I recently watched my DVD of the great documentary The Atomic Café, a stunning compilation of newsreels, television broadcasts and other mixed media about the birth of the atomic bomb and tests conducted in the West Coast desert for its development.
The soundtrack to the film is a fascinating combination of country swing and folk songs all concerning the threat of communism, the bomb, and the threat of an impending nuclear war. I normally sandwich this film in between viewings of Kiss Me Deadly and A Boy and His Dog, but that’s another story.
I wrote a poem about the film and while it’s not as contemplative as I’d liked it to be, it’s close to expressing the anxiety that ran through every American at the time. I call it In Bed With The Bomb.
In Bed With The Bomb
I was just a gleam in a physicist’s eye the final solution from a 12 o’clock high blowing to bits to a teeny weenie no people atoll in my radioactive bikini
I’m in bed with the bomb I’m about to kingdom come drop it now, stop it how? duck and cover, my atomic lover
Then I lost my nuclear virginity on a hot summer’s day in a place called Trinity caught the atomic dose in Los Alamos a sleepy hollow like Castle Bravo
Got the Manhattan Project in my pocket hydrogen, neutron, can you fuel this rocket? shield your eyes and drop the bomb radiation bath fries in the napalm
Waving it around like a loaded gun take a look around now everybody’s got one you think the answer to it all is a mushroom cloud I’d rather see your corpse wrapped up in a shroud
I’m in bed with the bomb I’m about to kingdom come drop it now, stop it how? duck and cover, my atomic lover
Well, it’s not Phil Ochs but it’s not The Weirdos, either (“we don’t really want it but we got it anyway”). Since there was so much bluegrass in the movie I decided to play my mandolin hardcore punk style to give it an urgent, bluegrass tempo. Here’s the link to the “chune”:
