Bang! 101 Songs about Nuclear War from the 1980s

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 12. We have discussed so many different genres of music over all our episodes, and now we enter the world of folk and country music from both sides of the Atlantic, and we have so much to discuss, that this time there are 11 songs on the list. Country superstar John Denver opens proceedings with the wonderful “Let Us Begin (What are We Making Weapons For?)”. P...

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 11. After the extremely focussed and niche topics of the last 2 episodes, we go mainstream again with some of the biggest British artists of that era and beyond….   We start the episode with some feedback from American listener, Walt, who feeds back to us his love of the US punk scene. We then review the wonderful Kraftwerk concert that we both attended a...

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Welcome to Episode 9 of Season 2. The UK punk scene was far from over in the early 80s. But the songs had moved on from general nihilism and frustration to a heavier tone, with more  urban political and anti-war sentiments. We start by going through our own Top 20 of UK 80s punk nuclear songs. Thanks to our long-time listener and future guest Dave (aka Steel City Vegan) fo...

It’s Episode 8 of Season 2, and we have a very special guest, Stephen Baker, lead singer of Finnish art metal band Frozen Factory.  Their album Apocalypse Inc came out in January 2026 and included the fantastic Petrov’s Light, a tribute to “The Man Who Saved the World” in 1983: Stanislav Petrov. We discuss Petrov’s amazing story and almost unimaginable legacy, as well as finding out...

Welcome to Episode 7 of Season 2. It’s time for us to look at albums, rather than songs, with a specific focus on two of our favourite artists. Electric Café came from Kraftwerk’s 1986 album of the same name, although in later iterations it was renamed “Techno Pop”.  But it really gives us the excuse to delve deep into one of our favourite albums – Radioaktivitat from 1975. We...

Episode 6 of Season 2 sees us abandon our usual chin-rubbing over lyrics as we consider instrumental pieces only. Marvin Gaye’s “Nuclear Juice” is, without doubt, the funkiest piece of music we have ever discussed, and is from the “In Our Lifetime” album. You wouldn’t know that it was recorded at a time of emotional and financial turmoil but the brilliant Matt Broughton gives us further insight in...

Welcome to Episode 5 of Season 2. In this episode we delve into the world of the cover version.   There are a million covers out there – and in this episode we discuss 80s (except one) covers of well known nuclear/war/protest songs. Last year we discussed Talking Heads’ classic “Life During Wartime”. This time we explore the Staple Singers 80s version, which takes the funk in a...

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 4. It’s been one year and 10,000 downloads since we started. So what better time to move our focus to the Wonderful World and Beautiful People of Reggae.  We discuss the Rastafarian themes of Armagideon and how reggae musicians brought nuclear war under the same umbrella of other social injustices. We start with one of the greatest of them all – “Red...

It’s Episode 3 of Season 2 and our absolute pleasure to welcome Andy Oppenheimer as our special guest. Together with his late, great friend and colleague Martin Lloyd, the synth-wave duo Oppenheimer Analysis released the wonderful album “New Mexico” in 1982 which includes the songs “Cold War”, “The Devil’s Dancers” and the title track.  That’s only a part of the story, though, as he then...

Welcome to season 2 Episode 2 and it is our pleasure to join forces with Michael and Jack, the voices behind the wonderful, long-running Billy Joel podcast “Glass Houses”. They tell us everything they know (and they know a lot) about the classic post-WWII history lesson “We Didn’t Start the Fire”.  While Billy Joel may have not rated the song as one of his own favourites, we certain...

Happy New Year to all our listeners. Welcome back to Bang! 101 More Songs About Nuclear War from the 1980s.  Thanks to your brilliant suggestions, we have had plenty more to talk about. Enough for another season, in fact. Season 2 starts with REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know it”. But we also went on a field trip to investigate a certain rumour that had been...

It’s Episode 21 – and we say a warm goodbye to 2025 and our first season of podcasts. It has been an absolute delight to engage with listeners from around the world and we though that – at this festive time of year – they should have the last say on our 101 songs. Thank you to the listeners, artists, fellow podcasters and family who have contributed to this episode. Don’t forget – our full pl...

A warm winter’s welcome to Episode 20.   Our countdown is finally complete and in this episode we discuss tracks 98 to 101 ending with arguably the greatest nuclear song of the 80s or any other era. We start with “Nuclear War” by Jimmy Cliff; we weren’t originally planning to include it in this episode but the sad passing of Jimmy Cliff last week made it’s inclusion a necessity (and it’s...

Welcome to Episode 19.  Our countdown is almost complete and in this episode we discuss tracks 93 to 97. And they are all huge. We start with “Nuclear Device” by The Stranglers (1979, but who’s counting?); a very upbeat song about a particularly controversial Australian politician who was involved in the sale of uranium for nuclear weaponry.  Our next track is the wonderful “Le...

Don’t be afraid - it’s Episode 18.  And with Halloween just done, it’s time to unleash some Goth heroes on you all, as well as our very special guest, Kirsty Harris. We start with “Black Planet”, Sisters of Mercy’s dark, foreboding warning of a post-nuclear world. Check out the video that features the original Monkeemobile.  Our next song is “A Strange Day” – Robert S...

It’s Episode 17.  With the recent news that MTV is to cease broadcasting in large parts of Europe and South America, we thought we might try and find songs by artists who appeared on MTV on its very first day…. And we were not disappointed, as 5 songs we had planned to discuss anyway all fell into that category. Buggles opened up MTV’s account, and we remember their catchy wartime h...

Welcome to Episode 16 – in which we discuss 5 songs by artists who were hugely successful in the 70s but kept their legacies alive with their 80s output. The Cold War provided sufficient ammunition for many - who might have been driven to obscurity by punk and post-punk – to make innovative new music and find even more fans. The artists couldn’t be bigger. Pink Floyd’s “Two Suns in the S...

It’s Episode 15, and we are delighted to welcome writer and journalist Chas Newkey-Burden. Chas has written eye-opening articles about life under a nuclear threat for The Spectator magazine and Metro newspaper. But his real obsession is the 1984 British film “Threads”, about the lives of the people of Sheffield in the run-up to, during and after a nuclear attack. It is truly horrify...

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....

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 rec...

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. M...

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 controversi...

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...

It’s Episode 9! Welcome – once again the guests come thick and fast as we explore the nuclear themed music of the 80s from two lands down under – Australia and New Zealand. Our special guests this episode are Vitabeats -  Lissa and Andrew Barnum. They released the magnificent “Spot the Spanner” album in 1985, which included their funkatomic beat “Boom Box”, together with outlandish video...