The Smiths – “Ask” (1986)
Morrissey was always a morose character, so leave it to him to deploy a nuclear bomb reference off-handedly like he does in the Smiths’ non-album classic “Ask.” “If it’s not love/ Then it’s the bomb that’ll bring us together” he sings repeatedly. It doesn’t seem as if there’s a real Cold War narrative here. It’s just an example of how the prospect of nuclear war was so constant, so part of everyday life, that it could function almost like a conversational hinge.
Waldina 