Kent State shootings

Artistic tributes

Over the years, a number of musicians and other artists have created works in response to the Kent State University tragedy. Probably the best known of these is the protest song "Ohio", written by Neil Young and performed by the folk-rock group Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Written soon after the incident and recorded within weeks of it, the song begins:

Related Topics:
Protest song - Ohio - Neil Young - Folk-rock - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

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: Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.

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: We're finally on our own.

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: This summer I hear the drummin'.

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: Four dead in Ohio.

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Crosby, Stills, and Nash (without Young) visited the Kent State campus for the first time on May 4, 1997, where they performed "Ohio" and several other songs for the 27th annual commemoration.

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Much less well known (particularly in the United States, where it was never issued) is the song "Hey Sandy" by English songwriter Harvey Andrews, also written in 1970 in direct response to the shootings. Its lyrics are addressed to the slain student Sandra Scheuer:

Related Topics:
Harvey Andrews - Sandra Scheuer

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:"Did you see them turn, did you feel the burn

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:Of the bullets as they flew?"

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Also comparatively little known is the Beach Boys' "Student Demonstration Time", whose lyrics (sung to the tune of Leiber & Stoller's "Riot in Cell Block Number Nine") discuss the Kent State shootings. The song appeared on the group's 1971 Surf's Up LP.

Related Topics:
Beach Boys - Leiber & Stoller - 1971 - Surf's Up

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In 1970–71 Halim El-Dabh, a Kent State University music professor who was on campus when the shootings occurred, composed Opera Flies, a full length opera, in response to his experience. The work was first performed on the Kent State campus on May 8, 1971 and was revived for the 25th commemoration of the tragedy in 1995. In the same year, another Kent State musician, the composer and pianist Bill Dobbins (who was a Kent State University graduate student at the time of the shootings), composed The Balcony, an avant-garde work for jazz band inspired by the same event. The work was first performed in May 1971 for the university's first commemoration and eventually released on LP. The work was performed again by the Kent State University Jazz Band in 2000 for the 30th commemoration.

Related Topics:
71 - Halim El-Dabh - Opera - 1995 - Bill Dobbins - Jazz band

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Dave Brubeck's 1971 oratorio Truth Has Fallen also has the Kent State tragedy as its subject; the work was premiered in Midland, Michigan on May 1, 1971 and subsequently released on LP.

Related Topics:
Dave Brubeck - Midland, Michigan

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American activist folk singer Holly Near's "It Could Have Been Me," her personal response to the shootings, was released on her 1974 A Live Album.

Related Topics:
Holly Near - 1974

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The Kent State killings proved a catalyst for the formation of the new wave rock group Devo, who began as a Kent, Ohio performance art group in the mid-1970s; several members were Kent State University students at this time.

Related Topics:
New wave - Devo

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Canadian industrial band Skinny Puppy has a song titled "Tin Omen" (on their 1989 album Rabies), in which they compare the shootings to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Related Topics:
Canadian - Industrial - Skinny Puppy - 1989 - Rabies - Tiananmen Square Massacre

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A commemorative 2-CD compilation featuring music and interviews was released by the May 4 Task Force in May 2005, in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the tragedy.

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The incident has also inspired a number of poems; a notable example is Allen Ginsberg's 1975 poem "Hadda be Playin' on a Jukebox," which mentions the shootings.

Related Topics:
Allen Ginsberg - Hadda be Playin' on a Jukebox

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In her 1997 multimedia work Partially Buried, visual artist Renée Green explores the history of the shootings within a wider historical and cultural context.

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The American post-hardcore band At The Drive-in, known for obscure lyrics, mentions the incident in the song "Alpha Centauri."

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: Students spray the Kent State Mist

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: Wishing wills missing clientele

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: Widows sex legged lost and found

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Films

• Confrontation at Kent State (dir. Richard Myers, 1970) - documentary filmed in Kent, Ohio at the time of the shootings by a Kent State University filmmaker
• Allison (dir. Richard Myers, 1971) - a tribute to Allison Krause, one of the four students killed on May 4, 1970
• The Trial of Billy Jack (dir. Tom Laughlin, 1974) - features a retelling of the various campus shootings of the time, set in the "Freedom School" originally introduced in earlier Billy Jack movies
• George Segal (dir. Michael Blackwood, 1979) - documentary about American sculptor George Segal; Segal discusses and is shown creating his bronze sculpture Abraham and Isaac, which was originally intended as a memorial for the Kent State University campus
• Kent State (dir. James Goldstone, 1981) - TV docudrama
• Kent State: The Day the War Came Home (dir. Chris Triffo, 2000) - documentary featuring interviews with injured students, eyewitnesses, guardsmen, and relatives of students killed on May 4, 1970