40 years ago today, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.
On 5/15/70, Neil Young wrote his account of the incident “Ohio” featuring the line “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming … ” It was recorded one week later, and released just 2 weeks after that.
David Crosby once stated that Young keeping Nixon’s name in the lyrics was “the bravest thing I ever heard.” After the double’s release, it was banned from some AM radio stations because of the challenge to the Nixon Administration in the lyrics, but received airplay on then-illegal underground FM stations in larger cities and college towns.
Info edited from Wikipedia …
