This channel has made my day so much brighter. I’m exhausted after work & listening to great music brightens my nights. Neil Young’s awesome I seen him @ the Fox theatre in Detroit a few years ago ❤️🇺🇸👍💜❤️
Your source is incorrect. He wrote it after David Crosby came over and explained the situation. He played what he was writing for David, who then called Graham Nash to book a studio and get the musicians together. The song was released a month later. One victim was simply walking to class. There are conflicting reports on the actual sequence of events. The Guard claimed people threw rocks. But the response to a rock is not a rifle. That was David Crosby shouting "Why?" and "How many more?" It was spontaneous as were the tears he was crying.
One day, I'd like to pay my respects at the site during the anniversary of this event and place flowers at the place these kids died at. I was a kid when this happened in 1970 and for the life of me I couldn't understand why students where being shot at.
My husband (before we were together) had just returned home from a tour of duty in Vietnam. He was a medic. The higher ups decided that his company should start training for mob/riot control to help contain/control protests that were happening here in the States against the war. My husband refused. He told his captain that he wasn't going to point a weapon at a fellow citizen because they were protesting against the very hell-hole he just returned from. He spent 3 months in solitary confinement until his time was up. He had to accept a general discharge but he felt it was worth it rather than having to go up against fellow American citizens. Thanks for your reaction, Jamel. It was a dark time in our history but it's a time we shouldn't forget. Take care and be well. Peace.
I was there as a freshman, between classes, crossing the commons, past the Victory Bell and up Blanket Hill, heading for Fletcher Hall (my dorm) for lunch. I am now 70, and as I think of all the living I have done since then, that Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder (in my history class), and Sandra Scheuer, were robbed of, it still brings me to tears.
...."How can you run when you know?" To me, this completes the thought. The message of solidarity there to stay with her, protect each other, stay with each other. In these situations, protestors are often heavily criticized (or even blamed) for not complying with the orders of the police/military. But honestly, how can you disperse (run) when you're seeing someone be taken and brutalized before your eyes? Or further, if you yourself are being brutalized? It is a biological response. I'm so sorry to hear that you did know her (Allison). May she rest in peace.
Yes Rich56!! you’ve nailed the SINGLE most stunning thing bout this song. opening guitar riff an ice pick in the spine....I LOVE this song but if I’m having a bad day I can be sobbing before this song is over. This song has frightening power “.....What if you knew her ...” that line puts a hole through me every time And I thank CSN and especially Young for that. Rock n Roll + Soul = Narcotic
@@peggypennington3270 My sister so do I. I have one more reason to truly remember that day, I turned 16. I didn't know it then but I was changed forever. I had a talk with my folk and I'm sure they saw it, I was just too young to understand it. Be well and safe, peace to you and yours.
The four that were killed weren't even in the protest. They were going to classes. I still remember the picture in the paper of a woman crying over the body of her friend that was shot
@@michellewolf7907 She was also one of the few mildly bright spots of that situation. She was actually a runaway who was reunited with her family thanks to them seeing that picture.
Some of us old folks still remember the shock, sorrow, and rage that we felt when it happened. Neil put those feelings to music. I still shed a tear when I hear it.
Interesting fact: CSNY had a hit rising the charts, Teach Your Children, but they released this great song immediately because they felt they had to get it out right away.
David Crosby called Graham Nash to get everyone to the recording studio the NEXT DAY after Neil Young showed the song to him (after writing it in an hour). It was more important to them to show how America was killing it's children than to have a hit record.
I'm 68 years old and I remember this day like yesterday. Hearing this song makes me cry still to this day. This is a gut reaction that I can't describe in words. Here we are all this time gone by and the war mongers are back in power who would have our soldiers fighting for money just like back in Vietnam. So sad so sad, music is power.
It's really sad that so many still disregard and or forget history. As they say "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it". It's both sad and kind of scary.
I remember that day too as a kid. It was a scary time - the deaths of Bobby Kennedy, MLK, the riots and burning in the cities . . . I didn't really understand, but I knew things were very unsettled and unsafe.
It has been repeated. Armed government forces working for the state haven't stopped gunning down innocent civilians during non violent protests. Have you read the U.S. news the last 50 years?
My brother in law’s mom was at Kent during the shootings she is in one of the pictures as a nursing student attending to a shot student. Such a sad stain on American history.
David Crosby did an amazing interview on Howard Stern and says Neil Young took the newspaper article with him into the woods and 20 minutes later had a finished song. Stephen Stills saw the importance of the song and urged the band to record the song as soon as possible. They released the song despite already having a single (Teach Your Children) on the charts.
David Crosby was interviewed by Bob Costas (posted on this site) in which he described it differently. He said that he and Neil were sitting on the porch with guitars, David was handed a copy of Life magazine with the photo of the young woman kneeling over the dead body of a girl who had been shot and with arms outstretched seemed to be screaming with grief and disbelief at what happened. He and Neil continued looking at the photo and becoming more emotional about it. Crosby says Neil immediately started composing the song, very simple at that point, and Crosby tried to get him to flesh it out. Before long, it was written and Neil felt it needed to be recorded immediately. So David called to Graham Nash, made arrangements to book a studio and they all went there to record it asap, releasing it within two weeks because of the timely and urgent quality of this.
Yes along with this song Ohio, Marvin Gaye's "what's going on" is definitely one of a few songs that brings tears to my eyes no matter how many times I listen to it!!!
After seeing the famous photo in Life magazine, Crosby, who was in staying in the mountains with Neil Young showed it to Neil. He said Neil took the magazine and his guitar and walked of into the woods. One hour later he came back with this song. Crosby called Graham Nash and said get to the studio NOW. They recorded it the next day in an hour and a half. The record company did not want them to release it because "Teach Your Children" was rising up the charts. CSNY said NO it goes out.
I attended Ohio State back then, and we had a large walk area called The Oval that was HUGE like a park.... it would fill up with student protesters (Thousands of students) and a couple of weeks before the Kent State massacre, we were occupied by the National Guard who were armed with live rounds of ammunition... our radical protesters were throwing rocks at the National Guard and it was really by the grace of God no one was shot and killed.... there is plenty of footage of this on TH-cam.. It was like a tinder box ready to explode at any time. I remember it like it was yesterday......
I remembered the tumultuous 60s like a bad dream. I was never so glad to see the 1970s roll in and put an end to all the social and cultural scariness. And when we finally left Vietnam, it was like being cured from from a lengthy illness.
@@mikehenson819 yeah back in the mid 60's when they first started busing kids around to new schools trying to achieve some diversification and de-segregation in the system it was met with great resistance. I remember fighting on our street between blacks and whites. yelling and throwing things at each other. it was crazy.
Reminiscent of Eisenhower having film crews at the German concentration camps as they were first seeing the horrors. He said that it was so bad people would doubt it unless they saw it for themselves. And now we have people doubting both the holocaust and Kent State and a whole host of horrors
Shame on Ohio for over and over reelecting their Governor that ordered this. James "Rocky" Rhoades served 4 terms as Governor of Ohio! He should have been impeached and had his sorry ass thrown in jail.
67 shots fired. Nine wounded - four dead. Per wiki, the closest of the four was 265ft away. The other dead were were 300-plus feet away. At least one of the dead was just walking by and not part of any protest.
It is what happens when those in 'control' feel threatened and go to extremes. The Guard should never have been called in. The authorities escalated to situation to look tough. Then it got out of hand. The Natl Guard were the ones rioting that day.
@@heathcliff8624 Excuse me. Whether I served of not has NOTHING to do with understanding what happened that day and how demagogues use situations only for their own perceived benefits at the expensive of millions who suffer and DIE. Don't preach to me about baseless. Don't tell me it is "something which I know nothing about". Did you serve in Vietnam? Even then we knew it was a baseless, a useless waste of lives. I lost several friends to that stupidity. I lived through that time and know a lot more than armchair philosophers who truly yak about things THEY know nothing about. So sit down.
That's a HUGE blanket statement... while depth of feeling in lyrics might be absent from most Top 40 radio these days, it certainly doesn't mean that all of today's music is bereft of feeling and meaning.. check out Kendrick Lamar's How Much Does a Dollar Cost or Childish Gambino's This is America for some stunning songs from the last couple years. I love oldies like this song, but there is still good music being made today.
I was 17 when this happened. I wasn't anywhere near Ohio, but it shocked the nation. I was a student and it could have been me. All these years, it still shocks me. Man, those were turbulent times and this song is still as powerful now as it was then.
