We will all die poor having had our say?
Ever see Threads?
It was a film scripted by Barry Hines (of A Kestrel For A Knave/Kes) fame, about a nuclear bomb being dropped on Sheffield.
It was very good, seriously bloody scary and hugely influential on me. I saw it at school -and when I was teaching and used it I found it had lost none of its’ power on me, or those I was teaching. ‘How could anyone think nuclear weapons were a good idea?’ said the stunned students. I was actually asked not to use the film after a while, my head of department was getting nervous…
This song ‘Final Day’ is only ninety seconds long, even shorter than ‘Velocity Girl,’ but if you got any of the fear of living through the cold war, I guess you realsied you were not going to have long to reflect on nuclear annihilation:
“When the rich die last
Like the rabbits
Running from a lucky past
Full of shadow cunning
And the world lights up
For the final day
We will all be poor
Having had our say
Put a blanket up on the window pane
When the baby cries lullaby again
As the light goes out on the final day
For the people who never had a say
There is so much noise
There is too much heat
And the living floor
throws you off your feet
As the final day falls into the night
There is peace outside
in the narrow light”
Welsh band Young Marble Giants were a short-lived but awesome band and this song was covered a few years back by belle & Sebastian:
Young Marble Giants -’Final Day.’ mp3
Belle and sebastian -’Final Day.’ mp3
Update: Just reminded by the editor of Is This Music? of this classic:
“How could anyone think nuclear weapons were a good idea?” Perhaps the same thinking that took us into Afghanistan, Iraq etc.
I suppose the trouble with having invented any weapon is that you fear someone else will have it and use it against you. People in power always seem to want bigger and better weapons and, much that we would wish it otherwise, man seems to be hell-bent on knocking the shit out of anyone he doesn’t like
Sad but true…foreign policy so often seems to boil down to ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ -and there’s been just way too much of that in the last sixty years or so…
I was the chair of the local youth CND at the time and got lifted for trying to build a shelter as instructed in the government leaflet Protect and Survive, on the Saturday after Threads was shown at the bottom of the High Street.
I remember the American one, The Day After as well, which was pish. The really scary film then and still is now is The War Game.
A class anti-nuclear song was No Doves Fly Here by the Mob.
http://www.box.net/shared/lhvkqptkh6
Cheers will check that out, the police must’ve been running scared if they lifted you for that!
We did disrupt the main street in a primarily Tory town on a Saturday afternoon. We had two doors, sand bags, suitcases and a hand held siren amongst other things.
I miss the odd bit of direct action, however I predict that there maybe some more to come over the next 5 years.
I’d have been terrified of nuclear armageddon anywhere but living in Sheffield and seeing Threads certainly gave your nightmares that extra edge. God, the eighties were shit, but they were so Sheffield’s decade.
Drew - with a fucking Tory government in power in the UK, direct action will be necessary!
Artog - the effect on Sheffield of this film must have been immense. How did folk react?
Young Marble Giants were truly excellent. I can hear them in The xx too.
Craig
Oh yessss … I always LOVED this song! Thanks for putting up the lyrics (which I never fully understood before … blame it on my bad English)!
I seem to be about the only person on the planet who cannot stand the XX, but then again I think Wild Beasts are overrated too…
Good to hear from you both again…this track seems to have struck a chord with a lot of you…always good!
I don’t know really, I was only 13 and can only say it affected me - we watched it at school. I walked out when I’d had enough.