Tag: Neil Young

Have you ever heard a song that so completely captures an earlier moment in your life that hearing it again immediately transports you back to that time?  Sometimes a powerful catalyzing event seizes the collective attention of a nation, creating a sudden vacuum, waiting only to be filled by a universal means of expression that can clearly and articulately capture those powerful thoughts and emotions, duly recording the essence of a nation’s collective conscience in a manner understandable to the rest of the world, and perhaps more importantly, to posterity.  

Some, perhaps many of us were around in 1970 to witness such an event, one that rocked a nation already reeling from escalating racial tensions and an ever widening divide between those who staunchly supported and those who opposed the United States’ unprovoked aggression and ongoing occupation of Southeast Asia.  

The May 15, 1970 issue of Life Magazine, a weekly noted for its photojournalism, shocked millions with its unsparing photographs of students killed and wounded at Kent State on May 4. One particular copy was to have an impact that has lasted to this day.

Rock musician David Crosby brought that issue of Life to a studio session for the supergroup he was part of. Originally Crosby, Stills and Nash, it had been joined by Stephen Stills’ old bandmate from the Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young.

All four members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were seen as political artists. Graham Nash who had been in the British Invasion band, The Hollies, had released in 1969 a solo cut “Chicago (We Can Change The World)”, which starts with a reference to another frame-up trial of Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale. (Those who have read earlier “May ’70” installments may recollect that the call for a national student strike went out on May Day from a Free Bobby rally in New Haven).

It was Neil Young, though, who took the magazine and disappeared for a couple of hours, returning with the 10 lines that are burned into the consciousness of that generation.

Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming, We’re finally on our own… Forty years ago today, on Thursday, April 30, 1970, Richard Milhouse Nixon, the president of the United States, appeared on television for a special announcement about the Vietnam War. He told us that US troops, tens of thousands of them, had moved into Cambodia, expanding an already prolonged and costly war into another country. He claimed it was a necessary step toward ending the war, and toward insuring that the US would not be perceived in the world as “a pitiful helpless giant.”

Today that incredible upsurge, which pretty much shut down the 1969-70 school year throughout much of the American higher education system, is remembered mainly through one of its most dramatic events–the killing of four students at Kent State University by a sustained fusillade of gunfire from Ohio National Guard troops occupying their campus.

For forty years, the veterans of those days and younger activists have struggled to keep alive the memories of Kent State and of the subsequent police murders of two more students, this time at a traditionally Black college in Mississippi, Jackson State. We have succeeded in this, helped in part by that amazing mnemonic, Neil Young’s heartbreaking song, “Ohio,” which opens with the couplet at the start of this piece.

There are many people who lament the end of the ’60s and complain about today’s self-absorbed, materialistic youth.  Now, I’m a teenager, and I can tell you that there’s a grain of truth (maybe a boulder…) to those complaints, but there’s also a vibrant political culture among those of us whippersnappers who do care.

Well, we all know Dylan, Lennon, and Young.  But what about Francis, Folds, and Morello?  If you take a look at the music scene today, it’s apparent that there are a lot of young people who care.  There’s currently a lot of music in the same spirit, if not the same style, as the classics of protest music.

“Peace in our times?”

Moving broken line | stable broken line | stable broken line

Moving solid line | stable solid line | stable solid line

Trigrams: Heaven over Earth moving to Wind over Thunder

12. Obstruction	42. Benefiting
Obstruction. This is not the other not benefiting the noble one’s persistence. Much goes, little comes. One cannot continue, one is being obstructed. This is frustrating. There is more loss than gain. This isn’t the other going against one’s interests, actually. Blaming someone may make one feel better, but isn’t helpful at solving the problem.	Benefiting. It is beneficial to have a goal to move to. It is beneficial to cross the big river. Benefiting from the situation. It’s a good idea to have a plan for undertaking something, to make good use of the opportunity.

Moving line 1:

Pulling out grass and entangled roots because of its accumulation.

Persistence brings good fortune.

Progressing.

Removing something that has accumulated and is now in the way, weeding it out by the root. Under the surface, things may be more entangled than one thought. Things go well by persevering with this. There is progress being made.

Moving line 4:

Having a higher purpose.

Without fault,

but it is a category separate from happiness.

Working on something that’s important to you, perhaps regarding your personal or spiritual development. There is nothing wrong with that. It is no pleasure to go through this development, but it really needs to be worked with.

So, I was trying to decide what to listen to while I did my exercise bike time and I looked around to see what there was I hadn’t listened to in a while.  Usually, I listen to either Gackt Red or Gackt Blue (highly reccomended), sometimes I listen to Elton John from the Garden (Greatest Hits Live), somtimes Freddy’s Tribute Concert, and sometimes the Statler Brothers Farewell show (all just fabulous).  Then I looked, and I saw the Last Waltz!  Bingo!