@@Serai3 Really? Even though the protest was about the expansion of the Vietnam War to include the bombing of Viet Cong and NVA supply lines through Cambodia - as well as National Guard presence on the campus, nobody referred to it as the Cambodia War. It was part and parcel of the Vietnam War. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
@@NT-fo3me No, asshole. I'm being someone who was around at the time. Yeah, Cambodia came out of the Vietnam War, but the bombing there was its own side issue at the time, and many protests were SPECIFICALLY about that part of the war. So who's being fucking obtuse NOW?
The protest was about Nixon's expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. There were protests at colleges all around the country. I was a student at UT Knoxville and took part. To learn the facts about Kent State read Michener's book "Kent State."
With all that has happened in the last 5 years, heck the last two, where are the bands and songs like this today? Was a peaceful protest. They did get close to the guard, flowers in gun barrels type of close. There was a disturbance near the ROTC building, but nothing near the shots fired. Sad day. Love CSNY, and later CSN. One of my favorite groups. Love your work Jamel, glad I found your feed!
This song is about the Kent state murders of four innocent students, some weren't even involved in the protest but that shouldn't matter, they were murdered in cold blood not "accidently shot"
i remember this when i was in junior high. it really shook me that our own national guard could shoot college students just for protesting the vietnam war.
Same, it was stunning and horrifying, the propaganda the media put out was a lot different than today, we only had 3 TV stations at the time so the news was a bit slanted toward the opinion of the people in power, I remember them talking about teenagers jumping out of windows on LSD, I seriously doubt that happened to the extent that it was reported, if it happened at all. It was all a whole lot of fear mongering by the “establishment” to advance the “war on drugs” which never worked and to squash the hippie movement that was all about peace, love and flower power, it was a way to demonize all young people and destroy the movement in favor of the Vietnam War. Nixon did get us out but he told some lies, bombed Cambodia, unnecessarily. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI even had a hit out on Martin Luther King Jr., that’s what I read years later. They made the black panthers out to be a terrorist group because they were the first black armed protestors. MLK believed in peaceful protests for the most part but he did once say “the riot is the voice of the unheard.” He wasn’t wrong, nobody paid much attention to the rights of African Americans until shit caught on fire, It’s just the truth, I remember like it was yesterday. I grew up in the south, right in the middle of it as a white kid.
@@lisabellamy8424 Yeah, I get it. Especially the last verse, where he's hoping the world we get better, and then interrupts himself with "Anybody seen my old friend Bobby?"
Brothers and sisters 50 years ago, I turned 16 on that very very dark day and I knew I was changed forever. I wish I could put into words what I feel everytime I hear this cut, but I can't. I guess you might call it profound sadness for lack of a better term. I saw on my folks TV what I had been told would never happen, our soldiers firing on unarmed citizens. These people were exercising their First Amendment Right, "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".To this day no one has be held accountable for those murders, and never will. Brothers and sister be well and safe, peace to you and yours.
Look up Kent State 1970 David Crosby said when Neil Young was done writing the song he called Gram Nash and told him to find a recording studio ANY recording studio Also my High school History teacher was there he is in one of the many pictures of that day.....Sad day
Jamel if you are interested in that time in history you should check out the Vietnam documentary Ken Burns made. There was so much going on back then, it's a lot more complicated than soldiers following orders killed innocent people. That's what happened, but knowing why it happened I think helps us understand why we are the way we are today.
The most surprising thing I learned from that documentary is that the Vietnam occupation actually started in the 40s when the US let support to the French who were trying to re-conquer Vietnam. I was truly stunned about the timing, because up until then, I always associated the Vietnam War with the 60s and 70s.
@@julieharden2433 It's one of the longest wars in human history, certainly the longest in post-Napoleonic modern warfare. The Vietnamese also resisted Japanese occupation through force. Over 30 years of constant warfare. 6 years after the US withdrew, in 1979, China invaded them and retreated after heavy losses.
I was only 12 this song came out but I had an older brother who was hit hard by this an explained the meaning to me. Still brings tears 50 years later. RIP bro, and to the all the YOUNG people involved in this tragedy.
Same time, several students in Mississippi at Jackson state were killed, in the same manner - both peaceful protests against Vietnam. The National guard were young people untrained to handle, again, a peaceful protest by students, as was happening all over the world. It's strange to me that so many young people don't know about the history of that war at home, glad someone is reminding us. A truly great song.
Karl, the line " we are Stardust, we are golden" comes from Woodstock. Interesting fact, Joni didn't play the festival, but saw footage of it at a hotel and wrote it a few days later.
So much has changed while so much has not. Events like Kent State and My Lai caused the military to empathize obeying lawful orders and how the ‘just following orders defense’ doesn’t apply. But the militarization of the police with their ‘qualified immunity’ has negated some of this. I’ll encourage everyone to watch “The Trial of the Chicago Seven” on Netflix for another example.
I remember reading Tales of Hoffman about the trial of the Chicago 7. Nobody reading it today would believe it. Bobby Seale bound and gagged, which CSN&Y sang about on 4 Way Street - Chicago
OOooooooooo man, so much history behind this song. The Kent State Massacre, the U.S. looked a hell of a lot like it was going to repeat that mistake in 2020.
I lived not terribly far from Kent State. I was 10 years old. I remember the headlines. The protesters apparently threw bottles and bricks. Why the National Guard had real bullets, instead of rubber bullets, I don't know. I don't know if that was an option. Joe Walsh was a local musician, and Allison was a friend of his. I heard him interviewed by Steve and Garry on WLUP(Chicago) in the 80's about it. He was trying to get a memorial made at Kent State. "All in The Family" was a comedy, but showed the culture war going on. Young people against the Vietnam War vs. their parents, who still trusted the government(before Watergate), and had fought in WW2, and thought it was patriotic to fight against communism. They had seen the worst of Mao and Stalin. Nobody was wrong, they just had very different perspectives. Apparently, the National Guard panicked at Kent State and opened fire. The song still makes me cry.
Just love your reactions to the oldies. I remember when Ohio state happened and this song soon came out. It was the start of my protesting the war. 65 and still protesting.
The shooting this song is about also inspired the band DEVO to form. They were Kent State students and were there when the National Guard opened fire. The incident also inspired Chrissie Hynde to move from Ohio to London, where she eventually formed The Pretenders.
@@PHDWhom - I did not know that Jefferson Airplane had a cover of Wooden Ships. Thanks for the tip, and I just listened to it. My preference is still the CSNY version, as that is the one I grew up with. Usually the version you heard first (and or most) is the one that will stick with you.
@@tubularap airplane didnt actually "cover" the song, they helped to write it. The credit is shared. Airplane's version is a bit different, it adds piano, but I find it to be equally powerful.
@@lisarainbow9703 - Thanks for that interesting info. I'm going to look further into the backstory of the song. Never did, I always just assumed it was by Stephen Stills, because of the style.
R.I.P. to David Crosby. This is one of my favorite songs by CSNY and I can listen to it on a loop and I have listened to it on a loop just today when I found out about Mr. Crosby.
I can still see the cover of all the newspapers the day after. The dead boy lying on the ground and the hysterical girl kneeling over him. In another column of the front page of The New York Times that day was the announcement that my uncle, Charles Gordone, had become the first Black man to win a Pulitzer Prize for his play "No Place To Be Somebody"! Is it really so long ago?
As someone who attended Kent State in the latter part of the 70's, I've learned a bit about this tragedy. The protest began because of the covert expansion of the Viet Nam War into Cambodia. The protests were not entirely peaceful as they had burned down the ROTC building a few days before, prompting Ohio Governor Rhodes to send in the National Guard. A couple of problems with this is that the Guard were not trained in crowd control (the State Police would have been a better choice due to their training) and they were also fatigued since they were just deployed to (The) Ohio State University the previous week. In trying to disperse the crowd they marched themselves into a corner. When trying to march back, they turned toward the crowd and raised their weapons. No one has positively determined who or if an order to fire was made and who fired the first shot, as far as I know. Sadly, four were killed and nine were injured. The four that died, Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer, were basically bystanders, observing the protesters between classes. Three of the thirteen casualties, including Schroeder, were shot in the back. It was a truly dark day. Neil Young has said that this incident was one of the biggest lessons learned of a generation. As a side note, the famous picture of the girl screaming over the body of Jeffery Miller was taken by a student photographer named John Filo, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. The girl was a 14 y/o runaway from Florida who had befriended a couple of the the students that were hit that day: Sandra Scheuer who was killed, and Alan Canfora who was wounded. I hope this helps you understand the song a bit more
Thank you for sharing more of the entire story. The protests had been far from peaceful and the National Guard was having rocks hurled at them. Still tragic, no matter what - but there is more to the story than "peaceful" protesting.
Yes, I was following the events on the news back then. This was a tragic result to an escalation of violence. As well as burning down the R.O.T.C. building as you stated, the protesters had also been throwing rocks at the National Guard for days before they fired. Although this in no way justifies the shootings, to call the protesters totally peaceful isn't an accurate representation
They had broken windows downtown a few days earlier, but I never heard of the protesters throwing rocks at the Guard for days previous, just the day of the shootings. And walking around the area when I was there back then, I was hard pressed to find any, let alone enough, rocks to pose a threat to Guard. Additionally, none of the students even believed the guns were loaded with live ammunition. That was an ignorant assumption on their part. Personally, if I ever see a gun I assume it's loaded.
Neil Young wrote this song after seeing photos in Life magazine. A very sad day in American history, National Guard troops fired 67 shots in 13 seconds. Two of those killed were hundreds of feet from the protest and not even participating in it.
@@bwana-ma-coo-bah425 Not sure it was his job to chronicle every single American state killing of its own people in song. In any case, in 1965 he was touring Canada (his home country) as a solo singer and wasn’t well known. For songs about Watts: see Frank Zappa, Phil Ochs and Cypress Hill.
@@bwana-ma-coo-bah425 Ironically, thanks to another comment, I see that another Canadian, Gordon Lightfoot, wrote Black Day in July about the Detroit riots of 1967. It was banned on the radio in 30 states. The problem ain’t the songwriters - the problem is the folks doing the killing.
@@stshnie yes he did. 100 million points to you. However the problem I have is why does a white guy write a song about 4 white dead in Ohio get recognition and radio air play, and when a white guy writes a song about killings in Chicago of many blacks it gets banned. Is this white still America at it again? The problem isn't the people doing the killings. The problem is America allows new born babies to have access to a gun. Here is the difference between Americans and Canadians. Canadians see a kill kill movie and see it as just that. A movie. Americans see the same movie and see it as reality. The reason Americans are nice in the hospitality industry has 2 reasons. 1. you work on tips 2. you fear that the person might pull a gun out and shoot you. Seems to me white America ha a lot to answer to.
This song makes me cry every time I hear it. I was 10 & living in Akron (about 12 miles from KSU) at the time this happened. Something I will never forget!
The song remains powerful to this day--like an anthem or a protest song taken to the limit. The situation portrayed was at Kent State Univ where soldiers had been sent to quell protests of the Vietnam war and its expansion. Protestors were not armed but were sometimes throwing stuff at the troops who seemed massing against them and stood for the corrupt Nixon govt and its immoral war policy. David Crosby described the origin of the song in an interview with Bob Costas in 1991: He said that he and Neil Young were sitting on the porch with guitars, David was handed a copy of Life magazine with the photo of the young woman kneeling over the dead body of a girl who had been shot and with arms outstretched seemed to be screaming with grief and disbelief at what happened. He and Neil continued looking at the photo and becoming more emotional about it. Crosby says Neil immediately started composing the song, very simple at that point, and Crosby tried to get him to flesh it out. Before long, it was written and Neil felt it needed to be recorded immediately. So David called to Graham Nash, made arrangements to book a studio and they all went there to record it asap, releasing it within two weeks because of the timely and urgent quality of this.
Back in the day artists would dive right into politically charged issues without worrying about ruining their brand, this happened on campus at Kent State. If you like this one check out the Doors Five to One
It was at Kent State and it was a protest against the war in Vietnam. The National Guard was there to contain them from the buildings. The protestors were in their face and some bottles and stones were thrown at the Guardsmen, many of whom were just kids as well. No order to fire was given but one guy got scared and fired causing his squad to open fire thinking an order had been given, a true American tragedy
The 1970 Kent State shooting was still a major news story when the song came out. The shooting was on May 4, the song was recorded May 21, and was released a few weeks later. That's quick.
Interesting. Our young and middle aged men and women have just spent the last 20 years, and counting in combat zones with little more than that hammer you speak of, at least I think. Profound, and I am hugely critical. Succinct. Whether you meant it to be or not. T Y!☮️❤️
"How many more?!" I grew up listening to the protest and rebellion music from this era. My heart is broken over and over watching history repeat itself generation after generation. Anger is a healthy response to abuse and injustice. Fight oppression.
What a shocking day to see this happen on TV. It had a huge impact on the country. Officially, the end of the optimism and this lasted throughout the 1970’s. CSN&Y felt a responsibility to respond. This was written in short order to get it out there.
May 4th 1970. Kent State University in Ohio. This event shook the nation. It shouldn't have happened but it did. It changed the way many Americans thought about the President and the government in general.
This happened when I was a freshman in high school. Crazy times, but great music. My friends were wearing bracelets of POW or MIA soldiers with their info on it and they were supposed to wear them until they were found. It was tense. Friends had older brothers in Viet Nam. I never understood war and I still don't.
I was just a year older than you. I'll never forget the shock and horror of that news. That and watching my mom scan the faces of boys in Vietnam shown on the evening news are embedded in my brain. Mom was searching for my brother John. I think she barely slept the 13 months he was gone. And then we saw the Kent State coverage. Incredible music, tough times.
I was a sophomore in high school and my brother was in a field hospital in Vietnam in 1970. He rode in the helicopters picking up dead/wounded from battlefield. He has never talked about it in front of me. I think he probably confided in our dad, but definitely not our mother. I still have my POW bracelet. I did a google search for the name on my bracelet a few years ago. He survived the war, but has since passed away.
I was a student at Kent State in 1970. The killings occurred on Monday. The protests had begun peacefully enough days earlier, but on the previous Friday night the ROTC building was torched. It was no longer peaceful. When the National Guard (young kids like us) were deployed, some protestors threw rocks and bottles. It was a bit chaotic, and unfortunately the Guard had been given live ammunition. We (the protestors) were not innocent, but did not deserve that.
Neil Young read the headline in the paper while hanging out with Dave Crosby. Left the room, wrote this and came back in 45 minutes. was a single the next week
@@sheilathailand1903 It sure was . I’m a son a Vietnam vet and my father lost his younger brother there in 71. My mother is quite liberal. I feel so much from all sides. Pride and sorrow for our servicemen and women who cared for them, disdain for politicians and respect for dissenters.
The girl referred to in the song was not even in the protest. She was some distance away and killed by a bullet from the National Guard probably fired over the heads of the actual protesters.
@@kiplambel4052 If you're referring to the girl in the famous photo, she was a 14 y/o runaway from Florida who had befriended some of the students, including two that had been killed. When she was returned home, the Florida governor labeled her a Commie. Such were the times.
I was a senior in college when Kent State happened in 1970. It was a very tense week on campus after that - even though we were halfway across the country from there. Such a senseless tragedy. This song was everywhere as soon as it came out.
The protests were nationwide, in DC, and mostly at universities against the Vietnam war. The national guard was deployed to the Kent State campus, whereupon guardsmen became nervous and somebody fired, then another and another. It was a breakdown in discipline by the soldiers.
A tortured time. National Guard shooting students, 11 days later police did it again at Jackson State. Most people have no idea how torn up the US was during the mid Sixties to the mid Seventies. Those of us who lived thru those times can see the same hatred in today's polarized nation.
But is it the same hatred? This feels worse somehow. It feels like a lot of the people who lived through the 60s didn't learn anything from what happened and continue to make the same mistakes.
Yes! I was in 10th grade when this happened. I'll ALWAYS remember Walter Cronkite reporting this tragedy. He was so sad and disgusted. t seems like not much has really changed.
I was 9 years old, and lived in Kenmore Ohio, not far from Kent State, and I remember hearing the initial reports on the radio at home with my family; nobody really believed it was happening. There are many reports out on the why and how of it all, simply put: a true American tragedy. Thanks for revisiting it, and hopefully we all learned something, though these days it doesn't seem like people paid any more serious attention then than they do now.
I was a college student and a peaceful protester at the time this occurred, though not at Kent State (where this horrendous murder occurred). It had a huge impact on me then and still resonates today.
Did your "peaceful protest" include threats of violence and vandalism, followed by breaking store windows, burring buildings, assaulting police. Had none of this happened the National Guard would not even be there. Kent state was a terrible event but, the protestors brought it on themselves when they became violent and destructive.
@@darylemurphy9478 Only Lies need to be hidden, the truth is the truth and does not hide. But what I want to know is if assaulting police officers, vandalizing businesses, burning buildings is a "peaceful protest" what then do you consider violent?
I went to Kent State too long ago (but not really that long). So many people there still lived and breathed this event as if they'd been there. And some of them were.
I was 10 then. These words haunt me still. I can't forget them. 4 killed, 10 injured. Bro you need to see the images. This song is done over many of them. Tears in my eyes again.
There was also a similar tragedy at Jackson State College, which was a black college, so it got a lot less press; and, no famous song was written about it.
No arrests, nothing, even though it was said that the barrage of bullets was completely unwarranted and shouldn’t of happened. Those in the 35+ officers should’ve been held responsible for killing those students. They didn’t stand a chance.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We had just been thru the '60s with the space program and the moon landing and Woodstock. There were also the assassinations of the Kennedys, Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. But we also had a kind of music not heard before.
Tragic memories. Youthful lives taken for no reason. Memories are still there when ever I hear this song. I was only 17 but as anyone who was old enough to remember will tell you. 1960-70 changed America in a way that we as a country are still suffering from the effects.As you can tell from the comments the pain is still there. Also the division.
Sadly it's still very real and relevant today, dare I say even more relevant half a century later, last summer showed this ugly truth. I love reaction videos because growing up with this music I naively assumed everyone was hearing it and hoped it would bring some change. Being much older and (somewhat) wiser now, I'm seeing that wasn't the case but "the times they are a changin'" again. The ability to expose such a large audience to music they never knew existed is (my opinion) something that can change how people view the world. Music is an oral history of times gone by but also meant to help recognize it happening again. Music has no borders, harmony and synchronicity is an act of nature that allows us to see beyond our own experiences, these reaction videos just reinforce that what I thought was life changing at the time still is for people 50 years later.
I'm from Ohio and remember this all too well. There were 9 others wounded. A couple of years later, a band wanted to play this song in my highschool's talent show but were not permitted to..."too controversial".
Fun fact: future members of new wave pioneers Devo were students at Kent State when this happened, and the incident was influential in their philosophical development. Perhaps it's time to check out Devo. Whip It is their most famous song, Freedom of Choice is my favorite, and there's countless other great songs there.
There were so many protesters that to this day they do not know how many but none had weapons of any kind no flag poles no deer spray . They ...Yes shot right into the crowd. The crowd then ran away and still they marched into the crowd beating them down and dragging them away . There is footage you just don't want to see it. Yes Jamal you got it right after listening to that song it can bring one down However with each new day there is a new way so Peace my friend and Keep on Keeping it real and kind .☮💙🎶😎
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This channel has made my day so much brighter. I’m exhausted after work & listening to great music brightens my nights. Neil Young’s awesome I seen him @ the Fox theatre in Detroit a few years ago ❤️🇺🇸👍💜❤️
Your source is incorrect. He wrote it after David Crosby came over and explained the situation. He played what he was writing for David, who then called Graham Nash to book a studio and get the musicians together. The song was released a month later.
One victim was simply walking to class. There are conflicting reports on the actual sequence of events. The Guard claimed people threw rocks. But the response to a rock is not a rifle.
That was David Crosby shouting "Why?" and "How many more?" It was spontaneous as were the tears he was crying.
Check out George Ezra - Budapest, he’s so good and love his voice!
Please check out “Marooned” by Pink Floyd
Great song.....can u plzzzzz react to Chicago's song Smile....plzzzzzzz
Students Allison Beth Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, William Knox Schroeder, 19. Remember.
One day, I'd like to pay my respects at the site during the anniversary of this event and place flowers at the place these kids died at. I was a kid when this happened in 1970 and for the life of me I couldn't understand why students where being shot at.
✊
And let's say the names of all the brothers and sisters that lost their lives in Vietnam. I'm listening.
Thank you Kim for the mention of names.Sad and tragic event
Bill Schroeder was our neighbor.
My husband (before we were together) had just returned home from a tour of duty in Vietnam. He was a medic. The higher ups decided that his company should start training for mob/riot control to help contain/control protests that were happening here in the States against the war. My husband refused. He told his captain that he wasn't going to point a weapon at a fellow citizen because they were protesting against the very hell-hole he just returned from. He spent 3 months in solitary confinement until his time was up. He had to accept a general discharge but he felt it was worth it rather than having to go up against fellow American citizens. Thanks for your reaction, Jamel. It was a dark time in our history but it's a time we shouldn't forget. Take care and be well. Peace.
Your husband served honorably & his fellow citizens owe him a debt of gratitude. A true citizen soldier. Many thanks.
Total respect to your husband. Principles have no price.
Please thank your husband for us.
God bless your husband for standing up for his beliefs. God bless you for fighting for our rights and freedom. Thank you sir for your service.😥🙏💔✌❤
Jesus Christ
The Kent State Massacre. A dark day in American history.
One of many, unfortunately.
One that should *NEVER* be forgotten.
Followed 11 days later by the same happening at Jackson State.
In the near future those will be the good old days. They kind of already are.
Now it's Star Wars Day...
I was there as a freshman, between classes, crossing the commons, past the Victory Bell and up Blanket Hill, heading for Fletcher Hall (my dorm) for lunch. I am now 70, and as I think of all the living I have done since then, that Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder (in my history class), and Sandra Scheuer, were robbed of, it still brings me to tears.
Very sorry.
Oh gosh.😪
My aunt and uncle were there at Kent State at the same time and I can't even imagine!
“What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground.” I was a neighbor, classmate and friend of Allison Krause. That line always gets me…
☹️💜
...."How can you run when you know?"
To me, this completes the thought.
The message of solidarity there to stay with her, protect each other, stay with each other.
In these situations, protestors are often heavily criticized (or even blamed) for not complying with the orders of the police/military. But honestly, how can you disperse (run) when you're seeing someone be taken and brutalized before your eyes? Or further, if you yourself are being brutalized?
It is a biological response.
I'm so sorry to hear that you did know her (Allison).
May she rest in peace.
I must have heard this song a thousand times and it never loses its power.
Yes Rich56!! you’ve nailed the SINGLE most stunning thing bout this song. opening guitar riff an ice pick in the spine....I LOVE this song but if I’m having a bad day I can be sobbing before this song is over. This song has frightening power
“.....What if you knew her ...” that line puts a hole through me every time
And I thank CSN and especially Young for that.
Rock n Roll + Soul = Narcotic
I remember so clearly. And I will always have tears.
You can hear each of their voices
This song HAD to be written.
@@peggypennington3270 My sister so do I. I have one more reason to truly remember that day, I turned 16. I didn't know it then but I was changed forever. I had a talk with my folk and I'm sure they saw it, I was just too young to understand it. Be well and safe, peace to you and yours.
The four that were killed weren't even in the protest. They were going to classes. I still remember the picture in the paper of a woman crying over the body of her friend that was shot
@@xeyex I live in Canada and that picture was on the front page of the paper here and I can still see it. So sad
And even worse, she wasn't a woman, she was just a teenaged kid and she had to witness that.
Which is why Neil Young wrote the lyrics… “What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground, how can you run when you know?”
She was actually a runaway...saw her in a documentary about this...she didn't know the man
There were no classes that day or for two days before. Due to the riots, all students were told to stay in their dorm rooms.
The pinnacle of protest songs. This one hits so hard.
The photo of the crying girl, with her arms outspread. It touches my heart 50 years later like the first time I saw it. And again I'm crying.
and she was just 14 years old
I remember seeing it in a Dutch newspaper
@@michellewolf7907 She was also one of the few mildly bright spots of that situation. She was actually a runaway who was reunited with her family thanks to them seeing that picture.
Some of us old folks still remember the shock, sorrow, and rage that we felt when it happened. Neil put those feelings to music. I still shed a tear when I hear it.
Recording this song made David Crosby break down crying. It's so sad, but such a great song.
Makes want to cry just thinking about it. Thank you Jamel. I think many kids don’t know about what happened in this country during the Vietnam war
in some of the released versions of this song, you can basically hear him falling apart at the end. Live was a whole new story too.
Watching and listening to this made me cry all over. I so remember this. So sad
As Eric Straus said, Jamel, David Crosby was sobbing after the band recorded this in the studio. That is raw emotion, my friend. Period. 🙏
You can feel it in the song. Powerful
Interesting fact: CSNY had a hit rising the charts, Teach Your Children, but they released this great song immediately because they felt they had to get it out right away.
A huge shift from such a loving, hippy dippy song to such a powerful, meaningful anthem for the anti-war movement.
