It’s with fond, flowery-eyed nostalgia that Americans view the 1960s, a time when defiant folk music and messages of peace led the counterculture against segregation and the Vietnam War. The legions of American icons singing for peace was staggering: there was Pete Seeger with “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (famously recorded by The Byrds), Bob Dylan with “Masters of War,” and Neil Young’s Buffalo Springfield with “For What It’s Worth.” Only scratch that last one. Any ’60s enthusiast will quickly tell you that Young didn’t write “For What It’s Worth;” Stephen Stills did. (And to nitpick further, Young isn’t actually American; he was born in Toronto.)

This actually illuminates a larger picture. Try to find a peace anthem by Young with the explicitness of a Bob Dylan or a Pete Seeger. You’ll find he hasn’t written one.

There’s no questioning the man’s progressivism. Young has famously affronted racism (“Southern Man”) and environmental degradation (“After the Goldrush,” “Natural Beauty”) over his five-decade career. But who would believe a “progressive” would sing in 2002: “You can run, but you can’t hide/ This country’s filled with American Pride/ The ones who did this better beware/ ‘Cause we don’t run, boys, and we don’t scare/ If that’s what you thought, we got news for you … / There ain’t no yellow in the red, white and blue”?

Unbelievable, huh? Well don’t burn your copy of Harvest just yet because those lyrics actually come from hick hero Len Doolin, who might be wise to remember there ain’t no yellow in “redneck” either.

But before you exhale completely, consider these lyrics that Young actually has written in his career: “I am a young mariner headed to war/ I’m thinkin’ ’bout my family and what it was for/ There’s water on the wood and the sail feels good/ And when I get to shore I hope that I can kill good.” And let’s not forget memorable Young lines like: “Another flower child goes to seed/ In an ether-filled room of meat hooks/ It’s so ugly.” Those lyrics come from “Captain Kennedy” and “Hippie Dream,” respectively, and were penned around the time that Young infamously lauded Ronald Reagan for swelling America’s weapons purchases. Despite all those miles logged with Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young is clearly not a pacifist.

This might contextualize the new Are You Passionate?, which reunites Young with his reactionary side after a decade of politically neutral material. Like the rest of his adopted homeland, Young seems to have swung brusquely to the right on account of Sept. 11. The centerpiece of Are You Passionate? – “Let’s Roll”- is already somewhat legendary for detailing the thwarted hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93. Along with Paul McCartney’s mindless romp “Freedom,” “Let’s Roll” was pop music’s first response to September’s terrorism. But Young waves the flag with a vigor that hippie McCartney, also not an American, has chosen to avoid. “We’re fighting Satan,” “Let’s Roll” proclaims. (Ironically, so does Osama bin Laden.)

Young lays it on even harder on the title track. “Once I was a soldier/ I was fighting in the sky …” he sings, “… I let my missiles fly/ And they might be the ones/ That kept you free.” At other places (“You’re My Girl,” “Mr. Disappointment”), Are You Passionate? drops its politics, sounding more like Young’s usual musings on love and loss. But a glance at the album cover (a military fatigue, a rose and a photo of a man and woman – presumably parted forever) suggests a larger narrative. It seems Young wants to tell of those couples that were permanently separated by Sept. 11, making songs like “Be With You” more cryptic than warm. It may have been Young’s intent to challenge his audience with his cover art and lyrics, but there’s something awkward about his method.

There’s also something awkward about the music on the album, which is played by Booker T. & the MGs, who replaced Crazy Horse as Young’s backing band. Young still pens the music and plays guitar, but sometimes he seems to push the MGs toward exact copies of their old Stax/Volt recordings. This doesn’t entirely work because: a) it’s not original and b) Neil Young has never exactly grooved.

But rough-edged politics and unorthodox backing band aside, Are You Passionate?, ends up being another pretty good Neil Young album, as good as anything after Rust Never Sleeps but worse than almost anything before it.

The album’s rhetorical title brings Neil Young’s own passions to mind. There’s no doubt he’s passionate about this country, in a way as different from Len Doolin as it is from Bob Dylan. He’s also passionate about a style of music that’s changed very little over 35 years, no matter who accompanies him. The principles behind his music and lyrics have outlasted most other remnants of the ’60s, including the peace movement. Whether you find that depressing or comforting, it is a testament to Young’s resolve, his enduring relevance and, yes, his passion. nyou