Five Metal Songs of Nuclear Destruction

North Korea’s successful underground test of a nuclear weapon harkens chilling memories of the Cold War. As terrifying as the arms race was for the world, though, it was fodder for songwriters of all genres.

Not surprisingly, metal bands have excelled at painting bleak pictures of nuclear holocaust, full of accusation and admonishment. Here are five examples from the GreenBookofSongs.com® database:

Fight Fire With Fire Metallica

More than one Metallica song covers nuclear destruction. We open with this one because it’s so focused. It’s not about blame, it’s not about protest. The song is just about doom, and it won’t be pretty: “Soon to fill our lungs the hot winds of death / The gods are laughing, so take your last breath.”

Electric Funeral Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath gets graphic with a warning even warriors can’t ignore: “Buildings crashing down / To Earth’s crackling ground / Rivers turn to wood / Eyes melt into blood.” There’s no escape, and hell opens for those who destroyed the planet.

Final Six Slayer

Slayer is here to help everyone vividly imagine what Armageddon looks like. “A stream is poisoned by the dead / In the ghostly light debris of war.” And they know who’s responsible, too: “Mankind owes his pain to hell / As he brings the end upon himself.” Despite Biblical images, there’s no foisting blame on the devil for this.

When The Walls Came Tumbling Down Def Leppard

This song also wonders whether the end of the world is “the revenge of the gods” or “the aftermath of the radium bomb.” Maybe it’s both, because the result looks the same, with “tidal waves and open graves” as humanity’s fate.

One World Anthrax

After 9/11, this band’s name became anathema. But their message was actually anti-war in this Star Wars-era song. Russians are “only people like us” who “don’t love their lives less.” “Ignorance is no excuse for violence / No one wins.” Consider thrash metal the new instrument for peace!

The U.S. Labor Department reported last week that unemployment has climbed to 8.9% — much higher if you include those who have given up looking for work. Pretty bleak numbers, and of course, numbers don’t tell the story.

GreenBookofSongs.com® selected ten songs tell it all — the frustration, the anger, the despair. These songs reach all the way from the Great Depression to the current crisis, from steel mills and auto assembly lines to coal mines and farms, and show in ways statistics never can that some things about job loss are timeless.

10. Unemployment J.J. Cale

Just the bare basics of unemployment in this song — beating the pavement, compromising on pay, settling for any kind of honest work. “You won’t have to pay me overtime…You just tell me what time and where at.” First loss: expectations.

9. Allentown Billy Joel 

Factories close, young people move on, towns dissolve. As Joel puts it, “Every child had a pretty good shot / To get at least as far as their old man got / But something happened on the way to that place.” Casualty of hard times: the American Dream.

8.  Johnny 99 Bruce Springsteen

If we haven’t seen an increase in crime yet, maybe it’s coming. Springsteen’s protaganist can’t find a job, loses his home to the bank and has “debts no honest man could pay.” End result: acts of desperation that lead to jail.

7. Cafe On The Corner Sawyer Brown

“Johnny 99″ that crime doesn’t pay, but for the farmer in this song, ”Neither does farmin’ these days.” The local cafe is now staffed by men who long for the fields. People who lose careers may find other work, but the habits and rhythms of a lifetime are gone for good. Price paid: sense of belonging and place.

6. Computer Took My Job Maurice John Vaughn

When 20 years on the job are no match for a computer and “your best just ain’t good enough,” self-worth is compromised. This classic blues song makes the point that the unemployed aren’t asking for a handout — they just need a job. Wanted: self-respect.

5. Shuttin’ Detroit Down John Rich

Rich’s recent release speaks to the class antagonisms that result when “DC’s bailing out the bankers as the farmers auction ground,” and bosses collect bonuses while assembly lines grind to a halt. Another cost of unemployment: political unrest.

4. Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) Styx

This powerful song expresses not just the urgency of the job seeker — “Make me an offer that I can’t refuse / Make me respectable, man” — but also the raw determination to get out of the unemployment line, whatever the odds. It’s too close to desperation to be a  song of hope, but it’s got the essential American ingredient: refusal to quit.

3. Fred Jones Part 2 Ben Folds

This timely song about losing a newspaper job crystalizes that moment when it all slips away: “Twenty-five years he’s worked at the paper / A man’s here to take him downstairs / And I’m sorry, Mr. Jones, it’s time.” No party, no parting, just a box of belongings and an escort out of the building. The emotions of getting fired: shock and loss.

2. Brother, Can You Spare A Dime Bing Crosby

Perhaps the quintessential song of the Great Depression, these lyrics are the cry of a generation that raised skyscrapers, built railroads and won a World War, but found themselves left with breadlines and despair. “They used to tell me I was building a dream / With peace and glory ahead / Why should I be standing in line / Just waiting for bread?” It reminds us: this is how bad it could get.

1. Don’t Give Up Peter Gabriel

You may want to grab a hankie before listening to this heartbreaking duet by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, but that’s not why it’s our choice for the most important song about unemployment. Gabriel voices the despair of the man who has lost his place: “I’ve changed my face, I’ve changed my name / But no one wants you when you lose.” At each turn, Bush offers the comfort of love: “You’re not the only one…You still have us…We’re proud of who you are.” When the world is crumbling around you, family is the best and sometimes only refuge. And that’s the final characteristic of unemployment: what’s left is sometimes what matters most.