Here’s a clean open thread with some apocalyptic themed music for you.
I’ve always preferred Jefferson Airplane’s version, which interestingly enough was also the opinion of David Crosby and Graham Nash. Here they are doing Wooden Ships with Grace Slick:
Sleep tight!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You forgot: In the year, 2525…
Death Panel Truck
Someone should have told Barry McGuire that “China” and “Alabama” don’t rhyme.
Adam L Silverman
@Death Panel Truck: Cut him some slack. It was the 60s.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
I believe the word for our current situation is “clustermotherwhatintheactualfuckery.”
As for apocalyptic music, I’ve always been partial to Charles Ives’ “Fireman’s Parade on Main Street” and Krzysztof Penderecki’s “Threnody For the Victims of Hiroshima.
Gian
left out the waters era floyd
two suns in the sunset
https://youtu.be/3TSz30Nj2n4
(yeah it’s just the audio with the star wars shot, sorry)
but the line “the sun is in the east even though the day is done, two suns in the sunset, could be the human race is run” is one I remember well
Bago
Apocalyptica.
https://youtu.be/VWEmsUiQELU
Gian
one oddball more… the Christmas song…
“do you hear what I hear” about nuclear missiles.
voice as big as the sea, nuclear explosion
tail as big as a kite… contrail from a missile
crazy train from ozzy – “heirs to a cold war”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Bago: This might just be me, but I’d always considered the Grieg original to be vaguely comical as opposed to anything befitting horror; this is pleasantly badass. Some guys on YouTube have done rock covers of the second and third movements of Shostakovich’s “String Quartet No. 8,” if you’re interested in that sort of thing. (I’ve always wanted to arrange a rock version of Berio’s “Sequenza XIII” myself).
Major Major Major Major
A friend of mine found a cute Obamacare dungeons & dragons meme.
Ninedragonspot
Mini-pocalypse: Iva Bittova singing “Es geschah” from Schnittke’s Faust cantata Seid nüchtern und wachet
Frankensteinbeck
I can’t believe no one has brought up Land of Confusion yet. Waaaay too topical.
EDIT – And for my comment because it’s an open thread, I spent today being a total lazy shit, because I was shocked at just how much I’ve been hurting from the anxiety and stress that the ACA might be destroyed. When it came out that McConnell wanted to murder Medicaid with it, that got a lot worse. So today… I’ve just let my heart relax.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): should be “Sequenza XI,” rather.
Anyone know what this song is, BTW?
Major Major Major Major
I still think The Future by Leonard Cohen is the most appropriate song for our time.
Gian
@Frankensteinbeck: I raise you games without frontiers
https://youtu.be/3xZmlUV8muY
Frankensteinbeck
@Gian:
I’d forgotten that one, and it was one of my favorites for aaages!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Can’t forget Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (extended 12 inch version):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pnh7x8aU26g
You can’t help but love the Reagan impersonator reciting Hitler’s speech to the court in 1924 after his failed Beer Hall Putsch:
Mnemosyne
DougJ already stole one of my favorites the other day: “Nothing But Flowers” by Talking Heads.
Fair Economist
Imagine aliens with Republican ethics.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I always assumed that was Morrissey wishing that the town would be bombed because it was just so fucking boring to have to live there, but I could be wrong.
Gian
if it wasn’t in a recent commercial… the final countdown…
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: Kind of my impression as well.
Ah, Morrissey, you truly are the Pope of Mope.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
And one of the most misunderstood songs of all time, Timbuk2’s The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-qZ24rpIjwQ
James Powell
Morning Dew, which was done by a lot of people, notably the Grateful Dead. This version is by The National for a Grateful Dead tribute album “Day of the Dead”
Clevelanders of certain age should recall this version by The Damnation of Adam Blessing
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Frankensteinbeck:
Ever seen the music video? Creepiest and funniest thing at the same time. Especially seeing the Reagan puppet running around in a Superman costume was hilarious. Land of Confusion could easily apply to Trump and the GOP:
Yutsano
This used to just be funny…
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The year 2525 makes think of Cleopatra 2525.
Major Major Major Major
@Yutsano: Do you really think we’ll make it to Christmas, though?
@gene108: It makes me think of the Futurama version.
randal sexton
Man, you are scaring me – Ererrbody I know and love is West Coast. feh.
randal sexton
And here is another notion of being Forever – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtFEzhaNrT4
NotMax
What, no Tom Lehrer?
NotMax
Link fail.
What, no Tom Lehrer?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Happy Birthday
Frankensteinbeck
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I linked to the video! At least, I thought I did. Yes, it is terrifyingly appropriate.
Eljai
Well, if we’re gonna go down this road, I like to think they will not control us, we will be victorious.
