KIEV, Ukraine — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken showed off his guitar skills during his trip to Ukraine, taking the stage to sing a classic Neil Young song. It received mixed reviews not because of its performance, but because of the appearance of an American diplomat having fun in a bar while bombs from Russia were falling on the country.
According to The New York Times, after a dreary day spent touring the capital Kiev during an unannounced trip to Ukraine, Blinken took the stage Tuesday night at Barman Dictat, a basement cocktail bar where a punk and jazz band was playing.
According to the newspaper, a band called 19.99 called Blinken on stage and he strapped on a red Epiphone guitar.
“I know this is a really, really difficult time,” Blinken told the audience. “But they (Russians) must know, you must know, the United States is with you, so much of the world is with you,” he added.
“So maybe we could try something?” Blinken said. “I don’t know if we can pull it off.”
The band then performed Young’s 1989 song “Rockin’ in the Free World,” the BBC reported. Blinken, a veteran guitarist who has several songs on Spotify, and the band put on a pedestrian performance, but it was clear that the secretary was trying to use the song’s anthemic chorus of “Keep on rockin’ in the free world” as encouragement, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“He connected with his eyes, with the leader of our band, with me… It was our first time on stage, but it feels like we’ve been a band for two years,” according to The Guardian, guitarist Arsen Gorbach told BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday. He added that Blinken chose this song and called the performance “a very important point in Ukrainian history and cultural history.”
Others weren’t so sure.
Some pointed out that Young’s song refers to an America in chaos, quoting young mothers addicted to drugs, the Los Angeles Times reported. Then-President George H. W. Bush’s promise of a “kinder, gentler nation” was also ridiculed – “We’ve got a thousand points of light/For the homeless man/We’ve got a kinder, gentler hand with a machine gun,” Young sang.
According to the newspaper, the song’s intent was misunderstood, as was Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 song “Born in the USA,” which is not a patriotic anthem but a critique of then-President Ronald Reagan’s policies in America.
As Blinken sang, Russian troops advanced and closed in on Kharkov, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Kiev analyst Oleksandr Kraiev called Blinken’s appearance with the team “inappropriate,” according to the Associated Press.
“From my point of view, and from the point of view of ordinary Ukrainians in general, going to a bar and singing a short song with our band was not the right signal,” Kraiev told the news agency. “It is not, let’s say, a disaster, it is not a faux pas, but it is something undesirable from the point of view of ordinary Ukrainians.”
Other critics were not so gentle.
“The Kharkiv region is being wiped out, people are leaving their homes, Kharkiv is being attacked by aerial bombs. The Sumy Oblast is getting ready and the top US official is singing songs in a Kiev bar,” the head of one of the Ukrainian non-governmental organizations wrote in a Facebook post.
“I advise the Secretary of State to visit a military cemetery, not a bar,” Oleh Symoroz, a Ukrainian veteran who lost both legs in combat, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, according to The Guardian.
Blinken’s spokespeople said the secretary would not have spoken at the event if he thought it was inappropriate.
“Never bet on Ukraine,” Blinken said during a Wednesday news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytry Kuleba.