Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Rockin' In the Free World" number 214 on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

He learned that a planned concert tour to the Soviet Union was not going to happen and his guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro said "we'll have to keep on rockin' in the free world".

The phrase struck Young, who thought it could be the hook in a song about "stuff going on with the Ayatollah and all this turmoil in the world.” He had the lyrics the next day.

[8] The song also refers to Ayatollah Khomeini's proclamation that the United States was the "Great Satan" and Jesse Jackson's 1988 campaign slogan, "Keep hope alive".

I had my trainer, and we just lifted weights and I did calisthenics to get my blood to the level it would be at after performing for an hour and twenty-five minutes—which is usually how long I’d be onstage by the time I did that song.

"[10]Comedian and former SNL cast member Dennis Miller would later say that "Rockin' in the Free World" was the single greatest performance on the show in its history.

In 2015 and 2016, the song was played during Donald Trump's entrance preceding his formal announcement that he would run as a Republican candidate for the 2016 presidency.

"[20] On August 4, 2020, Young filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against the Trump campaign for copyright infringement for its use of "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Devil's Sidewalk" after both songs had been removed from ASCAP's political license.

[22] In May 2024, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sang and played rhythm guitar on the song with Ukrainian punk rock band 19.99 at a bar in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Blinken was in the Ukrainian capital to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss battlefield updates and the significance of recent U.S. military aid.

[23][24] The song was most recently used at the 2024 Democratic National Convention on August 21, 2024 after Tim Walz gave the final speech of the evening to the assembled, with Young's approval.