David Crosby, who sadly died last week, and Neil Young are at the center of one of the most compelling stories in rock ‘n’ roll involving the Young-penned protest anthem, “Ohio.” Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released “Ohio” in June 1970, a month after the May 4 massacre at Ohio’s Kent State University where the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting the bombing of Cambodia linked with the Vietnam War, killing four. The incident would inspire Young to write “Ohio” and the song itself brought David Crosby to tears.
In the 2016 documentary film, David Crosby: Remember My Name, Crosby revisited the circumstances leading to the writing and recording of “Ohio,” recalling:
“Neil and I were out driving around in one of his woodies. And we heard about it on the radio, and we just couldn’t conceive of it.
“I watched it hit Neil. Wham! It was like he’d been punched. Neil picked up the guitar and wrote the song right in front of me. And I called Nash and said, ‘Get a studio. Now.’
Our record company president, a wonderful man named Ahmet Ertegun, he told everybody, ‘Look, this record has to go out tomorrow.’
As soon as I heard the song – it felt right. It felt like it said what I was feeling. It made me feel good that I was actually able to stand up for what I believed. I think that probably the best job of being troubadours or being town criers that we ever did. It lit the whole country on fire. There were protests on every campus in America.”
The documentary also excerpted from an interview with Young in which he shared his views on “Ohio”:
“Crosby came up and he had the magazine with the Kent State killings cover on it. I’d heard it on the news, what had happened, and … But Crosby always has a way of bringing things into focus. That’s what really woke me up. ”
At Crosby’s urging, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills, who were in Los Angeles, booked the studio. CSNY, along with drummer John Barbata and bassist Calvin Samuels, recorded “Ohio” live in two takes with no overdubs. Crosby left his mark on the song’s coda. His impassioned vocals can be heard at the end where he screams “Four,” “How many more?” and “Why?” Young has stated that “David Crosby cried when we finished this take.”
“For me, ‘Ohio’ was a high point of the band, a major point of validity,” Crosby wrote in the liner notes to the 1991 CSN box set. “There we were, reacting to reality, dealing with it on the highest level we could – relevant, immediate. It named names and pointed the finger. It said ‘Nixon.’ I was so moved that I completely lost it at the end of the song.”
To remember Croz, listen to “Ohio” below:
Neil also relates a bit of the “Ohio” story in his official live video for the song released in 2018. Check it out below:
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Remembering David Crosby
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David Crosby Addressed Mortality On ‘Howard Stern’: Refused To ‘Quietly Shuffle Off Into The Distance’
