It’s that time of year – time for the annual ACW contest for best lyrical stanzas relating to the Bomb. There are two categories for this competition, as before: (1) A lyric about the Bomb that has been written and performed and, (2) your own adaptation of a lyric that has been written and performed. The usual prizes will be awarded in each category — copies of long-remaindered and long-forgotten books I have written or edited.
This is your chance, dear readers, to demonstrate the extent and depth of your play lists, not to mention your creative and poetic side. Entries from readers who have shied away from posting on ACW are especially welcome.
To help inspire entries, dwell on Randy Newman’s classic lyric from “Political Science,” a song that that has been nominated repeatedly:
No one likes us
I don’t know why.
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try.
But all around, even our old friends put us down.
Let’s drop the big one
And see what happens.
If this doesn’t get your juices flowing, here’s my offering for this holiday season – an adaptation of Neil Young’s monumental “Rockin’ in the Free World.” To those who have not committed these lyrics to memory, here’s one stanza and the refrain:
We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler
Machine gun hand
We got department stores
and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes
for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people,
Says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn
Got roads to driveKeep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
I don’t mean to put ol’ Neil down, or to give offense, but here’s my adaptation:
We got five thousand nukes
for emergencies
We got a kinder, gentler
sense of urgency
Payin’ more for less
Like free agency
Got B-mods and stretch outs
for the laboratories
Gettin’ stiffed by Putin
No help in the lead
With no way to test
Slot machines to feedKeep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Yes, it’s weak. I am counting on you, music-loving readers, to do better. Any lyric, any musical genre is in play. As before, the panel of judges will be me; The Polymath, Josh Pollack; The Total Package, Josh Krepon; and guest judge Tom Nichols.
I’ll post entries as they come in. We’ll decide on the winners after the holidays. May they be filled with happiness and good health for you and your families — and no use of chemical weapons.
michael, are you off your meds AGAIN?
spooky
Have been on serious meds since ’69.
MK
Tom Lehrer’s “We Will All Go Together When We Go” is a perennial favourite for this, as are his “So Long Mom (I’m Off To Drop The Bomb) – A Song For World War III”, “The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be”, and “Who’s Next”.
The inimitable lyrics of Prince, whose 1981 album ‘Controversy’ criticized Ronald Reagan’s unwillingess to enter into arms control talks with the Soviets during his first term:
Ronnie, talk to Russia before it’s too late
Before it’s too late, before it’s too late
Ronnie, talk to Russia before it’s too late
Before they blow up the world
…
Ronnie if you’re dead before I get to meet ya
Before I get to meet ya
Before I get to meet ya
Ronnie if you’re dead before I get to meet ya
Don’t say I didn’t warn ya
Written for the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability’s DC Days in 2012:
To the tune of When I Fall in Love
When we drop our Bombs
It will be forever
Or we’ll never drop
Our bombs
In a scary world like this is
Our destruction is mutually assured
So we maintain nuclear stockpiles
Much larger than we can afford
When you launch your missiles
We will launch completely
Or we’ll never launch
At all
Cause the moment we can feel that
You feel that way too
Is when we drop the Bomb
On you
Instrumental bridge
Cause the moment we can feel that
You feel that way too
Is when we drop the Bomb
On you
How about a little ditty for the National Ignition Facility,
When we crank it up, it’s hotter than Summertime
Livermore
and the living is easy
Lasers are jumpin’
And the power is high
Your lab is flush
With government money
So hush little darlin’
Don’t you cry
One of these mornings
We’ll get ignition
Or maybe not
You never can tell
But if we do it
We’ll unleash the atom
And hold in our hands
the power of hell
Be careful what you ask for:
A little Western swing ditty for our National Nuclear Insecurity Complex
To the tune of “Right or Wrong”
Right or wrong We’ll always love you
Though we promised to disarm
Right or wrong we can not help it
And we really don’t mean any harm…
All along, we knew you’d do it
Repay our loyalty with pain
Still we opened up our checkbooks
Flushed our money right down the drain
Oh, right or wrong We’ll build more bomb plants
Though we know it makes no sense
We can’t help it, we’re addicted
All in the name of some kind of defense
U – P – F, or Kansas City
C – M – R – R, or maybe MOX
They’ll be big, high-tech and shiny
Sparkly new, right out of the box
Right or Wrong, We’ll always love you
You’re our bombs We can’t forget
‘Til the day we have to use you
Then we’ll wake with that same old regret
All along, we knew you’d do it
Repay our loyalty with pain
Still we opened up our checkbooks
Flushed our security right down the drain
They’re rioting in Syria
They’re starving in Spain
There’s hurricanes from Florida
And Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering
In unhappy pique
The French hate the Germans
The Germans hate the Greeks
Russians hate Chechens
South Africans hate the Dutch
And we don’t like
Anybody very much
But you should be tranquil
And thankful and proud
For man’s been endowed
With a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain
That some lovely day …
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away
From C.W. in Syria
To nukes from Iran
What nature doesn’t do to us
Will be done by our fellow man
Love the creativity.
MK
Picture yourself stranded on a planet
that’s wired for destruction and ready to blow.
Suddenly they have a new inspiration
but what it means you do not know.
Rockets with ray guns
to shoot other rockets
waiting for the glorious day!
And they say they just want
to protect you
from their Bomb.
Boom… Boom… Boom…
Lasers in the Sky for Doomsday
Lasers in the Sky for Doomsday
Lasers in the Sky for Doomsday!
Ohhh, ohhh…
Follow them down to the white water fountains
where marshmallow people feed roaches and flies.
Somebody’s screaming, you answer too slowly
a girl who got fire in her eyes.
Ballistic antiballistic trajectory
intercept booster and pay-load.
Look for the girl with the fire in her eyes
and she’s dead.
Sam’s got a Diamond Initiative
Strategic Defensive Initiative
Sam’s got a Diamond In the sky!
Ohhh, ohhh…
Picture yourself as a maker of spaceships
or picture yourself a man of the skies…
Somebody’s cursing and pointing at you
The girl who got fire in her eyes.
Stalk Defenseless Innocents with Ray Gun
Smash Dissent Internally with Ray Gun
Silence Dawns In our time, with Ray Gun
Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh ohhh ohhh!
Up above the sunny skies in south California
There’s a wounded rocket flying high, heading homeward
It came from a hollow, under a hill
And soon there’ll be nobody left to kill
In California
Last night captain Black went dancing at the Whiskey A-Go-Go
When a well-known groupie knocked him back, busted his ego
Stoned out of his head, he crawled off to bed
The following morning he went to the pad
The missile was standing pointing to the skies of California
The red balloon was flying high, watching the weather
Captain Black was trying hard to get it together
Immediate names came into his brain
A rocket from China, a Russian plane
He pushed the wrong button and soon there’ll be no place called
California
From a track entitled “California” by Flash and the Pan
I thought I knew every nuke-themed song from the 80s there was. Clearly, I was wrong…
Watchtower – Energetic Disassembly
Match the code make no mistake, error could be fatal
Turn the key… launch on warning…
Sleek missles streak the sky with exhaust.. target awaits, the holocaust
We have passed the point of no return.. can we afford to show remorse?
…As death draws near, the population cowers
Thirty minutes, away from the end of existence
Heatflash – atomic disarray
Millions perish in a single instant
Chaos wrenched from all relation of time and space
In the threshold of immence confusion
Vaporized – atoms separate… the human form, under metamorphosis
Hundreds of years of culture and civization
Are flattened into a desolate wasteland
Survivors… of nuclear destruction, live in a world cold and dark facing
Prolonged death
Those who met an immediate demise were saved from weeks of misery….