The Background
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on students at Kent State University. Thirteen seconds. Sixty-seven rounds. Four young people dead, nine wounded. Some of them had been protesting the war. Some of them were just walking to class.
A few weeks later, Neil Young saw the photographs in Life magazine, including the famous one of a fourteen-year-old girl kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller, screaming. He picked up a guitar and wrote “Ohio” on the spot. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded it almost immediately, and Atlantic rushed it out that June, even though the band already had a hit on the radio. David Crosby reportedly broke down in tears at the end of the take. You can hear it.
Most songs take months to make it from the studio to the radio. This one took about as long as it takes me to decide what to eat for lunch. Some things can’t wait.
Through a Christian Lens
“Ohio” isn’t a hymn. It’s angry, and it points fingers. But anger at innocent blood being spilled isn’t foreign to Scripture. The very first murder in the Bible ends with God telling Cain that his brother’s blood is crying out from the ground. God hears that cry. He always has.
What strikes me about this song is that it refuses to let four names become a statistic. Allison Krause. Jeffrey Miller. Sandra Scheuer. William Schroeder. Each of them was made in the image of God. Each of them had a mother who expected them home.
We live in a time when it’s easy to pick a side first and grieve second, if at all. The question “Ohio” keeps asking isn’t really about politics. It’s about whether we can still be moved when people die, no matter whose team they were on. Jesus wept at a graveside before He did anything else. I’d like to be a little more like that and a little less like the guy scrolling past.
The prophets of the Old Testament were the protest singers of their day. They didn’t have Martin guitars, but they had the same message: God cares how power treats the powerless. Justice and mercy aren’t left or right. They’re His.
Micah 6:8 (KJV)
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
— JC
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