The Heretik Celebrates Poetry and Song: Neil Young, Kent State, and "Ohio."

HOPE MAY BE  A RAGING DOVE IN A DARK SKY
Today is the Thirtyfifth Anniversary of the Day of Death at Kent State
Only one man's words will do for today, at least for me.  Neil Young, Canadian godfather of grunge, the lord of distortion, helped heal a whole nation not his own those many years ago that seem like yesterday today.  When we remember those days and those diamond boys and girls in the jewel of their youth, we should not forget what madness makes of a nation in troubled times.  We should always remember that what people say cannot happen here, indeed can happen here.  I pray that we will see that in foresight now, rather than in hindsight later.  I pray we will have no more need for such tragic and such touching lyric laments as Neil Young writes tomorrow.  But I thank him for what he has done today.

The Heretik Joe Ivory Mattingly ask you to share your hopes and comments freely.  I would particularly like to know what songs mean the most to you on a day like today.
Thanks.

Tin soldiers and nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in ohio.

“Ohio”
Neil Young

Comments

[desi]

This is a good newer one, Jacob's Ladder:

http://www.peace-not-war.org/Music/Chumbawamba/

[blue girl]

I've had this song in my head all day. Never really connected it to May 4, but it fits.

Trouble
by Cat Stevens

Trouble
Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much too much for me

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me

I've drunk your wine
You have made your world mine
So won't you be fair
So won't you be fair

I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I'll have to go there

Trouble
Oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You have made me a wreck
Now won't you leave me in my misery

I've seen your eyes
and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me

I'm beat, I'm torn
Shattered and tossed and worn
Too shocking to see
So won't you be fair

I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I'll have to go there

Trouble
Oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You have made me a wreck
Now won't you leave me in my misery

I've seen your eyes
and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me

I'm beat, I'm torn
Shattered and tossed and worn
Too shocking to see
Too shocking to see

Trouble
Oh trouble move from me
I have paid my debt
Now won't you leave me in my misery

Trouble
Oh trouble please be kind
I don't want no fight
And I haven't got a lot of time

[NeoCon Crusher]

I kind of suspected Bush was a ball lover after the whole Jeff Gannon/James Dale Guckert ManDate-Gate hit the blogs...

[cuddlefish]

I Kill Therefore I Am
By Phil Ochs

Meet the king of cowboys, he rides a pale pony
He fights the bad boys brings them to their knees
He patrols the highways from the air
He keeps the country safe from long hair
I am the masculine american man
I kill therefore I am.

I don't like the black man, for he doesn't know his place
Take the back of my hand or I'll spray you with my mace
I'm as brave as any man can be
I find my courage through chemistry
I am the masculine american man
I kill therefore I am.

I don't like the students now, they don't have no respect
They don't like to work now, I think I'll wring their necks
They call me pig, although I'm underpaid
I'll show those faggots that I'm not afraid
I am the masculine american man
I kill therefore I am.

Farewell to the gangsters we don't need them anymore
We've got the police force, they're the ones who break the law
He's got a gun and he's a hater
He shoots first, he shoots later
I am the masculine american man
I kill therefore I am.

[Jeff Buckley]

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me do ya
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah

[Agitprop]

I usually go for the angry songs in times like these. They tend to help me vent...and they're great to listen to when running fast with my dog. Here's what's in my iPod today.

No Shelter by Rage Against the Machine

The main attraction - distraction
got ya number than nnumber than numb
Empty ya pockets son; they got you thinkin that
What ya need is what they sellin
Make you think that buyin is rebellin
From the theaters to malls on every shore
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
The frontline is everywhere, there be no shelter here
Speilberg the nightmare works so push it far
Amistad was a whip, the truth was feathered and tarred
Memory erased, burned and scarred
Trade in ya history for a VCR

Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth Reich culture - Americana
Chained to the dream they got ya searchin for
Tha thin line between entertainment and war

There be no shelter here
Tha frontline is everywhere

Hospitals not profit full
Yet market bulls got pockets full
To advertise some hip disguise
View tha world from American eyes
Tha poor adore keep fiendin for more
Tha thin line between entertainment and war
They fix the need, develop the taste
Buy their products or get laid to waste
Coca-Cola is back in the veins of Saigon
And Rambo too, he got a dope pair of Nikes on
And Godzilla pure muthafuckin filler
To keep ya eyes off the real killer

Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth Reich culture - Americana
Chained to the dream they got ya searchin for
Tha thin line between entertainment and war

American eyes, American eyes....
View the world from American eyes
Bury the past, rob us blind
And leave nothin behind

Just stare
Relive the nightmare.

[Zac D]

I am the Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
The fields overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire

Sleep now in the fire

[Agitprop]

Bright Eyes' performed "When the President Talks to God" on the Tonight Show last night. Video here!

[Treban]

Thank you for reminding us of this antiversery. And thank you for mentioning my songwriting hero and the song that made him my hero. Back nearly ten years now my band at the time played "Ohio" for the first time on the antiversery of the mass. at a gig opening an art gallery. There were about two dozen in the audience who were old hippies who remembered the murder well. Three or four of them were at the CSN&Y show that Ohio was first played, when Steven broke down weeping and most of them wept with me while we played that song.

I am only twenty nine and obviously was'nt around when it happened but I have a number of friends who were. They say it was a turning point for a lot of people in my home state of Michigan. People were horrified that these children were murdered, betrayed by their own government. It is telling when relatively conservative persons joined with the hippies in front of the state capitol to protest the actions of the Ohio national guard even though the protest was also against the war in Vietnam.

Thank you for reminding us of this antiversery and making me think yet again, where are the children today? Where are the massive protests? To be sure they have been happening, but why arn't they happening every damned day. Where are the children who desperately need to remind us that we are in the midst of an unjust war right now? (Yes, I'm well aware they are drinking beer and toking the four foot bong)

Vietnam rather marked a turning point in American thinking. Fear of being drafted and fear of being nuked combined to alter the core thinking of an entire generation. It effected changes in relationships, employment and family. It really harbinged the disposable society we have today. When your probably going to be sent to Vietnam today or nuked tomorrow, permanence makes very little sense.

The effect onn my generation is pronounced as well. We are the last of the cold war babies, aimlessly seeking meaning, an identity. God, i'm getting rather morose, time to go to work anyways. Peace and love.

[ED Beckmann]

I remember those times well. As a Veteran of the war I came home in the end of 1968 to a conflicted Nation. It took a lot of soul searching on my part to go from support to rejecting, than protesting that miserable War. I also faced the wrath of "The silent majority" who in my case just happened to be all my friends, family, neighbors and worst of all many of my fellow Vietnam brothers. I don't think people realize how much Courage it took for someone like John Kerry to do what he did. This is why I can never forgive thos Vets who 30+ years later lied and smeared his name for purley political gain! I am equally amused how that lousey War still evokes controversy among liberals. It was a Miserable war that pit us against each other then and now. We all suffer a little Vietnam PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).