Neil Young brought back “This Note’s for You” to his live repertoire for the first time in 28 years during Sunday night’s performance at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage.
The song, which hasn’t been performed in concert since 1997, served as a pointed commentary on corporate sponsorship in music venues. The Canadian rock legend’s decision to resurrect the 1988 anti-commercialism anthem was particularly deliberate given the venue’s corporate branding.
Young acknowledged this irony before launching into the song, telling the crowd: “We come back to the Freshwater Amphitheatre. It’s going to be great.” The venue was previously known as the Molson Amphitheatre when Young last performed there in 2000.
“This Note’s for You” was written at the height of the corporate sponsorship boom in the late 1980s, when major artists including Eric Clapton, Madonna, and the Rolling Stones were licensing their music for advertisements or allowing corporations to sponsor their tours. The song directly references numerous brands including Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Miller, and Budweiser’s mascot Spuds MacKenzie.
The song’s accompanying music video caused significant controversy when MTV initially refused to air it due to concerns about trademark infringement. The network cited potential legal issues with the video’s use of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston impersonators, along with parodies of various corporate campaigns.
Young’s manager Elliot Roberts responded with a scathing open letter, writing: “MTV, you spineless twerps. You refuse to play ‘This Note’s for You’ because you’re afraid to offend your sponsors. What does the ‘M’ in MTV stand for: music or money? Long live rock and roll.” The network eventually relented, placing the video in rotation and awarding it Video of the Year at the 1989 VMAs.
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The song remained a regular fixture in Young’s setlist throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s before being dropped after the Bridge School Benefit on October 19th, 1997. Young had opportunities to revive it during previous performances at corporate-sponsored venues, including London, Ontario’s Budweiser Gardens in 2012 and his initial Toronto Budweiser Stage appearance last summer, but chose not to until now.
