A QUIET EXPLOSION

The year is 2016 and we are being “led” by the mentally deranged: asked if she would approve a nuclear attack that could kill 100,000 people in Britain, Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa May simply answered ‘Yes’ and seemed to be very proud of her statement. She wants more money for the Trident nuclear programme.

The year is 1966 and protests against the nuclear threat have been going on ever since the American army brought Japan on its knees by dropping two atom bombs. The world’s so-called ‘superpowers’ soon started  a nuclear race and within a matter of years developed enough atomic weaponry to wipe out all life on earth many times over. In the UK, the fist Aldermaston March was organised in 1958 by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament or CND. Its aim was simple: no nuclear weapons. Many marches would follow. Protesters – men and women of all ages and from all walks of life – would be stopped, driven back, beaten, arrested, jailed, convicted….  The CND wanted just this one thing: disarmament, a goal not understood by the military, nor by the other powers that be.

In the sixties, people felt that a nuclear war could happen any time and the near-clash that we know as ‘The Cuban Crisis’ only confirmed their worst fear. Governments distributed leaflets about actions to be taken in the case of a nuclear attack. Schoolchildren actually exercised  how to hide and protect against the fallout, wealthier citizens had a nuclear shelter built, governments had entire shelters constructed to house top officials. Jeff Nutall’s forgotten book ‘Bomb Culture’ says it all: our entire culture, our entire way of life was actually dominated by the impending catastrophe. An entire younger generation grew up with the idea that the end could really be near, any time. This feeling of helplessness combined with a strong sentiment of the uselessness of life and the meaninglessness of morals, explains the explosion of energy and creativity of the generation that shaped the 60s.

The threat was omnipresent in culture too. Black humour and utter cynicism are at the core of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ (1964). Peter Watkins’ ‘War Game’ (1965) was banned straight away. Dozens of artists recorded songs about the nuclear disaster to come and some did not even take it seriously –  depicting a nuclear shelter as the perfect hiding place for lovers....  Tom Lehrer’s cynical  ‘We Will All go Together When We Go’ can be found on his live album from 1959 and Homer Harris released ‘Atom Bomb Blues’ (with Muddy Waters on guitar) as early as 1947!

The year is 1966 and in January 1966 a band from Birmingham calling themselves The Uglys released their third single, with the self-written ‘A Quiet Explosion’ on the B-side. The title is perfectly clear: when the bomb falls, we’ll all be gone before we know it. It will come like a thief in the night. The record went nowhere, nor did The Ugly’s. Still, this is the song that illustrates the first chapter of Jon Savage’s ‘1966. The Year the Decade Exploded’ (Faber & Faber, UK, 2015).  

© Eddy Bonte
As published on Radio 68’s website www.radio68.be as background information for my show ‘Free Speech’ of 1st & 2nd August 2016
(redactie 27Oct2016)

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