{"id":36,"date":"2025-12-19T15:52:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/?post_type=chapter&p=36"},"modified":"2026-02-09T20:41:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:41:35","slug":"should-have-been-done-long-ago","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/chapter\/should-have-been-done-long-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Have Been Done Long Ago"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n

\u201cThe thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 John Lennon<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nGraham Nash still has plenty to say about the quintessential protest song, \u201cOhio.\u201d Originally released May of 1970, Nash and the band quickly decided to push their current song \u201cTeach Your Children\u201d aside although it was steadily climbing the charts, in order to let \u201cOhio\u201d shine. He explained, \u201cWe wanted it [\u2018Ohio\u2019] out as a single, so we recorded the B side \u2018Find the Cost of Freedom\u2019 and in a couple of hours, we mixed both songs.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFind the Cost of Freedom\u201d is essentially \u201cOhio\u2019s\u201d companion song. The harrowing lyrics quake with, \u201cFind the cost of freedom buried in the ground. Mother Earth will swallow you. Lay your body down.\u201d The band quickly gave Neil Young\u2019s \u201cOhio\u201d to Ahmet Ertegun, who was the owner of Atlantic Records at the time. Ertegun was hesitant, however, when he realized that releasing the track would put \u201cTeach Your Children\u201d in jeopardy.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe said, \u2018Kill it. It\u2019s much more important for America to know that we are killing our children over their God-given right to protest what the government is doing in their name rather than me having another hit single,\u2019\u201d Nash said. The band made sure that the graphics for the cover of the 45 was a copy of the U.S. Constitution with four bullet holes in it, to represent the four young lives taken that day.\r\n\r\nHow bizarre it must feel for an artist to find a that a political song he wrote 50 years ago fits so seamlessly into today\u2019s American atmosphere. He said, \u201cI feel two ways about it. First of all, I\u2019m really pleased that my music has lasted all this long, but secondly, it\u2019s a pain in the ass to have to keep singing \u2018Immigration Man\u2019 for instance \u2013 which I wrote 50 years ago. Is immigration not relevant today? Is \u2018Military Madness\u2019 not relevant today? I wrote that song about my father going off to World War II for God\u2019s sake. We don\u2019t seem to have learned much.\u201d\r\n\r\nWith the reminder of May 4\u2019s 50th anniversary, Nash brought up his concern over the many unanswered questions that still loom over that day. \u201cI think I\u2019ve never understood why the name of the person that ordered for live ammunition in their rifles \u2013 we have no idea who that was,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, no one has apologized to the families. No one to this day. Someone gave the order to not only load live ammunition into their rifles, but they ordered to fire.\u201d\r\n\r\nJust like Crosby, Nash was asked why we don\u2019t see as many musical responses to tragedies like we did during the defining era of protest. Whereas Crosby felt it\u2019s largely fueled by the artists drive for money, Nash felt it\u2019s likely due to the limited media ownership. \u201cBecause the people that own the world\u2019s media you can probably count on two hands. The first thing they want to do is turn you into sheep. They want you to lie down\u2026 shut up while we sell you another pair of sneakers and another cola. They learned with the Vietnam War that you can\u2019t let the people know too much.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen we were watching the 6:00 evening news with Walter Cronkite and he tells us how many Americans are being killed that day, eventually, the public got pissed off and they put pressure on their congressmen and senators and presidents to stop this madness. But the world\u2019s media learned that. You never saw anything about Panama. You never saw anything about Grenada. You couldn\u2019t even photograph the flag-covered coffins of the people that have died in Afghanistan and in Iraq. But if you go to somewhere like the \u2018Living with War\u2019 website of Neil Young\u2019s, you\u2019ll find 3,000 protest songs on there. Will you hear them on the radio? Of course not.\u201d\r\n\r\nPerhaps what\u2019s most striking about the individual careers that the members of CSNY are leading today is how they seem to collectively identify as \u201ctown criers.\u201d Both Crosby and Nash used that term specifically in their interviews, just months apart, and even after not having spoken to each other in quite some number of years. Then, when Young wrote on his website to recruit artists to use the words of immigrant children in their songs he urged, \u201cWe also believe that the songs will keep the accounts and atrocities being perpetrated against these children in the minds of the public and will be a call to action.\u201d A call to action is what seems to distinguish the defining era of protest music from today\u2019s politically charged music. It\u2019s one thing to say \u201chey, look at this, this is messed up.\u201d But it\u2019s another to say, \u201cHere is what we do about it.\u201d\r\n\r\nMore than that, seeing their catalog of music as a time capsule seems to be what makes the defining era of protest music so distinct. Protest music wasn\u2019t just around to unite and comfort, it was there to keep record. CSNY and the enduring solo careers of the members that continue to today aren\u2019t just huge catalogs of music; they\u2019re practically serving as history books. Even the line \u201cFour dead in Ohio\u201d eerily rings as the unforgettable headline from May 4. While journalists report the times with facts through the written word \u2013sometimes with a microphone in their hand or from behind a desk \u2013 politically conscious musicians, whether rock, folk, or hip-hop, report history sonically. While the genres and landscape shifts, the influence of their dissent only seems to grow thanks to the many outlets they can voice their calls to action through with today\u2019s emerging communication technology. However, there are still some who are hesitant to embrace both new music and its purpose.\r\n\r\n ","rendered":"

