Four Dead in Ohio

Fire and Rain

I turned twelve in 1968.  My first record was a “45” by James Taylor, Fire and Rain on the “A” side, and “Anywhere Like Heaven” on the “B” side.  (So fifty-four years later, a “45” was a small vinyl record, with a single song on each side, played at forty-five RPM on the record player, versus the multiple song “albums” played at thirty-three).  I wish I could say I still had that record, but I wore it out before the seventies.

I’ve gone to see James Taylor live several times over the years, the last time this past December.  He does Fire and Rain at every concert.  Where ever in the show his “masterpiece” is placed – it’s always done with a blackout – a pause – then James alone in the spotlight.  It’s almost like a prayer, a tunnel through time as the audience goes back to that first time, the record spinning fast on the turntable, an era when everything was possible. We could get Civil Rights, we could end a War, we could change the World.  It was “…just yesterday morning…”. 

Fire and Rain isn’t a protest song.  It’s about personal loss.  But it introduced an entire genre of music to my young ears.  Soon I was listening to Carole King, Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkel.  As I progressed in my teens, I wanted something more “aggressive”, more electric.   And I found a “super group” called Crosby-Stills-Nash and Young. 

Pirate Radio 

My first introduction to CSNY was soon after the shooting of student protestors at Kent State in May of 1970.  We got most of our “new” music on the car radio, and I was a fourteen year-old getting shuttled around Cincinnati in the back seat, usually by one of my older sisters, and far from the radio controls.  We heard about a song that was supposedly “banned” in the state of Ohio, a song with the refrain “…Four dead in Ohio”.  Rumor had it that Ohio’s Governor, James Rhoades, threatened the broadcast license of any station that played it.

It was also in the early days of FM Radio (music was on AM then – mostly talk and sports now).   There were small “pirate” FM stations, that played the cutting edge music we were looking for.  The signals weren’t very strong and you had to be relatively close to the broadcast tower to hear them. Their channel numbers were passed around almost like a secret code (“try 102.7, Jelly Pudding Radio”).   It seemed like listening to Radio Free Europe or the BBC during World War II.

But if you could “catch” the station, you could hear CSNY’s grinding protest of the Kent State shootings – “Ohio” by Neil Young.  I was hooked, and I’m still hooked today.  

By the time I was a senior in high school, my friends and I had become CSNY aficionados.  I was more towards the acoustic David Crosby and Stephen Stills side, while others were definitely Neil Young fans.  We all liked them all, and we all had their albums, both as a group and individually.  But I didn’t get around to getting the “live” CSNY album, 4 Way Street, until my freshman year of college.

Four Way Street

In 1974, a college dorm room in Crawford Hall at Denison University was a just a single room, maybe sixteen by sixteen, with two beds, two desks with chairs, two chests of drawers, one window and one hard “lounge” chair.  The bathroom was down the hall, just past the “grand stairs” to the front lobby.  My roommate Charlie was a veteran of dorm life, having gone to prep school at the famous Deerfield Academy.  But it was all new to me.  We shared my record player, a combination of turntable and speaker.  

Charlie was in love with a group called Bread.  Hearing their songs today brings back good memories, but at the time he played it so much that I threatened to spin the record out of our second floor window into the Quad.  Charlie had the answer – Bread goes, then so goes 4 Way Street.  I played that album so often that I literally wore it out, and had to buy a second copy.  I dubbed it for my tape cassette in my Volkswagen Squareback, and it was always the go to, middle of the night on a long journey, play.  

CSNY was the last, great musical voices of Vietnam protest.  By 1974 the war was almost over, Nixon resigned, and Denison students’ music turned to some guy from New Jersey singing about love and motorcycles – Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.  But I was still steeped in the music of political change, of an era now past.  I hoped I could make a difference, first in politics, and then through teaching.  

Old Man (I’m a lot like you are)

CSNY are old men now.  They toured together on and off until a decade ago.  While their incredible harmonies still resonated, their personalities clashed to the point that they can hardly speak to each other today.  But their influence still is powerful, particularly among those of us who grew up on their harmonies.  They collectively and individually have weighed in on almost every major issue of their time, from wars to saving the environment to the failures of a materialistic world.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Neil Young has taken a stand in the current Covid information crisis.  He is incredibly aware of the influence of communication, whether it’s a song about campus protests, or a podcast featuring Covid deniers.  And Young has always been divergent, even from his bandmates.  He sees Joe Rogan influencing younger people to ignore science, and risk both their own health, and the health of those around them.  

Neil Young is willing to lose 60% of his current revenue by pulling his music from the digital music and podcast giant, Spotify, unless they control Rogan.  He has determined not to associate himself with the same service Rogan uses, and he’s encouraging others to do the same.

The Damage Done

Some of Young’s old friends have followed his lead, like  Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren.  Others no longer control their own music, David Crosby for example, sold his entire catalog.  But Crosby voiced his support for Young’s action.  And Spotify says it will “warn” folks who listen to Rogan of unfounded or inaccurate information.

Neil Young is seventy-seven years old.  His generation is most at risk from Covid denial.  He’s always been irascible, and he’s never backed away from a fight, even with his friends.  So it’s no surprise to me that he’s made a very public stand.  The man who wrote Needle and the Damage Done , about the loss of friends to drug abuse, would certainly stand up against those who are killing folks by spewing falsehoods.  

There are already more than 33,000 dead in Ohio.  Just like in 1970, Neil Young doesn’t want there to be more.