Nuclear War Songs!
I put on a Spotify playlist at work and four hours later it was still going strong.
Two Tribes
Two Suns in the Sunset
Its a Mistake
Red Skies
World Destruction
etc etc…mostly 80s of course.
I was under the impression that Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction and Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water are the two de facto nuclear war songs?
Which were very distinctive from run of the mill anti-war songs.
And the red balloons song is about averted nuclear war, right
When we first got Amazon Echo I asked it to play global thermonuclear war. The Echo responded by playing this album called Global Thermonuclear War by a band called Dead Unicorn.
~Max
“Smoke on the Water” is about a hotel fire that was caused by a guy shooting off a flare gun at a Frank Zappa concert, and how it forced Deep Purple to find somewhere else at the last minute to park the Rolling Stones Mobile while they recorded Machine Head.
I don’t think it’s meant to have anything to do with war, nuclear or otherwise.
(I just realized I have that same crocodile hand puppet.)
Not really a nuclear war song, but:
No, the song ends with the aftermath of massive missile launch. I looked it up, the English translation is not very clear but also mentions
It’s all over and I’m standin’ pretty
In this dust that was a city
The German text is more explicit:
99 Jahre Krieg
Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger
Kriegsminister gibt’s nicht mehr
Und auch keine Düsenflieger
Heute zieh’ ich meine Runden
Seh’ die Welt in Trümmern liegen
Quick translation: “99 years of war leave no place for victors; there are no longer any ministers of war and no aircraft either, today I make my rounds and see the world lying in rubble”.
Wooden Ships, by Crosby, Stills and Nash.
“I can see by your coat, my friend
You’re from the other side
There’s just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please, who won?”
In 1982, Pete Townshend rewrote Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” into a song about a man wondering whether his old flame in Scotland is still alive after the nuclear war and hoping that at least she didn’t suffer when the bombs fell.
And then, going back to 1946, there’s the Buchanan Brothers with a hillbilly gospel number so good I’m surprised it’s never been in a Fallout game.
“King Of The World” by Steely Dan
Smoking cobalt cigarettes
There’s no need to hide
Taking things the easy way
If I stay inside
I might live til Saturday
“The Temptation of Adam” by Josh Ritter
We passed the time with crosswords that she thought to bring inside
What five letters spell “apocalypse” she asked me
I won her over saying “W.W.I.I.I.”
She smiled and we both knew that she’d misjudged me
Bob Dylan’s “Let Me Die In My Footsteps” is about the folly of thinking that private shelters could save you from atomic destruction.
From 1984.
Speaking of, though many songs in the Fallout soundtrack (Fallout 4 that is, I’m not familiar with the other FO games though I think there’s a lot of crossover) reference atomic energy in some way , here’s I think the only one from the FO4 soundtrack that directly references nuclear war:
Breathing by Kate Bush is about nuclear war from the perspective of a fetus.
Two popular and well-beloved classics from Fishbone… Voyage To The Land Of Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts and Party At Ground Zero
Randy Newman - “Political Science”. In its own way, possibly the darkest of them all.
Some examples that aren’t necessily direct hits, but at least mention the concept:
Queen’s “Hammer To Fall” (“You who grew up tall and proud / in the shadow of the mushroom cloud”)
“Ba Ba Ba Ba” by The 77s (“And if by chance they drop the bomb / The heat will never find us / Cuz we’ve learned to run.”)
“Apeman” by The Kinks (“Don’t feel safe in this world no more / I don’t wanna die in a nuclear war”)
Also from Tom Lehrer:
In in similar vein from the Kingston Trio:
