This is really sad, and I hate to drop a bomb like this on a Friday, but as a song I’ve been digging says “there’s never good times for bad things to happen.”

So here it is:

Canadian folk rock legend Neil Young said he has lost all hope that music can change the world, as he presented a documentary about his 2006 anti-war concert tour at the Berlin film festival on Friday.

“I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality,” Young told reporters.

Read the full story here.

It’s a real sonnofabitch. Now, I understand Neil has his reasons. But I also know he’s a petulant old man whose view of the world has never been especially rosy.

I myself think music still has the power to change the world — maybe in more abstract ways than Neil hopes for. Sure, maybe a song like Young’s “Impeach the President” didn’t achieve what it set out to, but when has any song ever done something like that? It’s PROGRESSION NEIL! As Barack says, “change happens from the ground up”.

You go back to the civil rights days with all the folk singers and their “protest songs” and things aren’t really that different. Songs rarely lead to direct action, but they do strongly influence the under-currents of opinion — the tides of the times. And even when a message only reaches a small audience — an outpost if you will — it still matters. It matters even when just one person is influenced as it effects the way they deal with people and thought in their lives. Dammit, it matters. One small stone at a time. Fucking dominos. That’s how it is… Songs aint bombs.

Or maybe I’m just a blind, young idealist. And if I am, I wouldn’t have it any other way. May we never get old and cranky.

Undying love to Mr. Young, be he can go suck an egg on this one — a fucking dirty rotten one.

Now, to pad this sour news, scroll down and watch hilarious, non-political, pointless and awesome Flight of the Conchords video.