Terminal angst

[altariel]

For various reasons, I am collecting songs about the end of the world, particularly about the bomb. So far I've thought of:

Nena, 99 Red Balloons
Sting, Russians
REM, It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Tom Lehrer, We Will All Go Together When We Go
The Specials, Ghost Town

Any other suggestions? A 1980s feel is not essential. Any particular Dies Irae that stirs?

Edited to add: Duh, Frankie, Two Tribes
Edited again to add: Double duh, Ultravox, Dancing With Tears in My Eyes
Triple duh, OMD, Enola Gay

Comments

[michaelschuster.livejournal.com]

I offer Land of Confusion by Genesis, together with the Spitting Image video.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

Ghost Town is about the end of the world?

How about Pink Floyd (really Roger Waters), Two Suns in the Sunset? Or Roger Waters, Amused to Death? Cheery bugger, is our Rog.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Good one, I played that an awful lot at the time.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

You know, I have barely ever listened to anything by Roger Waters. Which albums are they on (or album)?

Yeah, I think Ghost Town is about the end of the world. Amongst other things.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

Two Suns in the Sunset is on the Pink Floyd album The Final Cut. Amused to Death is on the Roger Waters album Amused to Death.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Kate Bush, Breathing

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I suspect they're knocking around the house somewhere. Thank you!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ooh yes, good one! Thanks!

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

"Christmas at Ground Zero" by Weird Al. "Manhattan Project" by Rush, if you want historical perspective on the bomb as well as actual world-ending. Definitely "Two Suns in the Sunset" (which can be found on the album The Final Cut. Um, possibly Peter Schilling's "Sole Survivor." I put together a mix tape, ages and ages ago, that I called something like "Happy Fun Songs About Nuclear Apocalyse," which had all of those on it, as well as the Tom Lehrer and lots of other stuff. It amused me greatly that, even then, I had enough appropriate songs in my collection to fill one side of a 90-minute tape. Hmm, I've probably still got that around somewhere...

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

The Ultravox-Song was the only one I would have thought of. The video scared me to death.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, it scared the hell out of me as well.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

It's not directly about the apocalypse, but for me, it will always be associated with the nuclear threat: that dreadful crooning oldie at the end of Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I think it is called Some day we'll meet again, but I'm by no means sure.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Interesting question. I nominate Elvis Costello, 'Waiting for the end of the world'

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/elvis_costello/waiting_for_the_end_of_the_world.html

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ah, Vera Lynn, the true Blitz spirit. I was trying to remember that, thank you.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I don't know that Costello song and... dammit, it's not on my 'very best of'... *goes to poke around internet*

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all these; if that compilation tape turns up, I'd be fascinated to know what else is on it. Doesn't surprise me you had 45 minutes off stuff: I've collected a good 40 minutes already this morning, and I've still got loads to track down yet.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Two Suns in the Sunset is the one that immediately sprang to my mind.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I've definitely got to listen to this one, then... The CD *has* to be around here somewhere...

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

Big Country, 1000 Stars and All Fall Together.

La Resistance, from the soundtrack to South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

Black Sabbath, War Pigs.

Hawkwind, Damnation Alley and Sonic Attack. And arguably Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke).

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

don henley - boys of summer.

Fear Factory - notably High Tech Hate

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Oh, London Calling by the Clash is my favourite end of the world disaster-song.

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's potential end of the world rather than actual, but The Desert Music by Steve Reich may also interest. It's a setting of various poems by William Carlos Williams, and Reich's concept of desert explicitly includes nuclear testing ground. From the sleeve notes, Reich says:

Finally, there is another desert that is central to 'The Desert Music': White Sands and Alamagordo in New Mexico, where weapons of the most intense and sophisticated sort are constantly being developed and tested. Hidden away from the eyes of the rest of the world are these infernal machines that could lead to the destruction of the planet--and it is to this possibility that the words of William Carlos Williams, which I set in the third movement, refer:

Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant
To know how to realize his wishes. Now that he can realize
Them, he must either change them or perish

Also, the opera Hydrogen Jukebox by Philip Glass & Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg writes in the notes:

After all the noise and wild wisdom and political statement comes the post-nuclear moment--a series of codas which ends the opera. First, 'Everybody's Fantasy': skeletons holding hands trying to get across the stage after the nuke blast. Then a return to primordial civilization in the Central Australian Desert, using the single verse form of the Aboriginal songmen, singing during a nuclear winter, snow coming down. The last song, Buddhist-American threnody or Hymn, 'Father Death Blues', written on the death of my father, philosophic reconciliation and peace, emotionally very calm, in six-part harmony a capella, quite sublime actually, as the finale.

There must be tons more but I'm blanking...

[(Anonymous)]

(Katlinel at work)

I know cdybedahl has already suggested Kate Bush's
Breathing, but how about Cloudbusting as well?

When I was at sixth-form college, I remember a musical about the bomb being dropped, based on Raymond Briggs' When the Wind Blows. I am not sure if one of the teachers there wrote it. At one time, I had a tape of it, but I don't think I still do. (I was at sixth-form from Sept 1984 to June 1986, if that's of interest.)

There's some info about a play version here:

http://www.humdrum.org.uk/windblows/

There's a screen version reviewed here:

http://www.badmovieplanet.com/unknownmovies/reviews/rev342.html

(I disagree with the reviewer's stance on finding the characters' optimism and cluelessness incredible.)

There's various references online to the film's soundtrack but that's not what I remember. I'm pretty sure that this was something very local.

I'll search in case I still have the tape, if you're interested in stuff that isn't well-known as well.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

There's various references online to the film's soundtrack but that's not what I remember.

Said soundtrack being by none other than Roger "Laughing-Boy" Waters.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

He certainly gets around where those apocalypses are concerned.