| "Ohio" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single byCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young | ||||
| B-side | "Find the Cost of Freedom" | |||
| Released | June 1970 | |||
| Recorded | May 21, 1970 | |||
| Studio | Record Plant Recording Studios, Hollywood | |||
| Genre | Rock[1][2] | |||
| Length | 2:58 | |||
| Label | Atlantic | |||
| Songwriter | Neil Young | |||
| Producers | Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young | |||
| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Audio sample | ||||
"Ohio" is a song written byNeil Young in reaction to theKent State shootings of May 4, 1970, and performed byCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young.[3] It was released as a single, backed withStephen Stills's "Find the Cost of Freedom", peaking at number 14 on the USBillboard 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 1971double album4 Way Street, the studio versions of both songs did not appear on anLP until the group's compilationSo Far was released in 1974. The song also appeared on the Neil Young compilation albumDecade, released in 1977; his compilation albumGreatest Hits, released in 2004; and on his albumLive at Massey Hall, recorded in 1971 but unreleased until 2007.
In 2025, the publicationRolling Stone ranked the song at number 9 on its list of "The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time."[5]
Young wrote the lyrics to "Ohio" after seeing thephotos of the incident inLife Magazine.[6] On the evening that the group enteredRecord Plant Studios in Los Angeles, the song had already been rehearsed, and the quartet—with their new rhythm section ofCalvin Samuels andJohnny 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 wasmastered with the participation of the four principals, rush-released byAtlantic 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 theDecade 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 ofkeening—can be heard with the words "Four!", "How many more?" and "Why?".[8]
According to the liner notes inGreatest Hits, the track was recorded byBill Halverson on May 21, 1970, atRecord Plant Studio 3 in Hollywood.[9]
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming" refers to the May 4, 1970Kent State shootings, whereOhio National Guard officers shot and killed four students during a protest against theVietnam 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 Americancounterculture 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 someAM radio stations including in the state of Ohio,[13] but received airplay on undergroundFM stations in larger cities and college towns. More recently, the song has received regular airplay onclassic rock stations. The song was selected as the 395th Greatest Song of All Time byRolling Stone in 2010.[14] In 2009, the song was inducted into theGrammy Hall of Fame.[15]
An article inThe 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] PresidentRichard Nixon, who is criticized in the song, won a landslide reelection in 1972, which included winning the1972 United States presidential election in Ohio by a margin of over 21%.
| Chart (1970) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| AustraliaKMR[17] | 44 |
| CanadaRPM Top Singles[18] | 16 |
| Netherlands (Single Top 100)[19] | 13 |
| U.S.BillboardHot 100[20] | 14 |
| U.S.Cash Box Top 100[21] | 14 |
| U.S.Record World Top 100[22] | 13 |
