Return of the Bomb: The 1980s

A landslide election swept Ronald Reagan into the office of president of the United States in 1980. The cynicism and economic malaise of the 1970s had demoralized Americans and Reagan's optimistic outlook seemed refreshing to people. The Baby Boomers had grown up a lot since the '60s: many had families and dedicated careers by the early '80s and turned their backs on the revolutionary politics that had epitomized their generation. Instead they chose Reagan's 'new values', an attempt to return the country to the retro-values of the previous generation in the 1950s: the nuclear family, anticommunism, unquestioned patriotism, big business, consumer culture and low social services. 142 Reagan cut funding to many of the social programs established in the 1960s by President Johnson and vastly increased military spending in an anticommunist fervor not seen since the Korean War. 143 Even Iggy Pop, leader of the infamous '60s garage band and spiritual godfather to the punks, supported Reagan, "I moved back [to the United States] as soon as I thought Reagan would get elected. I've campaigned quietly for him, asking people at my gigs to vote." 144 Reagan's hardcore supporters blamed America's problems on the unrest in the '60s and genuinely hoped to revoke the 'revolution'. 145 While there was no real way to turn back the clock, most of the radicals of the '60s grew up to be consumers, joining the American capitalist system they had once so fervently wanted to replace with a secular millennial kingdom.

But the politics of the apocalypse didn't fade from public view. In the '60s, rock bands and student radicals had paid lip service to the idea, but in the 1980s the president himself was a firm believer in the biblical end-times. Reagan commented in several public forums about his belief in the approaching apocalypse. 146 In the New York Times he was quoted as saying, "Never has there been a time in which so many [Biblical] prophecies are coming together. There have been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was coming, and so forth, but never anything like this." 147 Important to Reagan's thinking was the apocalyptic implication of the new state of Israel. 148 Ezekiel named Ethiopia among the enemies of Israel and, discussing the issue in 1971 with a California politician, Reagan believed that the prophecy demanded Ethiopia to turn communist. Three years later Emperor Haile Selassie-the Rasta God-was overthrown in by a Marxist coup. 149

Reagan's religious convictions were at the core of his politics and served as way in which "military, social, economic and foreign policies are justified." 150 The renewed arms race with the Soviet Union, for example, was seen in the dualistic scheme presented in Revelation. "Reagan has clearly expressed his belief that the struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union is more than a temporal struggle ideologically, militarily or politically. It is a world-wide contest between good and evil … and that the evil force is embodied in a godless communism..." 151

Despite several years of détente and long after most people had stopped thinking about the Cold War in such terms, Reagan wanted to eliminate communism from the world. There was discussion in the press at the time that his strong apocalyptic beliefs would result in reduced efforts to prevent war: if the world was to end in nuclear destruction, any attempt at arms control might seem to be thwarting God's plans. 152 But despite the military buildup and his hardline political antagonizing of the Soviet Union, Reagan hoped to avoid destruction. "Frightened by the prospect of a nuclear war, he resolved to make America safe from Armageddon," by developing a missile defense program called the Strategic Defense Initiative. 153 Although most military figures considered SDI a pipe dream at best, "this new laser-powered, space-based nuclear antimissile system would be Reagan's way of responding to any nuclear assault that the forces of Gog might be inclined to launch." 154

Reagan's idea of history also resurrected the age-old idea of America itself as the millennial kingdom. In 1952 he declared, "I, in my own mind have thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land … that this land of ours is the last best hope of man on earth." 155 It was an idea that stretched all the way back past the founding of the Republic to the Pilgrims. Reagan often borrowed the imagery of America as a 'shining city on a hill' that was first expressed in 1630 by John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 156 It was a new place where people could escape the pain and evils of the old world, basically what the millennium had promised all along. But "it is not just people but history itself that is redeemed by America… The ancient hold of recurrent time - a political life cycle of birth, growth, decay and death - had been decisively broken in America. A new era had been born that would renew the world." In 1980, Reagan said, "Our revolution did not end at Yorktown. More than two centuries later, America remains on a voyage of discovery, a land that has never become, but is always in the act of becoming." Essentially, the millennial promise had been fulfilled in one nation's destiny: history was defeated, time stopped and America became a permanent new beginning. 157 All those reformed hippies who voted for Reagan found that their struggle to attain the millennial kingdom in the '60s had been worthless, they had been living in it all along.

Where Reagan went the culture at large followed. The dualistic scheme worked its way into symbolic but empty victories in sports and movies: Rocky IV, White Nights, First Blood, Rambo, Missing in Action, and the 1980 US Olympic victory over the Soviet hockey team. 158 The old Cold War policy of war-by-proxy was being carried out not in Southeast Asia but in America's entertainment. Reagan's stated belief in Revelation and his very real nuclear buildup also led to an explosion of apocalyptic movies in the '80s: The Day After (1983), The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Testament (1983), The Terminator (1984), Solarbabies (1986), and many others. These movies all dealt with the apocalypse not as a transformative event offering redemption but as an unavoidable product of mankind. Most of their plots involved survivors living not in a heavenly paradise but in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world.