Honest priorities❤️
@@catherinelynnfraser2001 That was Niel Young. A number of people have said he's not in it for the money.
David Crosby called Graham Nash to get everyone to the recording studio the NEXT DAY after Neil Young showed the song to him (after writing it in an hour). It was more important to them to show how America was killing it's children than to have a hit record.
And against some pressure from their record label, who could only see the commercial aspect.
I'm an alum of Kent state university where the event from the song happened. The campus to this day has a day of memorial for this event every year.
Yes. My daughter-in-law just graduated from Kent. I was 14 when this happened.
And there still is the bullet hole clean through the metal sculpture next to Taylor hall.
I'm 68 years old and I remember this day like yesterday. Hearing this song makes me cry still to this day. This is a gut reaction that I can't describe in words. Here we are all this time gone by and the war mongers are back in power who would have our soldiers fighting for money just like back in Vietnam. So sad so sad, music is power.
It's really sad that so many still disregard and or forget history. As they say "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it". It's both sad and kind of scary.
Spot on
the war mongers never left power. and probably never will.
I remember that day too as a kid. It was a scary time - the deaths of Bobby Kennedy, MLK, the riots and burning in the cities . . . I didn't really understand, but I knew things were very unsettled and unsafe.
Plenty of $$$$$$ to be made off the backs of dead and maimed service members.
This song conveys the anger and frustration felt by this generation at the time. This should never be forgotten lest it be repeated.
It has been repeated. Armed government forces working for the state haven't stopped gunning down innocent civilians during non violent protests. Have you read the U.S. news the last 50 years?
Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders was there that day. She was a student.
My brother in law’s mom was at Kent during the shootings she is in one of the pictures as a nursing student attending to a shot student. Such a sad stain on American history.
Love Chrissie Hynde, she's a great singer.
So was Mark Mothersbaugh.
Jamel, you have to listen to music by Chrissie Hynde's band, the Pretenders. How about "Brass in the Pocket," or "Middle of the Road"?
Oh shit! I didn’t know that!
I love this - "Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'..." Always thought the guitars sounded like an angry, marching dirge....
I'm still surprised that Nixon didn't have them arrested for name-checking him.
It was Governor Rhodes that ordered the Ohio NG to Kent State.
One of the greatest opening lines to a song!
@@leomarshall4059 Undoubtedly, they made Nixon's enemies list.
Neil Young is the master of the warpath guitar...
One thing about Neil's lyrics, in all of his songs- they get to the point.
Gonna get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down
yep he pulls no punches, sometimes he uses allegory etc but he always is clear in his message
And now Neil pushes for government obedience! How ironic.
Yes!
His dad, Scott, was a journalist and author so most of it comes honestly.
David Crosby did an amazing interview on Howard Stern and says Neil Young took the newspaper article with him into the woods and 20 minutes later had a finished song. Stephen Stills saw the importance of the song and urged the band to record the song as soon as possible. They released the song despite already having a single (Teach Your Children) on the charts.
David Crosby was interviewed by Bob Costas (posted on this site) in which he described it differently. He said that he and Neil were sitting on the porch with guitars, David was handed a copy of Life magazine with the photo of the young woman kneeling over the dead body of a girl who had been shot and with arms outstretched seemed to be screaming with grief and disbelief at what happened. He and Neil continued looking at the photo and becoming more emotional about it. Crosby says Neil immediately started composing the song, very simple at that point, and Crosby tried to get him to flesh it out. Before long, it was written and Neil felt it needed to be recorded immediately. So David called to Graham Nash, made arrangements to book a studio and they all went there to record it asap, releasing it within two weeks because of the timely and urgent quality of this.
Marvin Gaye "What's Going On " is another great protest song.
maybe the song that sums up and closes out the 60s (even though it was released in the 70s)
Yes along with this song Ohio, Marvin Gaye's "what's going on" is definitely one of a few songs that brings tears to my eyes no matter how many times I listen to it!!!
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Rush ✌🏻
This song still gives me chills. It's about the shooting of four individuals during student protests at Kent State University Ohio.
It was a student protest at Kent State University. National guard opened fire on students from a distance. No one was ever held accountable.
After seeing the famous photo in Life magazine, Crosby, who was in staying in the mountains with Neil Young showed it to Neil. He said Neil took the magazine and his guitar and walked of into the woods. One hour later he came back with this song. Crosby called Graham Nash and said get to the studio NOW. They recorded it the next day in an hour and a half. The record company did not want them to release it because "Teach Your Children" was rising up the charts. CSNY said NO it goes out.
I attended Ohio State back then, and we had a large walk area called The Oval that was HUGE like a park.... it would fill up with student protesters (Thousands of students) and a couple of weeks before the Kent State massacre, we were occupied by the National Guard who were armed with live rounds of ammunition... our radical protesters were throwing rocks at the National Guard and it was really by the grace of God no one was shot and killed.... there is plenty of footage of this on TH-cam.. It was like a tinder box ready to explode at any time. I remember it like it was yesterday......
I remembered the tumultuous 60s like a bad dream. I was never so glad to see the 1970s roll in and put an end to all the social and cultural scariness. And when we finally left Vietnam, it was like being cured from from a lengthy illness.
@@mikehenson819 yeah back in the mid 60's when they first started busing kids around to new schools trying to achieve some diversification and de-segregation in the system it was met with great resistance. I remember fighting on our street between blacks and whites. yelling and throwing things at each other. it was crazy.
Now those radicals are in charge.
@@whome1299 Not now.
@@artislife2621 - a lot of them are judges ...
Someone yelled at a guy and asked him why he was taking photos during the chaos, and he yelled back "Because no one will believe this."
Reminiscent of Eisenhower having film crews at the German concentration camps as they were first seeing the horrors. He said that it was so bad people would doubt it unless they saw it for themselves. And now we have people doubting both the holocaust and Kent State and a whole host of horrors
@@izzonj Very true.
@@izzonj And don't forget the insurrection on January 6, 2021...
@@donniehagy5125 I assume you are referring to the peaceful protest.
@@randallbryan717 Oh, I forgot how peaceful it was. Let's see: five people dead. Yeah; that's peaceful alright.
The comment with the names of the 4 dead The simple request by the commenter, Say their names, made this so much more emotional for me today.
51 years later and this song still make me cry.
Shame on Ohio for over and over reelecting their Governor that ordered this. James "Rocky" Rhoades served 4 terms as Governor of Ohio! He should have been impeached and had his sorry ass thrown in jail.
67 shots fired. Nine wounded - four dead. Per wiki, the closest of the four was 265ft away. The other dead were were 300-plus feet away. At least one of the dead was just walking by and not part of any protest.
From my understanding the 4 killed were not part of the protests.
I watched a documentary about it and it was so tragic.
This a real burr in my ass. Kent State was just down the road from where I lived. I got drafted. My Mom wanted me to go to Canada.
It is what happens when those in 'control' feel threatened and go to extremes. The Guard should never have been called in. The authorities escalated to situation to look tough. Then it got out of hand. The Natl Guard were the ones rioting that day.
@@heathcliff8624 Excuse me. Whether I served of not has NOTHING to do with understanding what happened that day and how demagogues use situations only for their own perceived benefits at the expensive of millions who suffer and DIE. Don't preach to me about baseless. Don't tell me it is "something which I know nothing about". Did you serve in Vietnam? Even then we knew it was a baseless, a useless waste of lives. I lost several friends to that stupidity. I lived through that time and know a lot more than armchair philosophers who truly yak about things THEY know nothing about. So sit down.
One of the things missing in today’s music....feeling and meaning. CSNY wrote perfectly the feeling to this tragedy.
Everything is missing now
That's a HUGE blanket statement... while depth of feeling in lyrics might be absent from most Top 40 radio these days, it certainly doesn't mean that all of today's music is bereft of feeling and meaning.. check out Kendrick Lamar's How Much Does a Dollar Cost or Childish Gambino's This is America for some stunning songs from the last couple years. I love oldies like this song, but there is still good music being made today.
Childish Gambino may want a word with you.
@@MyargonautsJason Try Radiohead A Moon-shaped Pool from 2016 or any of their stuff not too many love songs.
Try Radiohead their last album from 2016 A Moon-shaped Pool.
Find the cost of freedom by Crosby, stills, Nash, and young is also a powerful song. I tear up every time I hear it
That was the flip side of Ohio.
I agree. I almost can't listen to it. It hurts so hard
I was 17 when this happened. I wasn't anywhere near Ohio, but it shocked the nation. I was a student and it could have been me. All these years, it still shocks me. Man, those were turbulent times and this song is still as powerful now as it was then.
