Radium Rain by Bruce Cockburn

http://brucecockburn.com/
more comment from bruce- http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/rr.html

-- Radium Rain --
8 May 1986. Cologne.

They're hosing down trucks at the border under a rainbow sign --
The raindrops falling on my head burn into my mind
On a hillside in the distance there's a patch of green sunshine
Ain't it a shame
Ain't it a shame
About the radium rain

Everyday in the paper you can watch the numbers rise
No such event can over take us here, we're much too wise
In the meantime don't eat anything that grows and don't breathe when the cars go by
Ain't it a shame
Ain't it a shame
About the radium rain

Big motorcycle rumbles out of the rain like some creation of mist
There's a man on a roof with a blindfold on and a hand grenade in his fist
I walk stiff, with teeth clenched tight, filled with nostalgia for a clean wind's kiss
Ain't it a shame
Ain't it a shame
About the radium rain

A flock of birds writes something on the sky in a language I can't understand
God's graffiti -- but it don't say why so much evil seems to land on man
When everyone I meet just wants to live and love, and get along as best they can
Ain't it a shame
Ain't it a shame
About the radium rain

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bruce Cockburn
• Chernobyl
• Nuclear Accident
• Pollution

[MsTubbytube]

I am wondering how Bruce knew of it 3 days after - I heard from a Bulgarian man that most people in the area were not told about it until about a week after it happened, after some had already been outside harvesting their crops etc. Perhaps Americans/Canadians heard about it sooner than Ukrainians and Russians?

If you put together the images, thank you. I could provide a link to an interesting photoblog of a trip there a couple years ago by a scientist on motorcycle.

[newastro13]

@MsTubbytube - thanks, yes, i'd like to have a look at that photoblog...

[newastro13]

from the cockburn project, comes this:

Known comments by Bruce Cockburn

# 1990 - "Radium Rain, for instance, came out of, uh, my own experience of the aftermath of Chernobyl, in Germany. I'd gotten, I arrived in Germany three days after Chernobyl happened. I had wrestled with myself to some degree before I left, thinking "Oh, I don't know. I wonder about going to Europe at this moment." But it seemed...

[drafishy]

This is what we are having right here in Japan today. I always liked his songs but I didn't know this song...what a shame!

[1Geronimodeleon]

@MsTubbytube really sad to think that the outside world heard about it sooner than those nearby.

It wouldn't surprise me, though.

[461508olwb]

日本でも、福島の原発がいろいろな波紋を呼んでいる昨今、今更な­がら Bruce Cockburn の Radium Rain は心を深く撃つ。

[ggatined]

Great song, almost prescient. Topical and timely post, thanks! Got this link from the Humans list. Looking forward to seeing Bruce live in Winnipeg next month.

[DragansAerie]

Thanx for this overlooked gem from all those 'Humans'  that share this passion for the music of Bruce.