Ohio (CSNY song)
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| “Ohio” | |||||
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| Single by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young | |||||
| B-side | "Find the Cost of Freedom" | ||||
| Released | June 1970 | ||||
| Format | single | ||||
| Recorded | May 15, 1970 | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Length | 2:58 | ||||
| Label | Atlantic | ||||
| Writer(s) | Neil Young | ||||
| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singles chronology | |||||
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"Ohio" is a protest song performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and sung by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970. It was released as a single, peaking at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Although a live version of the song was included on the group's 1971 double album Four Way Street, the studio version of both songs did not appear on an LP until the group's compilation So Far was released in 1974.
It also appears on Young's Live at Massey Hall album, recorded in 1971 but not released until 2007.
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[edit] Recording
Young penned the lyrics to "Ohio" after seeing the photos of the incident in Life magazine. [1] On the evening that CSNY entered Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles, the song had already been rehearsed, and the quartet with their regular rhythm section recorded it live in just a few takes. During the same session they recorded the single's equally direct b-side, Stephen Stills' ode to the war's dead, "Find the Cost of Freedom."
The record was mastered with the participation of the four principals, rush-released by Atlantic and heard on the radio with only a few weeks delay. In his liner notes for the song on the Decade retrospective, Young reported that "David Crosby cried when we finished this take." [2] Crosby can be heard keening "four, why? why did they die?" and "how many more?" in the fade.
[edit] Lyrics and reaction
The lyrics help evoke the turbulent mood of indignation and shock in the wake of the shootings, especially the line "four dead in Ohio," repeated throughout the song. "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming," refers to the Ohio National Guardsmen who killed the student protesters and Young's attribution of their deaths to the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. Crosby once stated that Young keeping Nixon's name in the lyrics was "the bravest thing I ever heard." After the double's release, it was banned from some AM radio stations because of the challenge to the Nixon Administration in the lyrics, but received airplay on then underground FM stations in larger cities and college towns. The American counterculture took the group as its own after this song, giving the four a status as leaders and spokesmen they would enjoy to varying extent for the rest of the decade.
The song was later covered by Devo on the 2002 album When Pigs Fly: Songs You Never Thought You'd Hear. The song was of particular significance to this group. Two of its founding members Jerry Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh were students at Kent State during the murders, Casale having witnessed the shooting, and known two of the victims. Casale was not impressed by it at the time, seeing it as an opportunist song by "rich hippies... making money off of something horrible... that they didn't get." [3] In Decade's liner notes, Young reflected in 1976 that, "[i]t's ironic that I capitalized on the death of those American students." [2]
Chrissie Hynde, famously of The Pretenders, attended Kent State at the time as well, and knew Jeffrey Miller, one of the fatalities.
This song was selected as the 385th Greatest Song of All Time by Rolling Stone in December 2004.
[edit] Covers
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008) |
The song was recorded by The Isley Brothers on their album Givin it Back from 1971.
The song has been covered acoustically live by the band Rise Against during their fall 2006 coheadlining tour, with Thursday, during Rise Against's encore, and by The Dandy Warhols, who placed a version of the song on their 2004 B-sides and covers album Come on Feel the Dandy Warhols, available only through the band's own website. John & Mary and The Valkyries added the song to their live set list in late 2006.
Tim Reynolds has covered the song live several times.
Two renditions of the song appear on the 2008 tribute album, Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity; one a modern take by Toronto acoustic-folk duo Dala and the other, by Pennsylvanian folk-rocker Darcie Miner, a closer approximation to the CSN&Y original.
Paul Weller recorded a cover during the sessions for Wild Wood and it was released as a b-side to his single "The Weaver."
Swedish band Asoka did a cover of Ohio in their 1971 self titled album
[edit] Personnel
- Neil Young, guitar, lead vocal on "Ohio"
- Stephen Stills, guitars, vocals on "Find the Cost of Freedom"
- David Crosby, guitar, vocals
- Graham Nash, vocals
[edit] Additional personnel
- Calvin Samuels, bass ("Ohio" only)
- Dallas Taylor, drums ("Ohio" only)
[edit] References
- ^ McDonough, Jimmy (2002). Shakey. New York: Anchor Books, 345. ISBN 0-679-75096-7.
- ^ a b Neil Young. Decade. (Reprise Records, 1977).
- ^ McDonough, Jimmy (2002). Shakey. New York: Anchor Books, 346 fn. ISBN 0-679-75096-7.
- Interview with Bill Halverson, engineer of "Ohio." Accessed on March 26, 2007.
- Neil Young Ohio Lyric Analysis. Accessed on March 26, 2007.
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