Cultural Impact of The Falklands War - Music

Music

Music referencing the war includes:

• The Argentine punk-rock band Los Violadores wrote the song "Comunicado #166" at their album Y ahora qué pasa ¿eh?. The song is critical of the military Junta, and the role of the United States. Pil Trafa, the lead singer, commented in 2001 that Argentina should not try to annex the islands, but rather improve as a country, so that the Falklanders themselves would emigrate to Argentina.
• The Falklands War provided much of the subject matter for Pink Floyd's 1983 album The Final Cut, written by Roger Waters. The lyrics are highly critical of perceived British jingoism and of the Thatcher government's actions. A specific lyric protesting the sinking of ARA General Belgrano reads: "...Galtieri took the Union Jack. And Maggie, over lunch one day, took a cruiser with all hands... apparently to make him give it back."
• Pop musician Elvis Costello wrote the song "Shipbuilding" (1983) with Clive Langer in response to the Falklands War. Written from the point of view of workers in a depressed shipbuilding town, it points out that their jobs only come at the expense of the lives lost in the war.
• Argentine rock musician Charly García recorded the song "No Bombardeen Buenos Aires" during the war and released it in his album "Yendo De La Cama Al Living". The song is about the socio-political climate in Argentina during the war.
• Much material produced around this time by the anarchist punk band Crass was extremely critical of the war and its aftermath, in particular the album Yes Sir, I Will and the singles "Sheep Farming in the Falklands" and "How Does it Feel to be the Mother of 1,000 Dead?" The latter, intended as a statement directed at Mrs. Thatcher, led to questions in parliament and a request for prosecution for obscenity from Conservative MP for Enfield North, Timothy Eggar . Crass were also responsible for Thatchergate, a hoax tape, originally attributed to the Soviet KGB, on which the spliced voice of Margaret Thatcher appears to imply that the destroyer HMS Sheffield was deliberately sacrificed in order to escalate the conflict.
• The folk rock band The Levellers wrote and produced the song "Another Man's Cause" featuring the lyrics "Your daddy well he died in the Falklands."
• In 1998, British heavy metal band Iron Maiden recorded a song called "Como Estais Amigos" for their album Virtual XI. The song was about the Falklands War.
• Macclesfield-based punk band The Macc Lads penned a typically un-PC song called "Buenos Aires (1982, Falklands War Mix)" which included lyrics such as "Costa Mendez lives in fear / Of real men who can hold their beer!" and "hey hey hey / The lads are on their way / With their bayonets and tommy guns / and their bellies full of Boddingtons."
• Joe Jackson's song "Tango Atlantico" (from the 1986 album Big World) represents a look back at the Falklands War.
• The title track of The Exploited's 1983 album Let's Start a War directly addresses the Falklands War, implying Margaret Thatcher started it almost on a whim, for her own benefit and to take the focus away from other problems Britain was facing at the time, such as unemployment.
• On their album From Here to Eternity: Live, The Clash, substitute a line in Career Opportunities for "I don't wanna die, fighting in the Falkland Strait" which was a common adlib during their set at the time.
• Some people in Britain took the song Six Months in a Leaky Boat by the New Zealand pop group Split Enz to be a criticism of the war, and the song was banned by the BBC. The group denied that this was the song's intent particularly because the song was recorded earlier in 1982.
• Relating to the sinking of the Belgrano, British garage band Thee Milkshakes recorded the instrumental song "General Belgrano" on their fourth album "The Men With The Golden Guitars" released in 1983. The song begins with the sound of a submarine's sonar.
• Punk band New Model Army's "Spirit of the Falklands" took a highly critical stance of the war and its 'selling' to the public by the British Government.
• In 2006, Swedish power metal band Sabaton released the album Attero Dominatus, featuring a song entitled "Back In Control", whose subject is the Falklands War. It features lyrics along the lines of "Back in control, push them further out to sea / Falklands in our hands, back under British reign".
• Political Singer / Songwriter Billy Bragg's 1983 album Brewing Up with Billy Bragg featured a song Island of no Return, in which a soldier details his experiences 'fighting fascists in the southern sea'. Bragg joined the British Army in 1981, but bought his way out a few months later.
• The Falklands Hymn by Iain Dale.
• The song 'Uninvited Guest' by British group The Christians mentions the Falkland Wars briefly in its lyrics.
• American Midwestern Disc-Jockey/Musician Steve Dahl parodied the war using his own lyrics but the music of The J. Geils Band song "Freeze-Frame".
• The Finnish rock band Eppu Normaali published a song Argentiina on their LP Tie Vie, comparing the war to a bad football game with cheating, an incompetent referee (who only understands baseball) and "the choir of the disappeared" as the cheerleaders.
• The Clash make reference to the war in the song "This is England".
• New wave band Spear of Destiny addressed the war in a song "Mickey", a fictional story about a young soldier losing his sight in the explosion of a landmine.
• New York indie rock band, Vampire Weekend, references the war in the song "Mansard Roof", saying "The Argentines collapse in defeat; The Admiralty surveys the remnants of the fleet".
• British New Wave band The Fixx single Stand or Fall was given little radio play due to its anti-war lyrics,which coincided with the Falklands conflict.
• British progressive rock band Jethro Tull references the war in "Mountain Men" by saying "died in the Falklands on TV".
• The war is mentioned briefly in the song "Cráneo Candente" (Spanish: Blazing skull) of the Argentine band Hermética, from the eponymous 1989 LP.
• Irish folk band Wolfe Tones wrote a song about Admiral William Brown, the Argentine Navy founder, in which they state their support for Argentina on the Falklands' issue.
• Legendary Danish rock music composer and singer C.V. Jørgensen included the song "Postkort fra Port Stanley" (Postcard from Port Stanley) on his 1982 album "Lediggang a go go". The acerbic lyrics are unusually harsh, even for Jørgensen.

Prior to the Falklands war, the Argentine military had considered its "rockeros" (rock and roll music enthusiasts and artists), as internal enemies of the state. For a time during the war, popular music in English was prohibited on radio stations. Subsequent to the war and the defeat of the military junta, popular music in Argentina reacted strongly to its prior oppression as well as the impact of the war.

A number of pop songs grew out of the aftermath of the conflict, including "Para la Vida" by León Gieco.