"But it was Neil Young who wrote the most damn­ing protest song. When the Ohio Nation­al Guard shot and killed four stu­dents at Kent State in 1970, Young dis­ap­peared for a few hours and returned with the haunt­ing lyrics of " Ohio." Tin sol­diers and Nixon com­ing, We're final­ly on our own. This sum­mer I hear the drum­ming, Four dead in Ohio."
"With his new song released this week, Bruce Spring­steen picks up this thread. "Streets Of Min­neapo­lis" doc­u­ments the mur­der of civil­ians in Min­neso­ta's largest city. On Jan­u­ary 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good repeat­ed­ly in the head, leav­ing the moth­er of three dead. On Jan­u­ary 24, two fed­er­al agents fired at least 10 shots at Alex Pret­ti, killing the ICU nurse instant­ly."
Protest-song tradition has reemerged after waning since the Vietnam War, echoing classics by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Arlo Guthrie, Jimi Hendrix, and Neil Young. Neil Young responded to the Kent State shootings with the visceral song "Ohio." Bruce Springsteen's new song "Streets Of Minneapolis" chronicles recent civilian killings by federal agents in Minneapolis, including the January 7 shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent and the January 24 killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents. The perpetrators' identities remain concealed, raising concerns about secrecy, impunity, and erosion of civil liberties under state power.
Read at Open Culture
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