The music of the time also followed suit. Prince's "1999", the lead song on his 1983 album 1999, was a disco-funk hit reminiscent of a futuristic, computerized Parliament-Funkadelic. The song extends a hypnotic mechanical beat over 6 minutes as synthesizers wail and tumble about. Prince is joined by female singers in a call-and-response vocal pattern similar to Marley's "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)" expect for the ecstatic atmosphere inherent in "1999". But that attitude of finding joy in destruction is also lifted from somewhere else: Prince's sentiment is almost identical to the Sex Pistols, only it sounds fun rather than angry.

"1999" places the moment of destruction at the end of the numerical millennium, the year 2000, and regards it as an unavoidable fact, "life is just a party / and party's aren't meant to last." There was simply no getting around it. In fact, there was nothing left to do but enjoy yourself and throw a world-wide celebration in consequence-free apocalyptic time, "Yeah, everybody's got the bomb / We could all die any day / But before I'll let that happen / I'll dance my life away." The song begins with a computer-manipulated voice reminiscent of the radiation-scarred mutants haunting the landscape of the apocalyptic films. During a later breakdown of the song a second mutant voice, this time a child, asks, "Mommy, why does everybody have the bomb?" Along with the mutants, Prince has the sky turn purple from radiation and offers a unique vision of sinners enjoying the final decadence of their society before they're all wiped out in the nuclear holocaust. 159

The Talking Heads embraced a similar attitude about the inevitability of secular destruction. The band began as a quirky art group in the milieu of the original New York punk scene of the '70s, but by the '80s they were a pop band regularly landing songs in the Top 40. "Road to Nowhere", the final song on 1985's Little Creatures album, even reached number 25 on the pop charts. The song is a military march into the abyss, similar to the Turtles in its pure pop appeal. Above the martial beat vocalist David Byrne happily chants his own doom as a bevy of circus synthesizers chime melodies in the background. "We're on a road to nowhere / Come on inside … We're on the road to paradise / Here we go, here we go." Byrne subtlety hints at the religious overtones of the material, slyly referencing both the end of time and the new Jerusalem, "Here is where time is on our side … There's a city in my mind / Come along and take that ride." All the while, the beat provides a sense of inexorable movement as Byrne continues to refer to the apocalypse as a 'ride', implying that he and the listener are both just passengers. He never makes clear who exactly is in the pilot seat though: it could be God, Satan or even Ronald Reagan himself. 160

In 1988, the Talking Heads revisited the subject with "(Nothing But) Flowers". The song's rhythm is largely played on bongos, maracas and soft-brushed drums, showing the band's new interest in latin rhythms. If it lacks the expected rhythmic force of apocalyptic music though, it may be because the song is not about a march to destruction, it's about the aftermath. Much like the films of the time, Byrne paints a post-apocalyptic landscape for his protagonists, but rather than total ruin the world has returned to a state of natural paradise, "Here we stand / Like an Adam and an Eve / Waterfalls / The Garden of Eden / Two fools in love … The birds in the trees / Are smiling upon them." He goes on to detail a transformed Earth, describing the reverse of the modern world: nature encroaching on civilization. "Once there were parking lots / Now it's a peaceful oasis … This was a Pizza Hut / Now it's all covered with daisies." The breezy latin atmosphere of the song hints at jungles and tropical beaches, the modern ideal of paradise. Near the end of the relaxing song, Byrne throws in his biggest surprise: the new Garden of Eden, the promised end of time, isn't nearly as satisfying as the modern world was, "If this is paradise / I wish I had a lawnmower … I dream of cherry pies / Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies. Don't leave me stranded here / I can't get used to this lifestyle." 161

By the end of the '80s, it was apparent that Reagan's supporters had not succeeded in turning the clock back to the 1950s, but consumer culture had exploded once again. Computer technology was linking the world closer together, making business run faster and smoother. Big mergers consolidated control into the hands of a few corporations and begat the global economy. The Baby Boomers reached their greatest buying power as consumers in the '80s and their new families meant plenty of kid's toys to buy. Pop culture became almost unavoidable and '60s nostalgia was big business. The ex-hippies were ready to vote for Reagan but they still remembered their activist youth fondly. It was only natural to use the rebellious rock songs of the '60s to sell Coca-Cola or other products. And although this brought back happy memories for the Boomers and sold a lot of soft-drinks, it turned rock music into nostalgia, sapping it of much of its power. 162

Part and parcel of the nostalgia was the 'comeback' syndrome, "Bruce Springsteen, Steve Winwood, Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Tina Turner, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Pete Gabriel, Phil Collins, Paul Simon, John Fogerty, David Bowie, Jefferson Starship - all had 'hits' and staged comebacks in the post-MTV era." 163 Rock music became such a controlled commodity that Michael Jackson sold Pepsi, Budweiser sponsored the Rolling Stones and Reagan even used the Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" in his reelection campaign. 164 Now that the music was reduced to imagery and nostalgia, it was also easier to sell new music based mostly on image. MTV filled the void perfectly, offering music videos which were essentially advertisements for singles, albums or even just hairstyles.

