Gotta Get Down to It…
Music is often best written by those who are angry, those who are frustrated, or those who are bitter. So often music is an artists release of pent emotion, a way of getting thoughts and feelings to boil over. When an artist releases a song that reflects the same feelings in the public, some spectacular things happen.
On Monday 4th May 1970 the Ohio National Guard shot dead 4 people, and injured 9, at a protest rally at the Kent State University in Ohio. The protesters had been demonstrating, looting, and attacking police in the town for the four days following Nixon’s announcement that America would invade Cambodia. An estimated four million people had risen up and protested across the country in response to the Cambodian Incursion, but Kent would go down in history (full account).
Alongside the nationwide protests, Neil Young had heard of the events in Kent, and wrote a song for Crosby, Stills and Nash. The song was simply titled “Ohio”. Within just twenty days of the shootings the song was receiving national airplay across the country, providing a vehicle to carry the message.
The song itself is uncompromising, sharp, and cutting. Imagine yourself what it would be like to write a song accusing your own president of crimes, and your own countries army as “cutting US down”. It is unimaginably frank, and soaked tonally in anger and accusation. It’s frankly brilliant.
Four dead in Ohio.
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*** Note: This is not the Neil Young version, as that has been banned from internet airplay by WGM.
Lyrics
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
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