\n

\u201cThe thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 John Lennon<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Graham Nash still has plenty to say about the quintessential protest song, \u201cOhio.\u201d Originally released May of 1970, Nash and the band quickly decided to push their current song \u201cTeach Your Children\u201d aside although it was steadily climbing the charts, in order to let \u201cOhio\u201d shine. He explained, \u201cWe wanted it [\u2018Ohio\u2019] out as a single, so we recorded the B side \u2018Find the Cost of Freedom\u2019 and in a couple of hours, we mixed both songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFind the Cost of Freedom\u201d is essentially \u201cOhio\u2019s\u201d companion song. The harrowing lyrics quake with, \u201cFind the cost of freedom buried in the ground. Mother Earth will swallow you. Lay your body down.\u201d The band quickly gave Neil Young\u2019s \u201cOhio\u201d to Ahmet Ertegun, who was the owner of Atlantic Records at the time. Ertegun was hesitant, however, when he realized that releasing the track would put \u201cTeach Your Children\u201d in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said, \u2018Kill it. It\u2019s much more important for America to know that we are killing our children over their God-given right to protest what the government is doing in their name rather than me having another hit single,\u2019\u201d Nash said. The band made sure that the graphics for the cover of the 45 was a copy of the U.S. Constitution with four bullet holes in it, to represent the four young lives taken that day.<\/p>\n

How bizarre it must feel for an artist to find a that a political song he wrote 50 years ago fits so seamlessly into today\u2019s American atmosphere. He said, \u201cI feel two ways about it. First of all, I\u2019m really pleased that my music has lasted all this long, but secondly, it\u2019s a pain in the ass to have to keep singing \u2018Immigration Man\u2019 for instance \u2013 which I wrote 50 years ago. Is immigration not relevant today? Is \u2018Military Madness\u2019 not relevant today? I wrote that song about my father going off to World War II for God\u2019s sake. We don\u2019t seem to have learned much.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the reminder of May 4\u2019s 50th anniversary, Nash brought up his concern over the many unanswered questions that still loom over that day. \u201cI think I\u2019ve never understood why the name of the person that ordered for live ammunition in their rifles \u2013 we have no idea who that was,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, no one has apologized to the families. No one to this day. Someone gave the order to not only load live ammunition into their rifles, but they ordered to fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just like Crosby, Nash was asked why we don\u2019t see as many musical responses to tragedies like we did during the defining era of protest. Whereas Crosby felt it\u2019s largely fueled by the artists drive for money, Nash felt it\u2019s likely due to the limited media ownership. \u201cBecause the people that own the world\u2019s media you can probably count on two hands. The first thing they want to do is turn you into sheep. They want you to lie down\u2026 shut up while we sell you another pair of sneakers and another cola. They learned with the Vietnam War that you can\u2019t let the people know too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were watching the 6:00 evening news with Walter Cronkite and he tells us how many Americans are being killed that day, eventually, the public got pissed off and they put pressure on their congressmen and senators and presidents to stop this madness. But the world\u2019s media learned that. You never saw anything about Panama. You never saw anything about Grenada. You couldn\u2019t even photograph the flag-covered coffins of the people that have died in Afghanistan and in Iraq. But if you go to somewhere like the \u2018Living with War\u2019 website of Neil Young\u2019s, you\u2019ll find 3,000 protest songs on there. Will you hear them on the radio? Of course not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps what\u2019s most striking about the individual careers that the members of CSNY are leading today is how they seem to collectively identify as \u201ctown criers.\u201d Both Crosby and Nash used that term specifically in their interviews, just months apart, and even after not having spoken to each other in quite some number of years. Then, when Young wrote on his website to recruit artists to use the words of immigrant children in their songs he urged, \u201cWe also believe that the songs will keep the accounts and atrocities being perpetrated against these children in the minds of the public and will be a call to action.\u201d A call to action is what seems to distinguish the defining era of protest music from today\u2019s politically charged music. It\u2019s one thing to say \u201chey, look at this, this is messed up.\u201d But it\u2019s another to say, \u201cHere is what we do about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than that, seeing their catalog of music as a time capsule seems to be what makes the defining era of protest music so distinct. Protest music wasn\u2019t just around to unite and comfort, it was there to keep record. CSNY and the enduring solo careers of the members that continue to today aren\u2019t just huge catalogs of music; they\u2019re practically serving as history books. Even the line \u201cFour dead in Ohio\u201d eerily rings as the unforgettable headline from May 4. While journalists report the times with facts through the written word \u2013sometimes with a microphone in their hand or from behind a desk \u2013 politically conscious musicians, whether rock, folk, or hip-hop, report history sonically. While the genres and landscape shifts, the influence of their dissent only seems to grow thanks to the many outlets they can voice their calls to action through with today\u2019s emerging communication technology. However, there are still some who are hesitant to embrace both new music and its purpose.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"menu_order":7,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-36","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/36\/revisions\/130"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/36\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}