The 2 (or more) founding members of Devo were attending kent state at the time. That event had a huge impact and influence on them.
This song is about the shooting at Kent State University in Ohio, in 1970, during a Vietnam war protest.
It was Cambodia, not Vietnam.
@@Serai3 OK, but during the Vietnam war.
@@Serai3 Really? Even though the protest was about the expansion of the Vietnam War to include the bombing of Viet Cong and NVA supply lines through Cambodia - as well as National Guard presence on the campus, nobody referred to it as the Cambodia War. It was part and parcel of the Vietnam War. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
4 dead in Ohio isn't talking about a horseshoe score
@@NT-fo3me No, asshole. I'm being someone who was around at the time. Yeah, Cambodia came out of the Vietnam War, but the bombing there was its own side issue at the time, and many protests were SPECIFICALLY about that part of the war. So who's being fucking obtuse NOW?
"There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear...There's a man with a gun over there telling me I got to beware....."
What a field day for the heat...
For What it's Worth by Buffalo Springfield. Stephen Stills and Neil Young were members of both groups.
For What It’s Worth is NOT Viet Nam protest song, It was written in response to the Watts Riots in L A
@@heidibookout3596 Right and wrong. It was written about protests about curfews on the Sunset Strip.
Stop hey whats that sound, everbody look whats going on.....
The protest was about Nixon's expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. There were protests at colleges all around the country.
I was a student at UT Knoxville and took part.
To learn the facts about Kent State read Michener's book "Kent State."
My dad was wounded in Cambodia the day after the Kent State incident.
Hope your dad made it home Dawn.
@@mikefannon6994 he did. But, he passed away from Agent Orange related lung and brain cancer on March 20 2008. Age 57.
Haven't heard this song in a very long time. Broke down tearful. Such crazy times. Love n huggss ya'll. Human rights matter. Big time.
With all that has happened in the last 5 years, heck the last two, where are the bands and songs like this today? Was a peaceful protest. They did get close to the guard, flowers in gun barrels type of close. There was a disturbance near the ROTC building, but nothing near the shots fired. Sad day. Love CSNY, and later CSN. One of my favorite groups. Love your work Jamel, glad I found your feed!
This song is about the Kent state murders of four innocent students, some weren't even involved in the protest but that shouldn't matter, they were murdered in cold blood not "accidently shot"
They were “supposed to be “rubber bullets that day....
"Should've been done long ago"
Nixon called his goons on the protesters, college kids mind you! He was such a freak!!!
@@artislife2621 Gov. of Ohio
@@artislife2621 Remember that the soldiers were kids too, doing what they were ordered to do and likely scarred for it.
i remember this when i was in junior high. it really shook me that our own national guard could shoot college students just for protesting the vietnam war.
Same here, it really shook me as a young teen
Me too. I was 13.
Same, it was stunning and horrifying, the propaganda the media put out was a lot different than today, we only had 3 TV stations at the time so the news was a bit slanted toward the opinion of the people in power, I remember them talking about teenagers jumping out of windows on LSD, I seriously doubt that happened to the extent that it was reported, if it happened at all. It was all a whole lot of fear mongering by the “establishment” to advance the “war on drugs” which never worked and to squash the hippie movement that was all about peace, love and flower power, it was a way to demonize all young people and destroy the movement in favor of the Vietnam War. Nixon did get us out but he told some lies, bombed Cambodia, unnecessarily. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI even had a hit out on Martin Luther King Jr., that’s what I read years later. They made the black panthers out to be a terrorist group because they were the first black armed protestors. MLK believed in peaceful protests for the most part but he did once say “the riot is the voice of the unheard.” He wasn’t wrong, nobody paid much attention to the rights of African Americans until shit caught on fire, It’s just the truth, I remember like it was yesterday. I grew up in the south, right in the middle of it as a white kid.
Me, too!
In the same vein, Dion's "Abraham, Martin and John" needs to be on your list.
I sobbed for two hours after hearing this for the first time. Our nation changed forever after Bobby's death. All hope just seemed to vanish.
One of the handful of songs I can’t listen to...
@@lisabellamy8424 Yeah, I get it. Especially the last verse, where he's hoping the world we get better, and then interrupts himself with "Anybody seen my old friend Bobby?"
Believe it or not, I preferred the "Mom's" Mabley version.
Brothers and sisters 50 years ago, I turned 16 on that very very dark day and I knew I was changed forever. I wish I could put into words what I feel everytime I hear this cut, but I can't. I guess you might call it profound sadness for lack of a better term. I saw on my folks TV what I had been told would never happen, our soldiers firing on unarmed citizens. These people were exercising their First Amendment Right, "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".To this day no one has be held accountable for those murders, and never will. Brothers and sister be well and safe, peace to you and yours.
Look up Kent State 1970
David Crosby said when Neil Young was done writing the song he called Gram Nash and told him to find a recording studio ANY recording studio
Also my High school History teacher was there he is in one of the many pictures of that day.....Sad day
Jamel if you are interested in that time in history you should check out the Vietnam documentary Ken Burns made. There was so much going on back then, it's a lot more complicated than soldiers following orders killed innocent people. That's what happened, but knowing why it happened I think helps us understand why we are the way we are today.
Great documentary
Soooo good! And a great education from the great Ken Burns!
The most surprising thing I learned from that documentary is that the Vietnam occupation actually started in the 40s when the US let support to the French who were trying to re-conquer Vietnam. I was truly stunned about the timing, because up until then, I always associated the Vietnam War with the 60s and 70s.
@@julieharden2433 It's one of the longest wars in human history, certainly the longest in post-Napoleonic modern warfare. The Vietnamese also resisted Japanese occupation through force. Over 30 years of constant warfare. 6 years after the US withdrew, in 1979, China invaded them and retreated after heavy losses.
Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders and a couple members of DEVO were on campus at Kent State when this happened.
Yes, The interviews with Casale since Devo's heydays shows him being very emotional about seeing someone die so close to him.
Joe Walsh says he was there too. I believe David Letterman was a student but not at the oval that day
@@HappyInSantaMarta David Letterman went to Ball State University in Muncie Indiana.
@@crabbit2397 you're right, my bad, i felt that didnt seem right yet did somehow
Devo said their band name was partly inspired by the way society was “devolving” and Kent state was a huge catalyst in the devolution they saw.
I was only 12 this song came out but I had an older brother who was hit hard by this an explained the meaning to me. Still brings tears 50 years later. RIP bro, and to the all the YOUNG people involved in this tragedy.
Same time, several students in Mississippi at Jackson state were killed, in the same manner - both peaceful protests against Vietnam. The National guard were young people untrained to handle, again, a peaceful protest by students, as was happening all over the world. It's strange to me that so many young people don't know about the history of that war at home, glad someone is reminding us. A truly great song.
Marched from Columbia University down Broadway to the mortuary for Jeffery Miller's funeral. Schools everywhere were shut down by protests.
Joni Mitchell painted the album cover.
And Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young did a cover of one of Joni's songs
Those folks were all friends in the Laurel canyon era. They all lived near one another
CSN&Y covered Woodstock written by Joni, who also dated either Graham Nash or Stephen Stills.
@@matthewdrake4385 I thought the song's title was "Stardust"
Karl, the line " we are Stardust, we are golden" comes from Woodstock. Interesting fact, Joni didn't play the festival, but saw footage of it at a hotel and wrote it a few days later.
So much has changed while so much has not. Events like Kent State and My Lai caused the military to empathize obeying lawful orders and how the ‘just following orders defense’ doesn’t apply. But the militarization of the police with their ‘qualified immunity’ has negated some of this. I’ll encourage everyone to watch “The Trial of the Chicago Seven” on Netflix for another example.
I remember reading Tales of Hoffman about the trial of the Chicago 7. Nobody reading it today would believe it. Bobby Seale bound and gagged, which CSN&Y sang about on 4 Way Street - Chicago
OOooooooooo man, so much history behind this song. The Kent State Massacre, the U.S. looked a hell of a lot like it was going to repeat that mistake in 2020.
No, 1/6/21. That is how we felt then too.
All for F'ing power.
I lived not terribly far from Kent State. I was 10 years old. I remember the headlines. The protesters apparently threw bottles and bricks. Why the National Guard had real bullets, instead of rubber bullets, I don't know. I don't know if that was an option. Joe Walsh was a local musician, and Allison was a friend of his. I heard him interviewed by Steve and Garry on WLUP(Chicago) in the 80's about it. He was trying to get a memorial made at Kent State. "All in The Family" was a comedy, but showed the culture war going on. Young people against the Vietnam War vs. their parents, who still trusted the government(before Watergate), and had fought in WW2, and thought it was patriotic to fight against communism. They had seen the worst of Mao and Stalin. Nobody was wrong, they just had very different perspectives. Apparently, the National Guard panicked at Kent State and opened fire. The song still makes me cry.
