Today, MoJo is publishing a story about the war on the middle class that I witnessed in Ohio this summer. Read it here. I’ve compiled a corresponding playlist. Paste informs me that there are newer, hipper songs about my home state, but here are a few relevant classics to listen to while you read.
1. “Ohio.”
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s outraged anthem about the shooting of unarmed protesters by the National Guard at Kent State University in 1970. Kent State is in the district of Kathleen Clyde, the Democratic state representative interviewed in my story.
2. “Burn On.” Randy Newman laments that the Cuyahoga River, which winds through downtown Cleveland, used to have so much toxic shit in it that it actually caught on fire.
3. “My City Was Gone.” The Pretenders’ Chrissy Hynde is from Ohio, too, and this 1982 song is about the ugly overdevelopment she found on a trip home. My article is about how a lot of that stuff has been abandoned or torn down, but since the sad sentiment and the homesickness for a place that doesn’t exist anymore are the same, it’s kind of the perfect closing number. Queue it up, and read the story here.
