Déj? Vu Live, released earlier this summer, serves as the soundtrack to the similarly titled, Neil Young directed documentary on the often-separated musical foursome Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The group was reunited in 2006, and they preformed many of the songs from Young’s Living With War, released the same year. Strangely, Déj? Vu is also the name of CSNY’s 1970 album. However, only one track from that studio release, “Teach Your Children,” is found on this live disc. The majority of them come from the performances of Living.

Despite all this confusion in the nomenclature and classification of the album, the continents of the album are single minded and without any measure of subtlety. The message is clear: CSNY doesn’t support George Bush and his policies. Three versions of “Living With War” exclaim what is forefront on the artists’ minds.

Unfortunately they fail to channel this dissatisfaction into the same iconic music that brought the band into prominence during the Vietnam War. Many lyrics are so blatant and clumsy that they seem more like the results of angry teenagers than veteran folk-rockers with four decades of prominence.

Shallow rhymes such as, “What if Al Qaeda blew up the levies? Would New Orleans be any safer?” and repetitious choruses like, “Flip-Flop,” should be below a band of this caliber.

CSNY proves it themselves with 2 tracks: a solid live rendition of “Teach Your Children” and a fantastic revival of Stills’ “For What its Worth” from his and Young’s Buffalo Springfield days. The new version of “For What its Worth” might make this album worth buying for loyal CSNY fans as it highlights the harmonizing that give the band its unique characters, as well as guitar work from each of the four accomplished lead men.

It’s a shame the band did not take a queue from this early writing and its less blunt but still relevant political statement. It is because of the more subtle nature of the lyrics that they still remain relevant in the present day. However, songs that name drop Barack Obama and strongly suggest Hillary Clinton are fated to only be as relevant as the length of those politicians’ careers.

To understand this change in tone, it is necessary to change perspectives. Despite the somewhat paradoxical cultural force of 60’s counter culture, it was not able to stop America’s involvement in Vietnam. While that force continues to be felt today, it has not stopped today’s wars either. Maybe it is desperation that forces CSNY to become so blunt.

Perhaps the real tragedy here is found in the lyrics to “Living With War.” After 4 decades, CSNY finds that “[They] have all been here before.”