When the nation cries out in anguish, anger, and frustration, Bruce Springsteen has a penchant for meeting the moment in song.
“American Skin (41 Shots)” is still tragically relevant today, but Bruce wrote it in response to the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo and debuted it a year later.
When America was attacked on September 11, 2001, Bruce responded with The Rising, which offered catharsis to fans around the world.
But Bruce’s history of commenting on national tragedy goes back a lot further–further, in fact, than even his professional recording career.
On the afternoon of May 4, 1970, a student anti-war protest at Kent State University turned violent, and over the course of only thirteen seconds, twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired 67 rounds into the crowd, killing four students, permanently paralyzing one, and injuring eight others.
The incident became almost immediately known as the Kent State Massacre. Protests broke out in solidarity across the country, colleges and universities were forced to temporarily shut down, and public opinion turned irreversibly against the Vietnam War.
At the time of the shooting, Bruce Springsteen was only twenty years old, the lead singer and guitarist of a hard rock band called Steel Mill. As with his contemporaries, young Bruce was horrified by the shootings, and as he would so often do in the decades to come, he expressed his pain through song.
On June 19th–just 46 days after the shootings–Steel Mill performed a set at The String Factory in Richmond, Virginia. When it was time for the band to take a break, Bruce took to the microphone alone for a rare (at the time) solo acoustic performance. The song he sang was an original composition, and thankfully it was captured on tape–because it’s his only known performance of “Where Was Jesus in Ohio?”
Even at his young age, Bruce’s talent for empathy is on strong display: Bruce’s lyrics compare the student protesters with the distant American soldiers. Both are patriots who lay down their lives in the course of their civic duty, unprotected by their faith.
Will the sun ever shine again? Will the moon ever smile again? Don’t you ask me now ‘cause I don’t know how they can And hurry, we’ll be late for the show And where was Jesus in Ohio?
Will we run through the fields again Or will the barbed wires cut our legs again Don’t you ask me now ‘cause I don’t know how we can And hurry, we’ll be late for the show Where was Jesus in Ohio?
As my life ends Clouds in the fields that I like And the sun disappears into the night I look and you were born And I hear you, I hear you calling to me in the distance And then you’ll see I’m resisting your essence And as the cry of war outs the rain I realize ??? why you see It’s your whole world comin’ down on me
And the paper flag flies high over the soldiers grave Let’s see what mistake the young boy made Was his life really done? In another land a flower drips in the morning dew It’s been thousands of years since I’ve seen you You know that it’s so true
“Where Was Jesus in Ohio” climaxes in the powerful bridge, where Bruce uses war imagery to illustrate just how unglamorous (at best) and dangerous (at worst) is the life of a protester.
And the gun they gave me is heavy, hon And the helmet hurts my head And the jokes they tell ain’t funny, honey Sometimes I feel I’m dead And the gas makes it hard to breathe, baby And the general never smiles And the beds aren’t big enough for me, baby And it’s raining all the time
Will the sun ever shine again Will the moon ever smile again Don’t ask me now ‘cause I don’t know how they can And hurry, you’ll be late for the show And where was Jesus in Ohio?
Bruce ends his song on an unresolved note, unsure of whether the nation will ever heal from the massacre. Only six weeks out from the events, that’s not surprising–the shootings were still a very recent and very raw wound.
Exactly fifty years later, though, protests rage across America, and we find ourselves teetering on the edge of a similar precipice. Bruce is still meeting the moment in song, this time with a quarantine-induced radio show. He’s seen and lived a lot more in the five intervening decades, but his anger, eloquence and persistence endure.
Where Was Jesus in Ohio
Never recorded
Never released
First performed: June 19, 1970 (Richmond, VA)
Last performed: June 19, 1970 (Richmond, VA)
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