Tuesday, April 7, 2015

"Ohio" Neil Young

OHIO - Neil Young

  • In a context of ideological cut of the USA, two camps are opposed, the one stands as defendant of the ideologies and the conservation of a world with the USA in the head and other one of the activists against the Vietnam war atrocities.

  • Ohio song calls of the fourth of May 1970, when a peacefull march of a students group at Kent State University in Ohio went wrong, four students dead, one paralyzed, and eight others wounded by Ohio national guardsmen under the command of the USA president, Nixon. It is the begining of a protestation wave for freedom and a peace, against the governement who choices priority to chase communist system in South East Asian.

  • After having scrutinized this new Neil Young already considered as a committed artist begins the writing of a song on this drama which divided America.

Lyrics :

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
Nixon et ses soldats de plomb arrivent
We're finally on our own.
Nous avons enfin notre liberté de pensée
This summer I hear the drumming,
Cet été j'entends les tambours
Four dead in Ohio.
Quatre morts dans l'Ohio

Gotta get down to it
Je dois y aller
Soldiers are cutting us down
Les soldats nous abattent
Should have been done long ago.
Ça aurait déjà dû arriver il y a longtemps
What if you knew her
Imaginez que vous la connaissiez
And found her dead on the ground
Et que vous voyez son corps par terre
How can you run when you know ?
Comment pouvez-vous courir en sachant ce qui se passe ?

  • Young shows the moral mobilization of troops "tin soldiers" by the state, "Nixon" which act only under the head orders, not by human values ​​such as freedom of opinion (sentence two) or expression (who can't talk they are robot not human). The only quotation of the president's name was a big position against the one who had occupied the White House .


  • The mention of "we" tells us all the world is falling by order of USA and the war which corrupts humans.
  • The author want to mobilize the American to protest against the wrongful death of 4 young people who wish explain their displeasure , through the use of «I»
  • He denounces also the choice of a part of the population to ignore this situation in the 3 last lines   

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