1157 (‘Til It’s Over)

Potential trigger warning for nuclear holocaust, PTSD, and bad dreams.  If you’re already having a crummy day, come back to this later. <3

Turns out that when I have a nightmare, it’s not about giant robots or giant sea monster dinosaur leviathan kaiju, a la Pacific Rim.  It’s about getting nuked, and not being able to hold my loved ones tightly to me as it happens.

This was precisely the content of the last bad dream that I had.  It’s been several months, and I had forgotten about it.  I remembered it Thursday evening when my partner told me the Doomsday Clock had been set to 11:57 (as in PM, with Midnight being crisis o’clock for humankind) by its keepers, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.  The realities of global climate change, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and tech problems such as hacking of government entities prompted the new setting, or so I have read.

I did not actually know that the Doomsday Clock was a thing.  Now I’m mildly obsessed. At least obsessed enough to write a new song almost immediately.  I’m not the first. Not even close.

I don’t usually write songs that frighten me, but this one is the essence of turning one of your nightmares (one that isn’t necessarily far fetched, to be exact) into art.  I’ve posted the lyrics below.  I’m hoping to post a quick acoustic video as well, even though the arrangement for this song in my head is heavily electronic.  (Lyrics under the cut)

Someone recently said to me that the earth is not in danger, we are in danger.  I’m concerned that I may get a little bit of hate for posting this piece, most likely from people who still don’t recognize climate change as reality, or who’d rather I not suggest that our kind has not done the best we could have done throughout history.  Let me say right now that it’s not my place to criticize anyone’s past decisions or heroic actions, and that’s not my intent here.

My intent is to share and to deal with the things that frighten me, in an artistic way, as a citizen of the modern world, in hopes of comforting others who suffer from the same fears.  I am not a conspiracy theorist or a fatalist.  I’m just a songwriter who’s chosen to take this particular subject matter very seriously.

1157 (Til It’s Over)