Bang! 101 Songs about Nuclear War from the 1980s

• Have You Ever Seen this Kind of World?

  Welcome to Episode 14. This time Dave and Pank travel around the world to hear what other countries were singing about nuclear war.We start in Nigeria, with the inspirational and innovative William Onyeabor (and an acknowledgment of the great Fela Kuti). William’s song “This Kind of World” captures, ialwith joyful synth abandon, the fears he had about the way the planet was going.We then move to South Africa, and progressive punk band Dog Detachment’s fiery and fearful “Third World War”. We then discuss one of South America’s most outspoken and important bands – Los Prisioneros, whose wistful “Pa Pa Pa” pleads for a better world.The Japanese heavy metal scene in the 80s was huge, and nothing blasted louder than Loudness with their commentary on the American Star Wars policy, “SDI”. We then look at the influential Russian band Kino and much lamented singer Victor Tsoi, who proclaimed “I Declare my Home” to be a nuclear-free zone.We end by asking our listeners to help identify a mystery 80s band with their unknown track. Listen to find out…We have put together an extra playlist to cover a whole section of nuclear war songs from around the globe. Give it a listen at:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/43QBqIr32rnu28lRXfrl1P?si=atRU76eLS0-pRXEDrAWRmwand on Apple musichttps://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/bang-world-music/pl.u-PDb4oqgILlLYypPAnd, of course, our main playlists are always updated.https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0vLjQBbJEhiDaFNOTz9snD?si=4da04b17ed3347eahttps://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/bang-101-songs-about-nuclear-war-from-the-1980s/pl.u-6mo4j9KFByBgKXlStay in touch!Instagram: bangnuclearpodcastBlue Sky: @bangpodcast.bsky.socialFacebook: Bang Nuclear PodcastReddit: r/bangnuclearpodcastEmail: [email protected] and closing music: (Waiting for the) Heatwave – Fay Ray, appears courtesy of Fay Ray. Written by John LoveringArtwork: Rachel MalbonAssistant Producer: Shivam PathakOpening words: Richie Wheeler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Scarred For Life

  It’s Episode 13…. And it’s lucky for us, as we welcome the two creators of “Scarred for Life”, Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence.“Scarred for Life” have published 3 magnificent volumes that cover the dark side of 70s and 80s pop culture. Almost everything, from horror films, books, music, shows and video games are covered in detail. The books have then led to live shows and, in recent years, the hugely successful podcasts, in which celebrities have discussed their childhood scars and fears.The 5 songs we discuss in this Episode all feature in Scarred for Life volume 3 as well as in our original list. We start with Nik Kershaw’s irresistible “I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”. We are all fans. A more circumspect discussion follows about Sting’s “Russians” and its intentions. Ste then is given free rein to eulogise about Fishbone’s (one of his favourite bands) “Party at Ground Zero”. We then return to the Top 40 and discuss Elton John’s “Nikita”, that video and, believe it not, the “answer” song to it. We round off with a favourite of the 80s, Kim Wilde, whose “Suburbs of Moscow” was the better choice to our “Stone”. The boys go on to tell us about how it all started, and what’s next. Thanks to them both for joining us.Once again, our playlists are updated:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0vLjQBbJEhiDaFNOTz9snD?si=4da04b17ed3347eahttps://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/bang-101-songs-about-nuclear-war-from-the-1980s/pl.u-6mo4j9KFByBgKXlStay in touch!Instagram: bangnuclearpodcastBlue Sky: @bangpodcast.bsky.socialFacebook: Bang Nuclear PodcastReddit: r/bangnuclearpodcastEmail: [email protected] & closing music: (Waiting for the) Heatwave – Fay Ray, appears courtesy of Fay Ray. Written by John LoveringArtwork: Rachel MalbonAssistant Producer: Shivam PathakOpening words: Richie Wheeler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• The Hands that Threaten Doom

  Let there be rock! It's our heavy metal episode. Fuelled by listener demands, we've been exploring 80s nuclear war metal songs. In addition to our usual 5, we run down 20 of the best metal nuclear songs, from Maiden to Megadeth, Saxon to Sepultura. And we pay a special tribute to the beloved Ozzy Osbourne.We are lucky to have brilliant contributions from metal fans and podcaster. Metal Bill gives us this thoughts on Metallica’s epic “Fight Fire with Fire”. His regular podcast “Music from a Lifetime” covers a variety of rock albums in great depth. Paul Moody, long time Queen podcaster and now hosting “Weirdies”, horror movie podcast, gives us his thoughts on the metal genre and nuclear war generally, before delving into Judas Priest’s fabulous “Some Heads are Gonna Roll”. Long-time listeners join us too. Andrew Holloway shares his memories of “Nuclear Attack” by Gary Moore and Greg Lake of ELP; Maiden superfan Walt Romney tells us his recollections of “2 Minutes to Midnight” and David Wilson gives us great insight into Megadeth’s “Set the World Afire”.In addition to our usual playlists, we have compiled a special heavy metal playlist with all 20 of the songs in this podcast:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rt1dxPQ33Zjx4lC5gtKWk?si=618cbb00a1e64a30https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/heavy-metal-bang/pl.u-6mo4E8WtByBgKXlOur main playlists:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0vLjQBbJEhiDaFNOTz9snD?si=4da04b17ed3347eahttps://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/bang-101-songs-about-nuclear-war-from-the-1980s/pl.u-6mo4j9KFByBgKXlSocials:Instagram: bangnuclearpodcastBlue Sky: @bangpodcast.bsky.socialFacebook: Bang Nuclear PodcastReddit: r/bangnuclearpodcastEmail: [email protected] and closing music: (Waiting for the) Heatwave – Fay Ray, appears courtesy of Fay Ray. Written by John LoveringArtwork: Rachel MalbonAssistant Producer: Shivam PathakOpening words: Richie WheelerCredits to “Scarred for Life” and Tim and Joanna Smolko’s fine work “Atomic Tunes”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• In the Shadow of the Mushroom Cloud

