List of songs about the Cold War
This is a list of songs about the Cold War.
- "19" by Paul Hardcastle
- "1999" by Prince - "Yeah, everybody's got a bomb, We could all die any day" - referring to nuclear proliferation.
- "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden – refers to the Doomsday Clock, the symbolic clock used by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In September 1953 the clock reached 23:58, the closest the clock ever got to midnight. This occurred when the United States and Soviet Union tested H-bombs within nine months of one another.
- "99 Luftballons" by German singer Nena – the song imagines a world where the release of 99 balloons triggers governments to scramble fighter jets to intercept them, ultimately leading to total nuclear annihilation.
- "A Great Day for Freedom"
- "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan - widely interpreted by reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis, even though it was written before that date (1962).
- "Back in the USSR" by the Beatles - expresses the singer's great happiness on returning home to the USSR from the United States; political observers saw it as pro-Soviet.
- "Balls to the Wall" – about human rights.
- "Be Not Always", a 1984 song from The Jacksons' Victory LP
- "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" – written in reaction to the visit paid by U.S. president Ronald Reagan to a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, on May 5, 1985
- "Breathing" by Kate Bush – about a foetus aware of what is going on outside the womb and frightened by nuclear fallout, which implies that the song is set either during a nuclear war scare or a post-apocalyptic birth
- "Bullet the Blue Sky" – originally written about the United States' military intervention during the 1980s in the Salvadoran Civil War
- "Burning Heart" – the East versus West conflict is reflected by the fight in the boxing ring between Rocky and Ivan Drago
- "Christmas at Ground Zero" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
- "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne – main theme of the song is criticism of Cold War.
- "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour
- "Defcon" by Impakt (Dunk Yer Funk Records)
- "Der Kommissar" by Falco
- "Dominion/Mother Russia"
- "Eighties" by Killing Joke
- "Eve of Destruction"
- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears
- "Everyday Is Like Sunday"
- "Forever Young" by Alphaville
- "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival - discusses the sons of "fortunate" men in America who avoided the draft to Vietnam thanks to their family's wealth or prestige.
- "Games Without Frontiers"
- "Goodnight Saigon" - about the Vietnam War.
- "Great Atomic Power" by Charlie Louvin - using the fear that nuclear bombs could wipe out the world to invoke repentance.
- "Hammer to Fall"
- "Heresy" by Rush
- "Heroes" by David Bowie – a love song depicting lovers kissing "by the wall"; many songs from Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy" albums invoke themes of the Cold War, as they were recorded in West Berlin.
- "Hiroshima"
- "Holidays in the Sun" by the Sex Pistols
- "It's a Mistake" by Men at Work
- "Land of Confusion" by Genesis
- "Lawyers, Guns and Money"
- "Leningrad" by Billy Joel
- "Mutually Assured Destruction" by Gillan
- "Nikita" – a love song set against the East German border: the singer describes his crush on a beautiful border guard whom he cannot meet because he is not allowed into the country.
- "Nuku pommiin"
- "New Year's Day" by U2
- "Oh Moscow"
- "Ordinary People" - 1987 - A Canadian pop rock song by 'The Box' drawing contrasts between life in USA and USSR.
- "Party at Ground Zero"
- "Radio Free Europe" by R.E.M.
- "Renegade" by Steppenwolf
- "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones
- "Ronnie – Talk To Russia!" – cover says "Featuring Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev"
- "Russians" by Sting - about hoping the "Russians love their children too" because that could be the only thing to save them from destruction if the East and West keep provoking each other
- "So Long Mom (A Song For World War III)", by Tom Lehrer
- "Subterraneans"
- "The Fletcher Memorial Home"
- "The Tide Is Turning" by Roger Waters
- "The Visitors" by ABBA
- "The Wall" by Steppenwolf
- "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
- "Two Suns in the Sunset" by Pink Floyd
- "Washington Bullets" by The Clash - from the Sandanista! album (a reference to the communist rebel group in Nicaragua), the song condemns American anti-communist military activity in Latin America, ending with criticism of other major superpowers during the era
- "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel - a cleverly structured list of historical events of the Cold War period from the 1950s-1980s
- "Weeping Wall" by David Bowie – described by Bowie as intending to evoke the misery of the Berlin Wall (see the description of Heroes above)
- "When the Wind Blows" also by David Bowie
- "Wind of Change" by Scorpions
- "State of the Nation" by Industry
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