For Neil Young's next release, "Fork in the Road," the venerated, if occasionally vexing, rocker has created a concept album about electric cars. But Young takes a detour on at least two tracks to work with a suddenly popular songwriting topic: the cratering economy.

The title track's chorus: "There's a bailout coming, but it's not for you / It's for all those creeps hiding what they do."

The rapidly expanding recession-music playlist is a mix spilling over with all manner of musicians, from rock legends and country singers to folkies and rappers. Contributions from rappers are especially notable, with more forgoing, or at least decreasing, lyrics about excessive materialism in favor of ones about the common man's economic grind, as heard on recent songs by Jadakiss ("Hard Times"), Cam'ron ("I Hate My Job"), Joell Ortiz ("Bout My Money") and Willie Isz ("In the Red").

The Willie Isz duo has called that potent song a cross between John Lennon's "Imagine" and the epochal Great Depression song "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" But it sounds more like a Southern-rap update of the Carter Family's enduring 1930s anthem "No Depression in Heaven," with Jneiro Jarel rapping: "If everything was free, the world would be a better place / For you and me / Don't you agree? / No more poverty / ... There would be no bank robberies / The crime life would stop / America would be at peace."

Young Jeezy's chart-topping 2008 album "The Recession" marked a departure for the Atlanta star who became famous — and, yes, rich — spinning tales of dope boys living large.

Although Jeezy didn't actually strip his lyrics of references to his Lamborghini, he was suddenly questioning his free-spending ways, rapping: "Looking at my watch like it's a bad investment." In an interview with XXL magazine, he explained: "When money was plentiful, I was the first one to tell you to stack it. Live your life with it. Now that money's slowed up, I'ma be the first one to tell you to save it like they ain't gon' make it no more."

And yes, a wealthy rap star can still relate to the common man, Jeezy insisted. "I got family members, aunts, uncles and cousins and friends that still live their life," he said. "It definitely affects me when I get the phone calls and somebody's about to get put out of their house ... and there ain't really a lot of opportunity out there for you."

In January, Nashville star John Rich dashed off "Shuttin' Detroit Down," a rant about the government's hesitation to save the American automotive industry. "In the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down," Rich seethes. "While the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets on out of town / And D.C.'s bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground."

On the title track of "Prayer of a Common Man," country singer-songwriter Phil Vassar Vassar sings, almost pleadingly: "This house of cards I built is mortgaged to the hilt / And it's sinking in the sand / Lord, hear the prayer of a common man."

Meanwhile, old folkie Tom Paxton satirized federal bailouts, updating his topical 1979 song "I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler." Now Paxton sings: "I am changing my name to Fannie Mae / I am going down to Washington, D.C. / I'll be glad they got my back / Cause what they did for Freddie Mac / Will be perfectly acceptable to me."

There is a long and rich history of tunes about hard times. During the Great Depression, musicians summed up the prevailing sentiments, whether it was Woody Guthrie singing his Dust Bowl ballads ("Do Re Mi," "Tom Joad," "I Ain't Got No Home"), Blind Alfred Reed wondering "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" or Yip Harburg writing about the disintegration of the American dream in "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

Although record sales weren't exactly thriving during the period, Harburg's song became a hit for both Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby. The work resonated because it served as a musical mirror, reflecting people's experiences and sentiments.

"People definitely identified with songs like that and 'One Meatball,' which are like sonic pictures of that period," says Smithsonian Folklife Collections archivist Jeff Place, who two years ago produced the album "If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi: Songs of Rags and Riches" for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

"They're songs about a bleak time," Place says. "A lot of people could identify with them because they were about what was going on."

There have since been plenty of songs about financial struggle, from growing up poor (Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors") to the plight of the homeless ("Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Collins).

Of course, not every artist is making somber music. "I'm Broke and Proud," by New York rapper Rugged N Raw and New Jersey's Hasan Salaam, adds much-needed levity to the recessionary playlist. Over a galloping reggaeton beat, Rugged N Raw raps playfully about eating mayonnaise sandwiches, washing clothes in the sink, drinking off-brand beverages and taking a vacation cruise on the Staten Island Ferry.