The world’s had me in an exceedingly foul and grisly mood the last few days, so I thought I’d ask for suggestions…for a “songs for chemical warfare” playlist!
Criteria are either songs about, or mentioning, chemical weapons and warfare; or, as my inner ghoul keeps suggesting, ones that work for a decently sick joke.
Nuclear Annihilation by Bolt Thrower mentions “toxic chemicals” but isn’t really isn’t about chemical warfare.
If you’re willing to interpret instead of having a blatant reference, lots of Bolt Thrower songs might be about chemical warfare since ALL of their songs are about warfare.
I’m pretty sure there’s some Gama Bomb songs about chemical warfare too but my GB discs are still in boxes atm.
Steel Pole Bath Tub - Chemical Warfare (cover of the Dead Kennedys one, album: Virus 100).
Queensrÿche – Chemical Youth (We Are Rebellion) (probably not, although the two terms are topics in isolation).
Mr. Bungle - Chemical Marriage (it’s instrumental, but Mr. Bungle is apeshit enough so why not?)
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (the whole album, maybe minus one track - no explicit references that I remember, but mostly about WWI, so mustard gas is bound to be implicit).
Taken from a Mad Book in the 70s (sung to the tune of the US Marine Corp song)
From the ants in our petunia beds
to the crabgrass in our lawn.
We will fight them off with chemicals
till the bug and weeds are gone.
We will use quarts and quarts of poison spray
and we won’t stop till we’re through.
All the bugs and weeds are dying now
but the plants and trees are too.
Hopefully I didn’t miss it in the links above (using Tapatalk on a phone and it turns them into YouTube images and gets rid of the link text), but how about The Cure’s “Killing an Arab”? It’s just a reference to Camus’ “The Stranger,” but was at one time on a BBC ‘banned songs’ list as a result of the title. Lyrics don’t reference chemicals, just the author standing in the sand holding a gun and an ‘Arab’ laying at his feet.
Whether or not defoliants count is somewhat debatable, but if you’re the sort that thinks they’re chemical weapons then “The Agent Orange Song” by Country Joe McDonald would be one.
Ah, didn’t consider non-intentional poisoning. In that case, Agent Orange is a band.
No more exact fits, but take out the intentional warfare part, and the Dead Kennedys’ “Cesspools in Eden” and “Moon over Marin” also count, as in about environmental chemical damage. Forbidden by the OP, but “Government Flu” references biological warfare. Also the Dead Milkmen, “Watching Scotty Die.”
