Here's the story behind this song as reported by Cameron Crowe in Rolling Stone #284 Feb. 8th 1979: "One afternoon during a tour several years ago, Young sat in his manager’s hotel room. The phone kept ringing, tour crew members bustled in an out… and through it all, Young sat on the bed with his son Zeke, peacefully watching the news.
The broadcast was interrupted by an emergency bulletin. Pat Nixon had suffered a stroke, an announcer said over a filmed report of the sad and beaten Richard Nixon tearily moving through the hospital’s revolving doors.
After a time, Young got up and disappeared into his bus in the parking lot.
Onstage several hours later, Young played the song he had written:
Hospitals have made him cry
But there’s always a freeway in his eye
Though his beach got too crowded for a stroll.
Roads stretch out like healthy veins
And wild gift horses strain the reins
Where even Richard Nixon has got soul
The song was a first called “Requiem for a President.” Young later changed the name to “Campaigner,” and placed it on his three-record retrospective album, Decade. “Guess I felt sorry for [Nixon] that night,” he said of the song" #neilyoung #all1song