Modern Songwriters Tune In to Atomic Bomb : Music: A hit is rare, but the theme is incorporated into a wide range of post-Hiroshima works.

When the Atomic Age dawned 47 years ago, one of its side effects was a new theme in music, one that continues unabated to this day.

But it hasn’t been the stuff that hits are made of.

Dina Titus and Jerry Simich, two political science professors here who have collected and studied nearly 300 songs about atomic bombs and nuclear power, have found only one that made it to No. 1: Barry McGuire’s 1965 “Eve of Destruction.”

“These are not the songs that normally make the hit list,” conceded Simich.

Simich, 51, who teaches a “Politics in Music” course at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the first song of this genre, “When the Atomic Bomb Fell” by Karl Davis and Harty Taylor, was released by Columbia in April, 1946.

Initially, songs tended toward the reverential and spiritual, praising the bomb as the answer to a soldier’s prayer and a means of ending the war.

Later songs were about radioactivity from power plants, dumping radioactive junk in the ocean and other environmental issues. “We Almost Lost Detroit” was written in 1975 when a near-disaster occurred at a Michigan nuclear power plant.

Titus, 41, a Democratic senator in the Nevada Legislature as well as a political science professor at UNLV, said that the atomic theme has carried through various forms of music: “Gospel, country, jazz, rock, folk, reggae, novelty, punk, heavy metal, calypso, boogie, polka, popular, new wave, classical--you name it, with new titles appearing all the time.

“There were more songs published in the ‘80s with the atomic theme than ever before,” she said.

She authored “Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American Politics” (University of Nevada Press, 1986).

“It was a natural convergence that Dina and I would get together to study the phenomena of atomic music,” said Simich. “With the atomic testing facility a few miles north of Las Vegas, it’s easy to understand why the bomb is a big part of our culture around here.”

A scientific paper based on their study, “From ‘Atomic Bomb Baby’ to ‘Nuclear Funeral’: Atomic Music Comes of Age,” was published in Bowling Green State University’s quarterly “Popular Music & Society.”

One musical composition that Simich describes as “something everyone should hear at least once” is Polish-born Krzystof Penderecki’s classical 1956 composition “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima.” He described it as “a horrifying piece of music--not the kind of thing you listen to for pleasure.”

The nine-minute piece for 52 stringed instruments depicts the destruction of Hiroshima. Another classical work in their collection is “Hiroshima,” a 1964 cantata by Ivan Hrusovsky, recorded by the Slovak Symphony Orchestra.

At least two atomic songs have been sung on Broadway, “20 Tons of TNT” (1967) in the play “At the Drop of Another Hat,” and Eric Blau’s version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” in the review “O Oysters,” including “six guided missiles” and a “Telefunken H-bomb” as gifts the singer’s true love gave to him.

Gospel songs include Lee McCullum’s “Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb,” which warns that when the Lord comes he will “hit, Great God Almighty, like an atom bomb.” In the Harlan County Four’s “The Atomic Telephone,” there is a line: “I have talked to Jesus on the atomic telephone.”

Billy Hughes and the Rhythm Buckaroos’ “Atomic Sermon” warns: “Better stop them scientists from researching, ‘cause they done gone too far.” Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” cautions: “Because of radiation underground, things ain’t what they used to be.” And, John Boardman’s “The Asteroid Light” reveals: “The deuterons flashed in her hydrogen hair; I looked again, and my mother wasn’t there.”

Among rock songs are Sonny Russell’s “50 Megatons.” Orange County’s D.I.’s punk song, “Nuclear Funeral,” protests stockpiling atomic weapons. In “Russians,” Sting sings: “How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?”

Several stellar stars composed and sang atomic songs. Bob Dylan wrote “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Woodie Guthrie asked “Why do your bombs drop down from my sky?” in his 1950 song, “I’ve Got to Know.”

“Songwriters use nuclear explosions as metaphors for sexual experiences,” wrote Simich in the Bowling Green quarterly, citing as examples, “Thirteen Women” by Bill Haley and the Comets. The singer dreams about the H-bomb and, after it went off, “There were 13 women and only one man in town.” That song, incidentally, was on the flip side of Haley’s early rock ‘n’ roll hit record, “Rock Around the Clock.”

In “Atomic Bomb Baby” by the Five Stars, the sexual references include: “She’s just the way I want her to be, a million times hotter than TNT.”

One of the first songs in the genre was “Old Man Atom” composed in 1946 by Vern Partlow, a writer for the old Los Angeles Daily News. The song, a talking blues, later recorded by the Sons of the Pioneers, warns against the misuses of atomic power.

Titus and Simich have card files, records, tapes and sheet music of atomic music. They find the music in record stores, in music catalogues, consulting with disc jockeys. Students have provided them with much of the music, especially punk, heavy metal and reggae.

“Atomic bombs and nuclear power are like the air and water. They are part of life. Our collection is primarily American. We have some European material but not much. We have nothing from Russia. Surely there must be songs about Chernobyl,” said Simich.

Many atomic songs were never recorded--especially during the ‘60s, songs sung at concerts, sit-ins and demonstrations, Simich said. “What we have shows how music reflects current political trends, how atomic music has continued as a major theme since the detonation of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” he said.