After some slim pickings last time, the options are bountiful here. Just look at the songs with the title “Ohio.” You’ve got CSNY’s response to the Kent State massacre, Modest Mouse’s off-kilter take on traveling the highways across the nation, and Damien Jurado’s story of homesickness and longing. Then consider “Look at Miss Ohio,” a smoldering Gillian Welch song, also performed beautifully by Miranda Lambert. Or the twangy, jangly goodness of R.E.M’s “Cuyahoga.” Or the breathtaking “Bloodbuzz Ohio” from The National, one of my favorite songs of the last decade, which only doesn’t get the pick here because it’s a little too abstract, and because there’s an even better pick.
“Youngstown” is one of the quintessential Springsteen songs. The acoustic version of this song is fine. But it doesn’t really convey the feel of the place. Here, with dirty guitars and an ominous, looming sense of menace, is the real Youngstown. The history just seeps out of it like a thick sap. And the anger is evident in his snarl.
And, like all things Springsteen, of course this is nostalgia. It’s not meant as a political treatise on the political economy of coal, nor is it a demand for the restoration of a city that is gone forever. It’s just the expression of a palpable frustration. And it’s a call for us to exercise our memory, to recognize those who have been left behind in this brave new world. It’s all too easy to just cast them aside as the detritus of progress. But everything we are now depends on the sweat and the blood and the pain of those who came before.