When I heard last week that Neil Young, 76, was threatening Spotify - “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”- I was genuinely shocked.

Heck, I thought Neil Young was dead.

Same reaction when I heard Joni Mitchell - aged 78 - was trying to get Spotify to scrap podcasts by Joe Rogan by demanding the service remove her folk songs.

Then Nils Lofgren, 70, joined their pathetic attempt at cancel culture. (The last time I heard anything from Lofgren was in 2001 when one of his depressing tracks was used in a Sopranos episode.)

The hubris of these three geriatric singers. They tried to get Rogan cancelled and only succeeded in getting scrapped themselves.

Smart.

Imagine believing that you’re so powerful, your music such a treasure, that the largest podcast provider in the U.S. is going to euthanize its cash cow so Baby Boomers can close their eyes and pretend it’s 1968 again while listening to your music.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s why these septuagenarian hippies are doing this: To remind us that they’re still among the living. These days the only place you hear their music is at the dentist’s office, the supermarket or karaoke night at the local nursing home.

It’s hard to believe that these formerly rebellious musicians - Neil Young performed at Woodstock, remember - morphed into your pearl-clutching suburban neighbor who gets all her news from MSNBC, her food from DoorDash and hasn’t left the house without a mask in two years.

Doubtful this trio listens to “The Joe Rogan Experience,” but they know for sure you shouldn’t.

These musicians, who came of age during the free speech movement, want to shut down the speech of the most popular podcaster of all time. They want to silence him because he occasionally has guests - medical doctors with impressive resumes - who question the approach of American public health officials to Covid-19.

They don’t want YOU to hear what they have to say.

Young, Mitchell and Lofgren claim they’re taking a stand because Rogan peddles what they consider “misinformation” about Covid-19. Apparently they all studied virology since they stopped touring.

What they’re really doing is joining with corporate media and bureaucrats who want to stomp out anyone who dares question the truth du jour about Covid.

If they bothered to listen to Rogan they’d find that the former comedian and UFC color commentator is a far better interviewer than almost anyone in the broadcast world. He’s smart, he listens and he gets intelligent guests.

Rogan does what egocentric interviewers never do: He allows people to talk without repeated interruptions. And he’s not afraid to book guests who make the establishment squirm.

Spotify recognized Rogan’s value when they signed him to an exclusive contract that’s rumored to be more than $100 million. In return, Rogan churns out four or five podcasts a week, most more than three hours long. 

The audience for Rogan is huge - 11 million per podcast -  and growing. The recent publicity is no doubt driving up his numbers.

If you haven’t listened to Rogan, you should. His Dec. 31 interview with virologist and immunologist Dr. Robert Malone, who was involved with mRNA development and who holds a number of patents related to mRNA vaccines, is the one causing the most controversy.

Malone says he’s vaccinated against Covid-19 but raises troubling questions about public health officials, their deliberate silence on natural immunity and their disinterest in therapeutics. He questions the value of vaccinating young people who are at little risk of the illness.

Dr. Anthony Fauci and his lapdog pals in the media definitely don’t want you listening to Malone, so the press has done its best to portray the doctor who has degrees from UC Davis, Northwestern and Harvard as an anti-vaxxer kook.

He’s not.

Spotify would be foolish to break ties with Joe Rogan, although I could see them bowing to the woke mob if popular performers joined the little geriatric glee club protest. In the meantime, Spotify announced that it’s adding a content notice to podcasts about Covid directing listeners to another site to get Fauci-approved information.

Oh, look. Late breaking news on Sunday: Attention-starved Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have joined in, expressing “concerns” about Rogan’s “misinformation” and demanding Spotify take action.

That’s hilarious. These two goldbrickers can’t threaten to withdraw their Spotify work because they haven’t actually done any.

Harry and Meghan were paid a reported $30 million by Spotify in 2020 but failed to produce a single podcast in 2021. They did spit out a little 35-minute Christmas special in December of 2020, which “works out to $940,000 for each minute of air time.”

It’s going to take bigger names than Young, Mitchell, Lofgren and the royal slackers to kick Rogan off Spotify.

Stay tuned.