Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight:
The political divide in our nation is wider than ever. The next COVID variant could show up anytime. Supply chain issues continue to wreak havoc upon shelves and wallets. Bob Saget continues to be dead.
Oh, and I almost forgot: the Cold War's back on, Russia's threatening the free world, and we all need to get second jobs to afford enough gas to drive to our first jobs.
Neat.
2022's on a roll -- and I'm supposed to be the positive, light-hearted guy around these parts. That's just swell. There was no bright side to the pandemic, and I'm certainly not going to find one hiding behind the vague and shadowy spectre of World War III, either. A few weeks ago, I distinctly remember telling a friend, "Man, I miss the 80s." I take it back.
Sure, I miss video games, MTV, and Chess King. But I can't say that I miss the ever-present fear of armageddon. I certainly don't miss the duck-and-cover drills we used to do in grade school. I don't miss Olympic boycotts. I don't miss the sleepless nights after seeing "Red Dawn." Going back to an Us-vs.-Them escalation with Russia feels like umpteen evolutionary steps backwards.
But if history serves, there's one thing we CAN look forward: a bunch of really iffy anti-war protest music on the horizon. In the 1980s, if you ever forgot that your life was in a vague state of constant peril, all you had to do was turn on the radio. If you got a song stuck in your head in the Eighties, there's a good chance you were humming odes to nuclear annihilation without even realizing it.
Here were some of the best:
NENA, "99 Luftballoons." To be fair, not many people Stateside even realized this German-language hit was about the apocalypse. It was just a bop, no matter the words. Dive into the German lyrics, though, and it becomes a creepy tale of itchy trigger fingers who bring about armageddon by mistaking floating balloons for an incoming missile attack. Creepier yet was the English language version, which added the intro lines, "You and I in a little toy shop, buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got, set them free at the break of dawn until one by one, they were gone." In other words, in the English version, Nena herself was directly responsible for the end of the world. Well done.
FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, "Two Tribes." Yes, when the counter-culture needed to craft a stern rebuke of global politics, who better to take the helm than the flamboyant braintrust behind "Relax" and "Welcome to the Pleasuredome." The iconic "Frankie Say Relax" merchandise turned into "Frankie Say War!" shirts, and the accompanying video featuring mud-wrestling Reagan and Chernenko impersonators was the perfect touch of class the Cold War needed.
CULTURE CLUB, "The War Song." It seemed like every 80s band had to have their protest song, and none were more insipid than Boy George's clumsily wonderful sing-along. "War, war is stupid / And people are stupid / And I heard them banging / On hearts and fingers / Say no more war / Woah, yeah / War." As trite lyrics go, it's pretty epic -- but also spot-on. War IS stupid and people ARE stupid. Score one for Boy George.
CCCP, "American-Soviets." Okay, this wasn't a chart-topper, but if you ever spent time in the 80s at Bettendorf's Stage 2 teen club, you danced to this banger every night. This German synthpop gem urged Reagan and Gorbachev to put the nukes away and instead play a spirited game of chess (seriously.) But it was always a treat to see pasty goth kids angry-dance while lip-syncing lyrics like, "Why did the Russians invade Afghanistan?" And that angry-dancing goth kid was probably me.
STING, "Russians." I'm pretty sure Sting assumes he single-handedly ended the Cold War with this maudlin classic from his first solo album, where he ponders whether "the Russians love their children, too." He's already trotting it back out already with new performances this week. Admittedly, I was 14 when this song came out, and hearing it was one of the few times I stopped caring about video games for a few fleeting moments.
GENESIS, "Land of Confusion." Phil Collins and Co. made some absolutely brilliant records in their day. This wasn't one of them. Still, the accompanying video with its terrifying Reagan puppets is nightmare fuel to this day.
PRINCE, "Ronnie, Talk to Russia." The best way to fight the red menace in the 1980s was obviously with purple swagger, so the U.S. would occasionally launch a Weapon of Mass Funkiness from the Minneapolis maestro himself. Whether it was his warning that "everybody's got a bomb / we could all die any day" on 1999 or this more direct apporoach from the "Controversy" album, who knew global politics could be so sexy?
Here's hoping the situation in Eastern Europe calms down before Bono and Coldplay have a chance to sing about it, because then no one wins. President Putin, please end this madness before we take extreme action. We have Justin Bieber and we're not afraid to use him.
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