The Kent State Massacre

Annotation

The track "Kent State Massacre" (Paredon Records # P-1014) by Barbara Dane was an angry, and revolutionary, account of the Kent State University protest. It firstly set the scene and referenced the four students killed: "Allison Krause and Sandra Scheuer marched and sang a peaceful song, like Bill Schroeder and Jeffrey Miller" - one of the few Vietnam songs to mention the four by name. The lyrics then moved to the actual confrontation: "the air was filled with tear gas, the troops did advance". Dane concluded that the four died for "those in Vietnam" and all the protesters. She vowed to keep the fight going, and called on people to organise in order to "sink this murdering system".1Released on the label founded by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber in 1969, whose objective was to "seek out the music and speech, documentary or dialogue, that spring from the conscious artist who relates to people's movements, and which pour from all people in struggle".1 This record label released several albums either about the Vietnam War or that contained a Vietnam War song, which are discussed on this list. See the note below. Also note that in 1969 Dane and Sliber published the book "The Vietnam Song Book" which included the notation and lyrics of one hundred anti-war songs collected from around the world. Albums on Paredon Records which contained Vietnam War songs: FTA!: Songs of the GI Resistance (1970) (# P-1003) by Dane, Cancion Protesta: Protest Songs of Latin America (1970) (# PAR01001) by various artists (VA), Cuba va! Songs of the New Generation of Revolutionary Cuba (1971) (# P-1010) by Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC, Vietnam: Songs of Liberation (1971) (# PAR01008) by VA, Vietnam Will Win! Liberation Songs of the Vietnamese People (1971) (# PAR01009) by VA, We Say No to Your War! (1972) (# P-1015) by the Covered Wagon Musicians, I Hate the Capitalist System (1973) (# P-1014) by Dane, The Force of Life (1974) (# P-1023) by The Red Star Singers, Cuba: Songs for Our America (1975) (# P-1018) by Carlos Puebla, What Now, People? (1975) (# P-2001) by VA, The Legacy of Ho Chi Minh (1976) (# P-1033) by VA, What Now, People? Vol. 2 (1977) (# P-2002) by VA, Viva Puerto Rico Libre (1978) (# P-1035) by VA, What Now, People? Vol. 3 (1978) (# P-2003) by VA, Puerto Rico: Como el filo del machete (1978) (# P-1040) by Andrés Jiménez. Sources1media.smithsonianfolkways.org: Liner notes↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Annotation — Kent / Jackson State Songs

The track "Kent State Massacre" (Paredon Records # P-1014), with words credited to Jack Warshaw and Barbara Dane, to the melody of "Murder of Harry Simms" (by Jim Garland), was an angry, and revolutionary, account of the Kent State University protest. It firstly set the scene and referenced the four students killed: "Allison Krause and Sandra Scheuer marched and sang a peaceful song, like Bill Schroeder and Jeffrey Miller" - one of the few Vietnam songs to mention the four by name. The lyrics then moved to the actual confrontation: "the air was filled with tear gas, the troops did advance". Dane concluded that the four died for "those in Vietnam" and all the protesters. She vowed to keep the fight going, and called on people to organise in order to "sink this murdering system".

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: Going to sing of four young people who are now dead and gone / Two of them were twenty and two were just nineteen / Just stepping out to meet the world... / It was in Kent state Ohio on a Monday afternoon... / Allison Krause and Sandra Scheuer marched and sang a peaceful song / Like Bill Schroeder and Jeffrey Miller, they did not think it wrong / No warning were they given, no mercy, no chance / The air was filled with tear gas, the troops did advance / They fired, the students fled, 15 fell at that moment and four were dead / On the campus they were murdered in the springtime of their lives... / They died for those in Vietnam also for you and me / We must teach ourselves to organise and see the struggle through / Until we sink this murdering system in the darkest pits of hell

About the artist

Born 12 May 1927, Detroit, Michigan, USA. Died 20 October 2024, Oakland, California, USA

Themes

Anti-War · Kent State · Demonstration

In collections

Kent / Jackson State Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]