Why Neil Young’s “OHIO” has earned it’s place on the National Recording Registry

Kent State University on May 4, 1970 Library of Congress Exhibit photo by Howell Posner
Original photo by photojournalism student John Filo 

The following letter to the Library of Congress regarding "Why Neil Young’s “OHIO” has earned it’s place on the National Recording Registry" is by Howell Posner. 

 

As a permanent exhibit at the Library of Congress, there is the infamous photo of the distraught woman next to the students body. Surely if that photo is part of a permanent exhibit piece, the the song "OHIO" should be inducted into the National Recording Registry as a work of Recorded History.

 

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 Why Neil Young’s “OHIO” has earned it’s place on the National Recording Registry

Dear Library of Congress,

The Kent State shooting remains a watershed moment in American history.  On May 4, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students.  52 years after members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on college students, Young's "Ohio" remains the most evocative pop-culture response to a defining moment in American history.

The impact of the shootings was dramatic. The event triggered a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close. Kent State reverberated throughout the final years of the Vietnam War and the passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971, which lowered the voting age to 18.  

H. R. Haldeman, a top aide to President Richard Nixon, suggests the shootings had a direct impact on national politics. In The Ends of Power, Haldeman (1978) states that the shootings at Kent State began the slide into Watergate, eventually destroying the Nixon administration. Beyond the direct effects of the May 4, the shootings have certainly come to symbolize the deep political and social divisions that so sharply divided the country during the Vietnam War era.

PBS is America’s largest classroom, the nation’s largest stage for the arts and a trusted window to the world.  It’s When Music Makes History (WMMH) program highlights 12 songs including “OHIO” that “have become inseparably intertwined with an historical moment. “ The National Recording Registry has five of this Program’s songs on it’s list. We ask that Ohio be elected to its rightful place on the Registry as well.  As stated on the WMMH Program, “Just weeks after the May 1970 massacre of anti-war protestors at Kent State University, Neil Young wrote the song Ohio and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young rushed out a recording of the single.” https://www.pbs.org/video/ohio-kdniv4/

Author Dorian Lynskey writes in the book 33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day: "Ohio" is perhaps the most powerful topical song ever recorded: moving, memorable, and perfectly timed. But it turned out to signify the end of the era of protest songwriting which had begun with the folk revival rather than a thrilling rebirth."

A significant article in The Cleveland (Ohio) Plain Dealer describes the importance of the song : "Neil Young's 'Ohio' evokes strong images of May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State" by Mark Dawidziak: https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2010/05/neil_youngs_ohio_evokes_strong.html

It was more than just another protest song. "It was the quickest and best reaction to Kent State, with Neil Young acting as 50 percent songwriter and 50 percent journalist," said David Bianculli, a pop-culture historian who teaches at Rowan University and regularly contributes to NPR's "Fresh Air."

Ohio was a cry of anguish, penned by Neil Young after seeing in that week’s issue of Life Magazine pictures taken at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. "It's still hard to believe I had to write this song. It's ironic that I capitalized on the death of these American students. Probably the most important lesson ever learned at an American place of learning. David Crosby cried after this take (of recording the song), "Neil’s Young’s comments in the liner notes of his Decade album.

"This is an event that now is in every history book," said Carole A. Barbato, a Kent State University professor of communication studies who team-teaches a course on May 4. "Wherever you live, even though your environment obviously shapes how you perceive things, you're probably as aware of the shootings at Kent State as those of us in Northeast Ohio. And even though this still would be in the history books, the pop culture certainly does perpetuate that. "Ohio" was entering the pop-culture consciousness within three weeks of the shootings.

"I'll tell you what that song meant," said Bianculli, author of the recently published "Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." "After the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, you felt kind of helpless as a young person. It seemed that when someone had your voice, that voice was silenced, usually by violence.”

"Then you have Kent State, and college kids are actually fired upon. And when you just might start to be thinking, you don't dare have a voice or there is no voice, from the radio comes this voice of solidarity and outrage. (OHIO) It wasn't just a pop song."

"After 1970, that doesn't happen again. It didn't need to happen again, mostly because it didn't need to happen there. And that's what Neil Young's song spoke to."

We thank Librarian of Congress and the National Recording Preservation Board for their consideration of electing Neil Young’s OHIO (1970) to the National Recording Registry.

Sincerely,
Howell Posner


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