Entertainment became such a big part of modern life that a whole industry of news and gossip just about pop culture sprang up. It became the only culture and the very "definition of 'culture' had expanded … Because of this, history itself was being mutated - more people remembered the Beatles than the Tonkin Gulf Resolution." Much like the reduction of rock music, "consciousness was being affected by symbols, not so much actual events. Television had a lot to do with this," especially the emergence of cable. "Momentous events became insignificant trivia … while insignificant celebrity types like Madonna took on mythic importance." 165

Into the pop culture milieu stepped REM, a band that had emerged out of an underground rock scene which had developed in America in the wake of punk. Their vision of the apocalypse was simply an information overload, a sensory death. Similar to X-Ray Spex's holocaust of junk, all the debris of pop culture was simply too much for the Earth to support. In "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", singer Michael Stipe spits out random strings of words and the names of semi-famous people during a rapid-fire staccato verse. It all begins with a natural disaster, similar to the Clash's "London Calling", "That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid." After which he descends into a free-associating stream of secular nonsense that only make one other clear reference to the apocalypse, "Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right." Although it's a midtempo pop song, Stipe's breathless cataloguing of 20th-century junk leaves the listener with the same sense of inexorable movement common to most apocalyptic music, "Mount St. Edelite. Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!" His voice is so fast it's liable to actually cause information overload in the listener before the chorus breezes in like a relief. Stipe simply sings the song's title over and over but after the crowded, confusing junk of the verse it is easy to understand his tired, apathetic desire to see the world end. 166

Elsewhere in the underground, New York City's Sonic Youth was also playing with pop culture. As the rampage of nostalgia swept the nation, anything from the '60s became marketable, even Charles Manson's apocalypse-fueled murders. Influenced first by pop music, Manson's image had returned to the pop conscious as a symbol of '60s excess. It's no surprise that he became the subject of one of Sonic Youth's more brutal songs. Influenced by the noisy end of the punk movement, the band frequently used alternate tunings, atonal chords and feedback as elements of their song-writing. Their sound offered the perfect backdrop for Manson's deranged apocalyptic murders, even more than the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" which had inspired him in the first place.

The title of Sonic Youth's ode to Manson was "Death Valley '69", a reference to the lowest point in North America where Manson hoped to wait out the apocalypse. The song begins with a woman's shriek and the band lays down a pounding rhythm over scraping chords filled with the same harshness as Funkadelic's "Wars of Armageddon". The lyrics don't delve too far into Manson himself but stick with a series of disconnected, disturbing images loosely connected by murder, "She started to holler / So I had to hit it / hit it / hit it / hit it / Deep in the valley / In the trunk of an old car / In the back of a Chevy / I got sand in my mouth you got sand in your mouth / And you got sun in your eyes / I got sun in your eyes / Blind blinded." Singer Thurston Moore lays down the fragmented story over a bed of static as guest vocalist Lydia Lunch shrieks behind him, successfully channeling the disturbed cries of Manson's victims. The song is punishing and creates a confusing, claustrophobic atmosphere that forces the listener to fill in those blanks left by the loose lyrics. It is very possible to imagine Manson's racial apocalypse coming true when set to the screeching hum of "Death Valley '69."

Reagan's confrontational attitude with the Soviet Union made people rethink the safety of nuclear armament, bringing the apocalyptic vision back to the frightful days of the 1950s and early 1960s, when mutual annihilation seemed not only possible but inevitable. The attitude of the apocalyptic music in the 1980s had accepted this inevitability, a marked change in comparison with past apocalyptic music. The songs were no longer frightened of destruction or eager for redemption, it was simply another fact of life: taxes are too high, we have to go to work, and we're all going to die in a horrible conflict. Bands like the Talking Heads were even planning what they would do after the apocalypse.

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142 Harrington, 401.

143 Lejon, Kjell O.U. Reagan, Religion and Politics, 128. Sweden, Lund University Press, 1988.

144 Marcus. Ranters, 201.

145 Harrington, 395.

146 Baumgartner, 239.

147 Lejon, 85.

148 Lieb, Michael. Children of Ezekiel, 111. Duke University Press, 1998.

149 Baumgartner, 239.

150 Lejon, 10.

151 Lejon, 130.

152 Baumgartner, 241.

153 Patterson, James T. "Afterword: Legacies of the Reagan Years." The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and its Legacies, edited by W. Elliot Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham, 356. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2003.

154Lieb, 115.

155 Heclo, Hugh. "Ronald Reagan and the American Public Philosophy." The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and its Legacies, edited by W. Elliot Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham, 20. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2003.

156 Lejon, 48.

157 Heclo, 22.

158 Lejos, 48.

159 Prince. "1999", 1999, 1983.

160 Talking Heads. "Road to Nowhere", Little Creatures, 1985.

161 Talking Heads, "(Nothing But) Flowers", Naked, 1988.

162 Harrington, 417.

163 Harrington, 419.

164 Harrington, 420.

165 Harrington, 429.

166 REM. "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", Document, 1987.