Just love your reactions to the oldies. I remember when Ohio state happened and this song soon came out. It was the start of my protesting the war. 65 and still protesting.
If I heard a song with this much undeniable feel, melody and great lyrics now a days I would probably faint.
The shooting this song is about also inspired the band DEVO to form. They were Kent State students and were there when the National Guard opened fire. The incident also inspired Chrissie Hynde to move from Ohio to London, where she eventually formed The Pretenders.
DEVO!
Check out “Wooden Ships” by them also.
Yes, Wooden Ships, such a wonderful song.
I would suggest the Airplane version, which is now my favorite version, but they are both great.
@@PHDWhom - I did not know that Jefferson Airplane had a cover of Wooden Ships. Thanks for the tip, and I just listened to it.
My preference is still the CSNY version, as that is the one I grew up with. Usually the version you heard first (and or most) is the one that will stick with you.
@@tubularap airplane didnt actually "cover" the song, they helped to write it. The credit is shared.
Airplane's version is a bit different, it adds piano, but I find it to be equally powerful.
@@lisarainbow9703 - Thanks for that interesting info. I'm going to look further into the backstory of the song. Never did, I always just assumed it was by Stephen Stills, because of the style.
R.I.P. to David Crosby. This is one of my favorite songs by CSNY and I can listen to it on a loop and I have listened to it on a loop just today when I found out about Mr. Crosby.
I can still see the cover of all the newspapers the day after. The dead boy lying on the ground and the hysterical girl kneeling over him. In another column of the front page of The New York Times that day was the announcement that my uncle, Charles Gordone, had become the first Black man to win a Pulitzer Prize for his play "No Place To Be Somebody"! Is it really so long ago?
As someone who attended Kent State in the latter part of the 70's, I've learned a bit about this tragedy. The protest began because of the covert expansion of the Viet Nam War into Cambodia. The protests were not entirely peaceful as they had burned down the ROTC building a few days before, prompting Ohio Governor Rhodes to send in the National Guard. A couple of problems with this is that the Guard were not trained in crowd control (the State Police would have been a better choice due to their training) and they were also fatigued since they were just deployed to (The) Ohio State University the previous week. In trying to disperse the crowd they marched themselves into a corner. When trying to march back, they turned toward the crowd and raised their weapons. No one has positively determined who or if an order to fire was made and who fired the first shot, as far as I know. Sadly, four were killed and nine were injured. The four that died, Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer, were basically bystanders, observing the protesters between classes. Three of the thirteen casualties, including Schroeder, were shot in the back. It was a truly dark day. Neil Young has said that this incident was one of the biggest lessons learned of a generation.
As a side note, the famous picture of the girl screaming over the body of Jeffery Miller was taken by a student photographer named John Filo, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. The girl was a 14 y/o runaway from Florida who had befriended a couple of the the students that were hit that day: Sandra Scheuer who was killed, and Alan Canfora who was wounded.
I hope this helps you understand the song a bit more
Thank you for sharing more of the entire story. The protests had been far from peaceful and the National Guard was having rocks hurled at them. Still tragic, no matter what - but there is more to the story than "peaceful" protesting.
Thank you for the truth.
Yes, I was following the events on the news back then. This was a tragic result to an escalation of violence. As well as burning down the R.O.T.C. building as you stated, the protesters had also been throwing rocks at the National Guard for days before they fired. Although this in no way justifies the shootings, to call the protesters totally peaceful isn't an accurate representation
None of it was justified. All around heartbreaking. Some people just don't get it. They just didn't walk up and shoot.
They had broken windows downtown a few days earlier, but I never heard of the protesters throwing rocks at the Guard for days previous, just the day of the shootings. And walking around the area when I was there back then, I was hard pressed to find any, let alone enough, rocks to pose a threat to Guard. Additionally, none of the students even believed the guns were loaded with live ammunition. That was an ignorant assumption on their part. Personally, if I ever see a gun I assume it's loaded.
Without a doubt the most powerful protest song ever written.
CCR FORTUNATE SON
The Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter ".
How about Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger? Protest songs did not start with the Vietnam War.
Eve of Destruction.
Masters of War - Bob Dylan
Neil Young wrote this song after seeing photos in Life magazine. A very sad day in American history, National Guard troops fired 67 shots in 13 seconds. Two of those killed were hundreds of feet from the protest and not even participating in it.
Graham Nash was on Howard Stern a few years ago and said that Neil went out in the woods and wrote it in about an hour.
Pity he couldn't write any thing about the watts riots.
@@bwana-ma-coo-bah425 Not sure it was his job to chronicle every single American state killing of its own people in song. In any case, in 1965 he was touring Canada (his home country) as a solo singer and wasn’t well known.
For songs about Watts: see Frank Zappa, Phil Ochs and Cypress Hill.
@@bwana-ma-coo-bah425 Ironically, thanks to another comment, I see that another Canadian, Gordon Lightfoot, wrote Black Day in July about the Detroit riots of 1967. It was banned on the radio in 30 states.
The problem ain’t the songwriters - the problem is the folks doing the killing.
@@stshnie yes he did. 100 million points to you. However the problem I have is why does a white guy write a song about 4 white dead in Ohio get recognition and radio air play, and when a white guy writes a song about killings in Chicago of many blacks it gets banned.
Is this white still America at it again?
The problem isn't the people doing the killings. The problem is America allows new born babies to have access to a gun.
Here is the difference between Americans and Canadians.
Canadians see a kill kill movie and see it as just that. A movie.
Americans see the same movie and see it as reality.
The reason Americans are nice in the hospitality industry has 2 reasons.
1. you work on tips
2. you fear that the person might pull a gun out and shoot you.
Seems to me white America ha a lot to answer to.
This song makes me cry every time I hear it. I was 10 & living in Akron (about 12 miles from KSU) at the time this happened. Something I will never forget!
The song remains powerful to this day--like an anthem or a protest song taken to the limit. The situation portrayed was at Kent State Univ where soldiers had been sent to quell protests of the Vietnam war and its expansion. Protestors were not armed but were sometimes throwing stuff at the troops who seemed massing against them and stood for the corrupt Nixon govt and its immoral war policy. David Crosby described the origin of the song in an interview with Bob Costas in 1991: He said that he and Neil Young were sitting on the porch with guitars, David was handed a copy of Life magazine with the photo of the young woman kneeling over the dead body of a girl who had been shot and with arms outstretched seemed to be screaming with grief and disbelief at what happened. He and Neil continued looking at the photo and becoming more emotional about it. Crosby says Neil immediately started composing the song, very simple at that point, and Crosby tried to get him to flesh it out. Before long, it was written and Neil felt it needed to be recorded immediately. So David called to Graham Nash, made arrangements to book a studio and they all went there to record it asap, releasing it within two weeks because of the timely and urgent quality of this.
Back in the day artists would dive right into politically charged issues without worrying about ruining their brand, this happened on campus at Kent State. If you like this one check out the Doors Five to One
Although not as emotional, Steve Miller's "Jackson-Kent Blues" also covers this sort of thing.
I’m gonna have to check these out. If there was another one. Why don’t we know about it? I’m from an hour away from Kent.
Damn. This song always just lives with you once you hear it. Reaching right across the years with the same power the day it was sung. How many more?
It was at Kent State and it was a protest against the war in Vietnam. The National Guard was there to contain them from the buildings. The protestors were in their face and some bottles and stones were thrown at the Guardsmen, many of whom were just kids as well. No order to fire was given but one guy got scared and fired causing his squad to open fire thinking an order had been given, a true American tragedy
Had tears then have tears now. Maybe some day we all can have peace.
The 1970 Kent State shooting was still a major news story when the song came out. The shooting was on May 4, the song was recorded May 21, and was released a few weeks later. That's quick.
When all you’ve got is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Interesting. Our young and middle aged men and women have just spent the last 20 years, and counting in combat zones with little more than that hammer you speak of, at least I think. Profound, and I am hugely critical. Succinct. Whether you meant it to be or not. T Y!☮️❤️
@@Elizabeth-yp8re Oh, I meant it to be.
And I think you just hit it square on the head with that comment.
