The song is 'Sad Eye' By 'The Pretty Things' And, If this seems like a strange choice of soundtrack, well, read on.
The video footage is of the largest US nuclear atmospheric test: 'Bravo' which took place in 1954.
The explosive yield of this single detonation was more than 1000 times the energy released in the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs. The high yield was in excess of the 5 megatons expected due to an incomplete understanding of the nuclear transmutation events that were to take place upon detonation, the resulting 15,000,000 TNT-equivalent ton explosion was the most powerful ever detonated by the United States.
The decision to test this weapon was made even though the prevailing winds were tending toward the nearby Marshall Islands. The resulting fallout rained down upon the islanders and was also the most serious case of poising from a nuclear test. Approximately 300 people received radiation doses of around 100 Rads. The US initiated project 4.1 to study the effect of the contamination on the islanders (although they did not obtain informed consent). Conspiracy theorists have speculated that the contamination was intentional, as the data gathered from those exposed would be of great use to the military, although, there is no compelling evidence of this.
The crew of the Japanese fishing vessel, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (Lucky Dragon), were heavily contaminated by radioactive ash from the device and all were suffering from acute radiation sickness when they returned to port two weeks later. The radio operator, Aikichi Kuboyama subsequently died. It is estimated that as many as one hundred boats in the area at the time of the test were also contaminated. Fallout from the device was detected throughout the globe, as far as Europe and Australia. The political fallout was profound and resulted in international calls for cessation of nuclear testing.
This was also the last atmospheric test of a nuclear weapon by the United States.
The song 'Sad Eye' appears on the 1975 Savage Eye album by The Pretty Things.
It appeared in MY life around 1976 as the background music to a particularly painful break-up and I guess, the piece has haunted me ever since. As well as nailing the 1970s forever in my memory, this track has many complex associations to how I was feeling at the time.
Id seen the nuclear test clip on YouTube a while back and I was struck by the inappropriately jaunty musical track that the original poster had attached to it and I got to thinking about what might be a more fitting accompaniment; which is when Sad Eye came to mind. Ripping, editing, filtering and adding the audio track took me a few hours the hardest part was trying to tie in some of the on-screen imagery with the lyrics.
So.
If the juxtaposition of a sweet, and rather naïve song about loss and yearning for happier times, with seductive images of almost unimaginable destruction makes anyone think a little more deeply about the responsibilities we all have to make peace in our troubled world....
Then that can only be a good thing.
*
"You were a special one,
Like the setting of the sun,
Now it's too late to help me."
Love.
