RowTow 2.0

Years ago, I compiled a list of songs about that perennial 80s subject nuclear war. Every retarded emo kid these days thinks that the songs on this list are mere novelties, having never known what it was like to grow up expecting the world to end any day. In 1989, I watched the Berlin Wall collapse and it was an immense relief off my shoulders as nuclear conflict seemed so far away. Sadly now, in the 21st century, the era I never thought I’d live to see, we have the exact same problems: too many nukes and too many assholes in political power.  So, as a tribute that long gone zeitgeist which is making a frightening comeback, I present my Nuclear War Dance Party, a work in three movements:

Movement 1: Watching the Skies, Expecting the Worse

This is where it begins: en media res, The Soviets and The Gipper are ready to have the big dukeroo, any day now we expect to hear the air raid sirens going off, the panic in the streets. On our TV are movies like Miracle Mile. Everyone is trying to party at ground zero, hold your darling tight, you can just feel the probabilities pulling us apart.

• Alphaville - Forever Young
• The Clash - London Calling
• Sting - The Russians
• Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Two Tribes
• REM - It’s the End of the World as We Know it
• Fishbone - Party At Ground Zero
• The Postal Service - We Will Become Silhouettes
• Edwin Starr - War
• Psychic TV - Eve Ov Destruction
• U2 - Seconds
• Culture Club - The War Song
• Timbuk3 - The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades
• Peter Tosh - No Nuclear War
• Men At Work - It’s a Mistake
• The Cure - Strange Day
• Orchestral Maneuvers In the Dark - Enola Gay
• Nena - 99 Luftballoons
• Anne Clarke - Poem for a Nuclear Romance

Movement 2: Apocalyspe

The first impact and everything after. The Russkies called our bluff or President Ray-Gun called theirs. Everything is afire and dying.

• The Weirdos - We Got the Neutron Bomb
• The Dead Kennedys - Kill the Poor
• KMFDM - A Drug Against War
• The Electric Six - Nuclear War (On the Dance Floor)
• Black Sabbath - Electric Funeral
• Metallica - Blackened
• Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train

Movement 3: Nuclear Winter

The coda to this piece, it’s downtempo, post-nuclear fallout wind down. Everyone has radiation sickness so there’s no fast tempos or anything. On our TVs are Threads, the Day After, When the Wind Blows and The Terminator.

• Kate Bush - Breathing
• The Comsat Angels - After the Rain
• Morrissey - Everyday is like Sunday
• Sun Ra - Nuclear War

At some point the music dies and we all shiver as we slowly die of radiation poisoning.