Rocket: Scrolling down, this was the one that made me shiver. Very appropriate. -from a retired college professor
@@zacknicley8150 Well said.☮️
"How many more?!" I grew up listening to the protest and rebellion music from this era. My heart is broken over and over watching history repeat itself generation after generation. Anger is a healthy response to abuse and injustice. Fight oppression.
What a shocking day to see this happen on TV. It had a huge impact on the country. Officially, the end of the optimism and this lasted throughout the 1970’s. CSN&Y felt a responsibility to respond. This was written in short order to get it out there.
May 4th 1970. Kent State University in Ohio. This event shook the nation. It shouldn't have happened but it did. It changed the way many Americans thought about the President and the government in general.
This happened when I was a freshman in high school. Crazy times, but great music. My friends were wearing bracelets of POW or MIA soldiers with their info on it and they were supposed to wear them until they were found. It was tense. Friends had older brothers in Viet Nam. I never understood war and I still don't.
I still have my bracelet
I was just a year older than you. I'll never forget the shock and horror of that news. That and watching my mom scan the faces of boys in Vietnam shown on the evening news are embedded in my brain. Mom was searching for my brother John. I think she barely slept the 13 months he was gone. And then we saw the Kent State coverage. Incredible music, tough times.
I was a sophomore in high school and my brother was in a field hospital in Vietnam in 1970. He rode in the helicopters picking up dead/wounded from battlefield. He has never talked about it in front of me. I think he probably confided in our dad, but definitely not our mother. I still have my POW bracelet. I did a google search for the name on my bracelet a few years ago. He survived the war, but has since passed away.
We have an MIA bracelet sitting on our bookshelf. It still gets worn to protests.
My cousin still wear her MIA bracelet.😢
This song makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. And it always brings a tear to the eye.
Crosby, Stills, and. Nash were great by themselves, but when Young joined they were phenomenal! What a great song!! Soundtracks of my life ❤️❤️❤️!
I was a student at Kent State in 1970. The killings occurred on Monday. The protests had begun peacefully enough days earlier, but on the previous Friday night the ROTC building was torched. It was no longer peaceful. When the National Guard (young kids like us) were deployed, some protestors threw rocks and bottles. It was a bit chaotic, and unfortunately the Guard had been given live ammunition. We (the protestors) were not innocent, but did not deserve that.
It was over military recruitment at Kent State, Ohio. Heads were cracked prior to that, brilliant minds made mush, barely a peep.
Neil Young read the headline in the paper while hanging out with Dave Crosby. Left the room, wrote this and came back in 45 minutes. was a single the next week
The Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns is a Good watch for understanding.
Wasn't that an incredible series? Love his stuff.
@@sheilathailand1903 It sure was . I’m a son a Vietnam vet and my father lost his younger brother there in 71. My mother is quite liberal. I feel so much from all sides. Pride and sorrow for our servicemen and women who cared for them, disdain for politicians and respect for dissenters.
The girl referred to in the song was not even in the protest. She was some distance away and killed by a bullet from the National Guard probably fired over the heads of the actual protesters.
Friendly fire?
As I recall, she was 15, and just visiting the campus. Had nothing to do with the protest, but wasn't very far away.
I believe that was Sandra Scheuer who was just walking between classes when she was killed.
None of the 4 killed were part of the protest that day.
@@kiplambel4052 If you're referring to the girl in the famous photo, she was a 14 y/o runaway from Florida who had befriended some of the students, including two that had been killed. When she was returned home, the Florida governor labeled her a Commie. Such were the times.
I was a senior in college when Kent State happened in 1970. It was a very tense week on campus after that - even though we were halfway across the country from there. Such a senseless tragedy. This song was everywhere as soon as it came out.
The protests were nationwide, in DC, and mostly at universities against the Vietnam war. The national guard was deployed to the Kent State campus, whereupon guardsmen became nervous and somebody fired, then another and another. It was a breakdown in discipline by the soldiers.
A tortured time. National Guard shooting students, 11 days later police did it again at Jackson State. Most people have no idea how torn up the US was during the mid Sixties to the mid Seventies. Those of us who lived thru those times can see the same hatred in today's polarized nation.
But is it the same hatred? This feels worse somehow. It feels like a lot of the people who lived through the 60s didn't learn anything from what happened and continue to make the same mistakes.
Yes! I was in 10th grade when this happened. I'll ALWAYS remember Walter Cronkite reporting this tragedy. He was so sad and disgusted. t seems like not much has really changed.
I was 9 years old, and lived in Kenmore Ohio, not far from Kent State, and I remember hearing the initial reports on the radio at home with my family; nobody really believed it was happening. There are many reports out on the why and how of it all, simply put: a true American tragedy. Thanks for revisiting it, and hopefully we all learned something, though these days it doesn't seem like people paid any more serious attention then than they do now.
I was a college student and a peaceful protester at the time this occurred, though not at Kent State (where this horrendous murder occurred). It had a huge impact on me then and still resonates today.
Did your "peaceful protest" include threats of violence and vandalism, followed by breaking store windows, burring buildings, assaulting police. Had none of this happened the National Guard would not even be there. Kent state was a terrible event but, the protestors brought it on themselves when they became violent and destructive.
@@jamescasey3408 Sorry, but I find your foolish and shallow analysis offensive.
@@darylemurphy9478 What offends you, reveals you. That being if offends the lie you believe
@@jamescasey3408 Nothing more need be said.
@@darylemurphy9478 Only Lies need to be hidden, the truth is the truth and does not hide. But what I want to know is if assaulting police officers, vandalizing businesses, burning buildings is a "peaceful protest" what then do you consider violent?
I went to Kent State too long ago (but not really that long). So many people there still lived and breathed this event as if they'd been there. And some of them were.
Thank you for caring. They were just kids protesting against the Vietnam War.☮️
I was 10 then. These words haunt me still. I can't forget them. 4 killed, 10 injured. Bro you need to see the images. This song is done over many of them. Tears in my eyes again.
Even though it's a CSN&Y song, Neil wrote this one himself.
In 20 minutes.
There was also a similar tragedy at Jackson State College, which was a black college, so it got a lot less press; and, no famous song was written about it.
No arrests, nothing, even though it was said that the barrage of bullets was completely unwarranted and shouldn’t of happened. Those in the 35+ officers should’ve been held responsible for killing those students. They didn’t stand a chance.
I'll have to look this up. Thank you.
Maybe not a really famous song, but the Steve Miller Band did an absolutely killer track called "Jackson-Kent Blues."
I've been suggesting Jackson-Kent to Jamal for awhile!!
Wow, just read about it for the first time. Only 11 days after Kent State
I was 20 when this happened, in the military and overseas. Such turbulent times. A song for the ages. It's a great song to this day.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We had just been thru the '60s with the space program and the moon landing and Woodstock. There were also the assassinations of the Kennedys, Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. But we also had a kind of music not heard before.
Tragic memories. Youthful lives taken for no reason. Memories are still there when ever I hear this song. I was only 17 but as anyone who was old enough to remember will tell you. 1960-70 changed America in a way that we as a country are still suffering from the effects.As you can tell from the comments the pain is still there. Also the division.
Sadly it's still very real and relevant today, dare I say even more relevant half a century later, last summer showed this ugly truth. I love reaction videos because growing up with this music I naively assumed everyone was hearing it and hoped it would bring some change. Being much older and (somewhat) wiser now, I'm seeing that wasn't the case but "the times they are a changin'" again. The ability to expose such a large audience to music they never knew existed is (my opinion) something that can change how people view the world. Music is an oral history of times gone by but also meant to help recognize it happening again. Music has no borders, harmony and synchronicity is an act of nature that allows us to see beyond our own experiences, these reaction videos just reinforce that what I thought was life changing at the time still is for people 50 years later.
I'm from Ohio and remember this all too well. There were 9 others wounded. A couple of years later, a band wanted to play this song in my highschool's talent show but were not permitted to..."too controversial".
Fun fact: future members of new wave pioneers Devo were students at Kent State when this happened, and the incident was influential in their philosophical development.
Perhaps it's time to check out Devo. Whip It is their most famous song, Freedom of Choice is my favorite, and there's countless other great songs there.
There were so many protesters that to this day they do not know how many but none had weapons of any kind no flag poles no deer spray . They ...Yes shot right into the crowd. The crowd then ran away and still they marched into the crowd beating them down and dragging them away . There is footage you just don't want to see it. Yes Jamal you got it right after listening to that song it can bring one down However with each new day there is a new way so Peace my friend and Keep on Keeping it real and kind .☮💙🎶😎