Morzer
http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/24983-missing-lead-in-flint-water-pipes-confirms-cause-of-crisis
piratedan
for these days and times, I think Zevon is the best.. .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP5Xv7QqXiM
?BillinGlendaleCA
@piratedan: And you know Trump is an Excitable Boy.
Amir Khalid
Mick Jagger has two new songs out that are about angst in the Trumpish, Brexit post-Obama world: England Lost and Gotta Get A Grip
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Kinda wondering if Mooch isn’t the better fit for that one.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Why not both?
Sab
@Amir Khalid: Thanks. That Rolling Stones lyric on Brexit: “You can’t get in and you can’t get out. I guess that’s what it’s all about.” I was in the UK in 1975-1976 and everyone was desperate to find a way out because the UK economy was such a mess. A generation later, safely ensconced in the EU, they have forgotten the desperation of being trapped in the economy of a bad government. This time it won’t be the tragedy of historical accident. They voted for it.
prostratedragon
Luigi Cherubini, Requiem in c-minor. The last days of Louis XVI, with all the participants singing the same words, as with a Greek chorus, but for their varied reasons. If one didn’t know what happened to Louis, the ending would give it away.
I like this version with mainly young performers, rising over an audience of dignitaries like a great wave, with the dark harbor behind.
Sab
@Amir Khalid: Thanks. That Rolling Stones lyric on Brexit: “You can’t get in and you can’t get out. I guess that’s what it’s all about.” I was in the UK in 1975-1976 and everyone was desperate to find a way out because the UK economy was such a mess. A generation later, safely ensconced in the EU, they have forgotten the desperation of being trapped in the economy of a bad government. This time it won’t be the tragedy of historical accident. They voted for it.
Cheers on your new guitar. I played guitar for about ten years many years ago. Gave it up when my new German Shepherd puppy howled everything I touched the guitar.
Tradeoff: happy puppy and feeling in my fingertips v.no music, unhappy puppy and no feeling in my fingertips.
Not sure what the right choice long term was, but the short term was that 130 pound devoted puppy was happy. Still, she’said long gone and I can’t play guitar anymore. Life is choices.
sm*t cl*de
@Mnemosyne:
Morrissey is shouting out to Betjeman (but you probably knew that).
Sam
I’m partial to Wilfrted Owen:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them, no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
Haroldo
[Sun Ra]
Nuclear war
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
Nuclear war
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
They talkin’ about
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
Nuclear war
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
Nuclear war
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
They talkin’ about
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
This motherfucker
Don’t you know
They talkin’ about
Nuclear war
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
They talkin’ about
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
Nuclear war
[Arkestra]
Yeah
[Sun Ra]
This motherfucker
Don’t you know
[Arkestra]
If they push the button
Your ass gotta go
[Everyone]
This motherfucker
Don’t you know
If they push the button
Your ass gotta go
They pushin’ the button
First comes the heat
Then comes the blast
Radiation
Mutation
Nuclear war
Yeah
Nuclear war
Yeah
Nuclear war
Yeah
They pushin’ the button
They pushin’ the button
It takes 3 seconds
Burned trees
And deadly fire
They pushin’ the button
They pushin’ the button
kilo50
Todd Gitlin in his book “Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage” has an interesting take on MgGuire’s “Eve of Destruction”: That the song was a definite outlier in popular music as he was an unknown and the explosive hit revealed a widespread anxiety within the USA. Bob Dylan was out there too but he was not as widely commercial as that dark apocalyptic anthem was.
Petorado
The Earth Dies Screaming by UB40
J R in WV
I don’t want to know what “The Earth Dies Screaming” sounds like, but that’s just me.
grillo
I know this thread long since died screaming, but I am surprised that no one mentioned King of the World, by Steely Dan.
Doug!
I just heard Wooden Ships for the first time a few months ago. It’s a very strange song.
Raven Onthill
@Doug!: Made even stranger by the two different interpretations: Crosby, who wrote it and loves sailing, had fantasies about sailing away from the madness he was living in, Kanter of the Airplane had space travel fantasies. The Airplane version reflects both.
Fred
My two cents:
The idea that Jefferson Airplane ever did anything better than CSN is humbug. I’m sure Mr. Crosby was being kind.
But I did think Grace Slick singing with CSN added a fine resonance to the song. That was a treat.
I heard an interview with Jerry Garcia where he remembered the Dead hearing CSN at Woodstock and it was a revelation for them. Garcia said about their harmonies, “We could do that. ….Well we could hit the notes.” CSN have the voices of angels but with an edge. It may be unfair but some got it and some just try really hard. Jefferson Airplane were always good but…
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
The The has to have an apocalyptic song, if memory serves pretty much all his songs were apocalyptic, though I haven’t listened to him in decades so maybe I’m not remembering so accurately. Of the ones posted above…am I the only one who thinks the Alphaville one is the best of the lot?