.<\/p>\n For his solo at 2:30, Sampedro uses the E minor pentatonic scale \u2013 though also chose to include a Bb blue note and a major second found on the 14th fret of his high E-string.<\/p>\n
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