Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Find the Cost of Freedom)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
"Ohio"
Error creating thumbnail: File missing
Single by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
B-side"Find the Cost of Freedom"
ReleasedJune 1970
RecordedMay 21, 1970
StudioRecord Plant Recording Studios, Hollywood
GenreRock[1][2]
Length2:58
LabelAtlantic
SongwriterNeil Young
ProducersCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singles chronology
"Teach Your Children"
(1970) 		"Ohio"
(1970) 		"Our House"
(1970)
Audio sample

"Ohio" is a song written by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, and performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.[3] It was released as a single, backed with Stephen Stills's "Find the Cost of Freedom", peaking at number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 16 in Canada.[4] Although live versions of "Ohio" and "Find the Cost of Freedom" were included on the group's 1971 double album 4 Way Street, the studio versions of both songs did not appear on an LP until the group's compilation So Far was released in 1974. The song also appeared on the Neil Young compilation album Decade, released in 1977; his compilation album Greatest Hits, released in 2004; and on his album Live at Massey Hall, recorded in 1971 but unreleased until 2007.

In 2025, the publication Rolling Stone ranked the song at number 9 on its list of "The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time."[5]

Recording

[edit | edit source]

Young wrote the lyrics to "Ohio" after seeing the photos of the incident in Life Magazine.[6] On the evening that the group entered Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles, the song had already been rehearsed, and the quartet—with their new rhythm section of Calvin Samuels and Johnny Barbata—recorded it live in just a few takes. During the same session, they recorded the single's equally direct B-side, Stephen Stills's ode to the war's dead, "Find the Cost of Freedom".

The record was mastered with the participation of the four principals, rush-released by Atlantic and heard on the radio with only a few weeks' delay (even though the group's hit song "Teach Your Children" was already on the charts at the time). In his liner notes for the Decade retrospective, Young termed the Kent State incident as "probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning" and reported that "David Crosby cried when we finished this take."[7] In the fadeout, Crosby's voice—with a tone evocative of keening—can be heard with the words "Four!", "How many more?" and "Why?".[8]

According to the liner notes in Greatest Hits, the track was recorded by Bill Halverson on May 21, 1970, at Record Plant Studio 3 in Hollywood.[9]

Lyrics and reception

[edit | edit source]

"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming" refers to the May 4, 1970 Kent State shootings, where Ohio National Guard officers shot and killed four students during a protest against the Vietnam War. The shootings happened following several days of protests and clashes, including the arson of a building on campus.[10] Crosby once stated that Young keeping Nixon's name in the lyrics was "the bravest thing I ever heard." The American counterculture of the 1960s responded positively to the song and saw the musicians as spokespersons for their ideas.[11] The lyrics help evoke a mood of horror, outrage, and shock in the wake of the shootings, especially the line "four dead in Ohio", repeated throughout the song.

Based on opinion polling the day after the shooting, a majority of the American public placed the greatest blame for the violence on protestors rather than National Guard members.[12] After the single's release, it was banned from some AM radio stations including in the state of Ohio,[13] but received airplay on underground FM stations in larger cities and college towns. More recently, the song has received regular airplay on classic rock stations. The song was selected as the 395th Greatest Song of All Time by Rolling Stone in 2010.[14] In 2009, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[15]

An article in The Guardian in 2010 describes the song as the "greatest protest record" and "the pinnacle of a very 1960s genre", while also saying "The revolution never came."[16] President Richard Nixon, who is criticized in the song, won a landslide reelection in 1972, which included winning the 1972 United States presidential election in Ohio by a margin of over 21%.

Personnel

[edit | edit source]

Charts

[edit | edit source]

Weekly charts

[edit | edit source]
Chart (1970) Peak

position

Australia KMR[17] 44
Canada RPM Top Singles[18] 16
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[19] 13
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[20] 14
U.S. Cash Box Top 100[21] 14
U.S. Record World Top 100[22] 13

See also

[edit | edit source]

References

[edit | edit source]
  1. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  2. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  4. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  5. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  6. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  7. ^ Neil Young. Decade. (Reprise Records, 1977).
  8. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  9. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  10. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  11. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  12. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  13. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  14. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  15. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  16. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  17. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  18. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  19. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  20. ^ Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955–1990 – Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  21. ^ Cash Box Top 100 Singles, August 1, 1970 Archived February 17, 2020, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  22. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
[edit | edit source]

Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

Retrieved from "http://70.231.62.181/index.php?title=Ohio_(Crosby,_Stills,_Nash_%26_Young_song)&oldid=16292403"