  It’s 12 noon in London, 7am in Philadelphia and around the world, people are getting ready for Episode 11. July 13th 1985 saw one of the greatest concerts of all time, as the world of rock and pop united to raise money and awareness for famine in Africa.The very greatest artists performed their greatest hits, and we discuss 5 of those artists now. Of course, there were controversies about the event, which are put into even sharper focus as we look back 40 years. But, as a spectacle and as a means of raising awareness for generations to follow, it remains unforgettable.We start (naturally) with Hammer to Fall by Queen. Freddie’s performance was stunning that day and this (we think) is the only Nuclear song performed that day. We then move on to Time Will Crawl by David Bowie. His performance of “Heroes” at Live Aid was simply unbeatable. We then cross the pond to Philadelphia. Tina Turner performed with Mick Jagger in the American leg of the concert and we discuss her post-nuclear anthem “We Don’t Need Another Hero” from “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Our next song is “P.O.E.” by Adam Ant. His one song at Live Aid came from the same album. While he now regrets performing at Live Aid, we are glad he did. Finally, U2’s “Seconds” is one of their many Cold War songs. Their performance of “Bad” lives long in the memory.As ever, our playlist is updated on Spotify and Apple! Give it a listen – 59 songs to enjoy.https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0vLjQBbJEhiDaFNOTz9snD?si=4da04b17ed3347eahttps://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/bang-101-songs-about-nuclear-war-from-the-1980s/pl.u-6mo4j9KFByBgKXlIf anything we say interests you then do get in touch via our socials:Instagram: bangnuclearpodcastBlue Sky: @bangpodcast.bsky.socialFacebook: Bang Nuclear PodcastReddit: r/bangnuclearpodcastEmail: [email protected] and closing music: (Waiting for the) Heatwave – Fay Ray, appears courtesy of Fay Ray. Written by John LoveringArtwork: Rachel MalbonAssistant Producer: Shivam PathakGuitar lick: Shivam PathakOpening words: Richie WheelerOpening words of Live Aid – Richard Skinner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• This is Not a Test

  Welcome to Episode 10!Almost half way there. In the last episode we explored Cold War tunes of Australian and New Zealand. In this episode we look at the genuine funkatomic bombs that America produced in the world of jazz-funk and hip hop. There were so many examples to choose from, but we have settled on a list of 5 songs from artists with a huge impact on their genres, if not the chart positions of some of our other selections.First, the prescient and stunning “B-Movie” by Gil Scott-Heron, a spoken word piece of poetry that covers all of the issues that people faced in 80’s America. At 12 minutes in length, it is an awesome piece of work.An accidental microphone gaffe by President Reagan gave rise to Bonzo Goes to Washington’s (aka Bootsy Collins and Jerry Harrison together with producer Arthur Russell) amazing “5 Minutes”, an early example of sampling and looping that laid the foundation for what was to follow.The world of jazz-funk owes an enormous debt to Sun Ra, and his angry, but very laid- back, jam entitled “Nuclear War” is our next song. Born in 1914, Sun Ra’s musical legacy is too long to mention here.The Bus Boys “D-Day” is yet another example of a Cold War song that deals with the most unpleasant of issues, but with funky abandon. And we end with the wonderful “America” by Kurtis Blow, a wonderful hip-hop beat with rap is the background to this amazing history lesson. Watch the video for this too….Our playlist is updated on Spotify and Apple! Now 4 hours long, you can find all of the tracks that we have discussed in the episodes so far. We’ve even chucked in a couple of bonus tracks…https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0vLjQBbJEhiDaFNOTz9snD?si=4da04b17ed3347eahttps://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/bang-101-songs-about-nuclear-war-from-the-1980s/pl.u-6mo4j9KFByBgKXlPlease keep in touch. We love to hear from you on socials and e-mail.Instagram: bangnuclearpodcastBlue Sky: @bangpodcast.bsky.socialFacebook: Bang Nuclear PodcastReddit: r/bangnuclearpodcastEmail: [email protected] and closing music: (Waiting for the) Heatwave – Fay Ray, appears courtesy of Fay Ray. Written by John LoveringArtwork: Rachel MalbonAssistant Producer: Shivam PathakOpening words: Richie Wheeler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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