Page - 82 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

anti-institutional” character of punk music knew “only one activity: the erasure of all traces of our times … calling only for destruction (including its own)”.60 Hence, “London Calling” – as well as many other analogous punk songs – is a clear representative of pre-critical dystopia. In the 1980s videos routinely showed the images and sounds of bombs and peo- ple screaming. In R. E. M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” (A–5), the band tackles typical apocalyptic imagery, with vibrating juxtaposition of the upbeat melo- dy and Michael Stipe’s sharp irony: “It’s the end of the world …/And I feel fine”. The joyful tone of the song together with the visual narration of a devastated boy who visits the ruins of his parental home and cries as he hugs the portrait of his father completes the contrast, emotionally burdening the spectator. Irony is used effec- tively from the first verse: “That’s great, it starts with an earthquake”. But above all there is the warning: “Save yourself … / It’s the end of the world as we know it”. Morrissey released “Everyday is like Sunday” (A–6) as the story of a survivor of a nuclear holocaust who even desires to have died: “How I dearly wish I was not here / In the seaside town / that they forgot to bomb / … Come – nuclear bomb!”. The lyrics are inspired by Nevil Shute’s post-apocalyptic novel On the Beach (1957), which describes a group of people waiting for deadly radiation in Melbourne, Aus- tralia, in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Morrissey uses a surprisingly light-spirited orchestral arrangement, perhaps to lend a layer of causticness to the bleak scenar- io. Despite the apparent renunciation of living, this song – and its official video clip – is one of the first representatives of critical dystopia within popular music: the main character (a young girl) does not accept the de-humanized culture that surrounds her and sends critical explicit messages, like the ecological poster she writes: “Meat is murder”. She also attacks two old canting women. It is a militant-protest song, calling for rebellion and action, in search of a different society and future. Very different is the case of “The Earth Died Screaming”, by Tom Waits (A–7). The official video clip was shot in black-and-white, perhaps to stress the two opposite-colour extremes as symbols of life and death, of good and evil. The refrain is also based in the opposition of destruction and love, in a combination comparable to the final scene of 1964 Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove (UK/US), one of the greatest icons of dystopian films;61 “Well, the earth died screaming / While I lay dreaming / Dreaming of you”. However, the outstanding feature of Waits’ performance is his guttural and deep voice tone, violently distorted, ac- companied by mechanical and disquieting percussion. From a formal point of view, this is one of the songs that pays more attention to the sound parameters of the apocalypse, at least as a musician may imagine them. 60 Shahan 2011: 374–375. See Frith 1995. 61 Another dystopian film directed by Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange (UK/US 1971), after Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel of the same title, is a foremost representative of dystopian cinema. Its soundtrack, by Wendy Carlos, includes striking electronic arrangements of classical pieces. 82 | Javier Campos Calvo-Sotelo www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 69–94