Nuclear Weapons in Popular Culture - in Music

In Music

Along with other forms of culture, there have been many songs related to the topic of nuclear weapons and warfare. Many of them have been protest songs or warning songs, while others use the motif as an allusion to great destruction in general.

Some of the more famous nuclear war songs include: "99 Luftballons" (1983) by the German group Nena, which depicts accidental nuclear war begun by an early-warning system identifying a group of balloons with enemy bombers or missiles; and Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" (1963), which premiered shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also made reference to nuclear weapons in his song "With God on Our Side" released as the third track on his 1964 album The Times They Are a-Changin'."But now we have weapons, of chemical dust...if fire them we're forced to...then fire them we must...".In many cases the allusions to nuclear war are not explicit, however. Iron Maiden's "Brighter than a Thousand Suns", on their album A Matter of Life and Death is a recent example. Steely Dan's "King of the World," on the album Countdown to Ecstasy is an example of upbeat music and very downbeat lyrics which give a very bleak picture of the post-nuclear world.

Heavy metal as a genre has been concerned with nuclear warfare since the days of Black Sabbath. Their classics, "War Pigs" and "Electric Funeral", respectively, are among the first metal songs to describe war, political corruption and atomic holocaust. In the early eighties, Iron Maiden wrote a number of songs which described nuclear war including "2 Minutes to Midnight" (a song about the doomsday clock), and the aforementioned "Brighter than a Thousand Suns" to name a few. The theme continued in heavy metal through the early nineties, especially in the thrash metal subgenre. Metallica wrote many popular songs about nuclear war and political corruption such as "Fight Fire with Fire", "...And Justice For All", and "Blackened". Megadeth's name is taken from the term "megadeath," used to describe one million deaths from a nuclear weapon, and much of their album artworks and songs deal with nuclear war and weapons. Other thrash bands such as Sodom and Anthrax also wrote a number of songs on the topic. The genre even inspired bands like Nuclear Assault and Warbringer to adopt the subject in their band names themselves. This trend also spread to Eastern European metal with popular Russian metal band Aria writing the song "Last Sunset" (Последний).

The emerging punk movement explicitly tackled issues surrounding nuclear warfare. With many punks exhibiting an explicitly pacifist world view there was a need to challenge the conventional wisdom of nuclear deterrence and deployment. Much of this sentiment can be found in British punk bands, especially those emerging from the crust punk sub-genre such as Amebix or Antisect and the related anarcho-punk sub-genre where bands like Flux of Pink Indians made clear their opposition to nuclear warfare.

Among the many songs alluding to nuclear weapons and nuclear war in the 1980s was the song "Manhattan Project" (1985) by the band Rush, one of the few songs with copious literal references to historical events leading to the first nuclear weapons. Additionally the band has a song about the possibility of nuclear war entitled "Distant Early Warning", the video of which features nuclear-related imagery.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's 1980 song Enola Gay depicts the events of the 1945 deployment of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima from the point of view of the crew of the B29 Superfortress Bomber Enola Gay. Clear references are made to the exact time the bomb detonated ("It's eight fifteen, and that's the time that it's always been"), and questions are asked as to whether the action was necessary. The song also references a supposed radio message in which the crew detail no anomalies as a result of nuclear detonation ("We got your message on the radio - conditions normal and you're coming home"); the American government denied any rumours of radiation sickness associated with the dropping of the bombs.

Satirical artists such as Tom Lehrer and "Weird Al" Yankovic have drawn upon the motif of nuclear war for humor in their songs (as discussed below).

The album cover for the single "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance is a mushroom cloud. The image also appears in the video for the song.

The glam metal band Warrant released a song off their 1992 album Dog Eat Dog entitled "April 2031" which depicts life after a nuclear holocaust.

Ska punk band RX Bandits make a reference to Nuclear War in their song "Nugget" with the line "Its 3 Years til I'm 24 and i don't wanna die in a Nuclear War"

Irish rock Legends U2 also named their 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

In addition, the band Pink Floyd produced a song titled Two Suns in the Sunset, which indirectly referenced a nuclear attack. This song was the last of the predominantly war-themed album The Final Cut.

Linkin Park's 2010 album "A Thousand Suns" deals with nuclear warfare and themes of war in general.