Neil Young Drops Trump Dissing, Anti-Authoritarian Single ‘Big Crime’: ‘Got To Get the Fascists Out’

At a time when most major artists are holding their lyrical fire when it comes to protest songs taking on the norm-smashing Trump administration, as always, Neil Young is saying the quiet part out loud. Very loud, in fact, on his latest broadside against Donald Trump and his MAGA-fication of Washington, “Big Crime.”

The song from Young and his Chrome Hearts band that dropped on Thursday (Sept. 4) was recorded live at a soundcheck at the group’s Chicago-area show last week and pointedly uses some of Trump’s own catchphrases and recent actions to decry what many have deemed the autocratic-like actions of the current administration.

“No more great again/ No more great again/ There’s big crime in DC at the White House,” Young wails over the stomping, grungy track that opens with a flip of Trump’s signature Make America Great Again slogan before moving on to slamming the president’s recent move to flood the streets of the nation’s capital with armed troops to fight what the White House has claimed is a crime epidemic in the city.

“Don’t need no fascist rules/ Don’t want no fascist schools/ Don’t want soldiers on our streets/ There’s big crime in DC at the White House,” sings Young, 79, who has been a stalwart protest song singer for more than half a century, dating back to 1970’s CSNY Kent State massacre anthem “Ohio.”

Though he doesn’t mention Trump by name on the tune, the target of the lyrics is crystal clear on such lines as, “No more money to the fascists/ The billionaire fascists/ Time to blackout the system/ No more great again.” In a note on his site on Tuesday (Sept. 2), Young called the tune a “new piece of music for these strange times.”

Practically alone among his generation of protest singers in speaking out against Trump, Young has not been shy lately about sharing his thoughts on the sometimes shocking actions during the former reality TV star’s second administration. “If I talk about Donald J. Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminum blanket,” Toronto-born Young — who became dual citizen of the U.S and Canada in 2020 — wrote on his Neil Young Archives site in April in a message that appears to have since been taken down.

“That is happening all the time now. Countries have new advice for those returning to America … If I come back from Europe and am barred, can’t play my USA tour, all of the folks who bought tickets will not be able to come to a concert by me,” Young worried at the time. “That’s right folks. If you say anything bad about Trump or his administration, you may be barred from re-entering USA if you are Canadian. If you are a dual citizen like me, who knows? We’ll all find that out together.”

Young has hit out at Trump a number of times in the past, including when Trump used Young’s 1989 protest against injustice anthem “Rockin’ in the Free World” during first White House run in 2015-2016; Young sued Trump over his use of that song and “Devil’s Sidewalk” during the president’s failed 2020 White House bid, dropping the suit after Trump lost to President Joe Biden. After obtaining his American citizenship in 2020, Young wrote a scathing open letter to Trump, calling him a “disgrace to my country.”

In May of this year, Young against vented his anger against Trump, slamming him for being “out of control” following the president’s digs at Bruce Springsteen (“highly overrated… dumb as a rock”) and Taylor Swift (“no longer ‘HOT’”). “Bruce and thousands of musicians think you are ruining America,” Young wrote at the time. “You worry about that instead of the dyin’ kids in Gaza. That’s your problem. I am not scared of you. Neither are the rest of us. You shut down FEMA when we needed it most. That’s your problem Trump. STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT ROCKERS ARE SAYING. Think about saving America from the mess you made.”

Watch the “Big Crime” video below.