Great Atomic Power - existential angst in Country music

Listen to the words of this amazing song from the "age of anxiety" in the Cold War, when both sides were paranoid about imminent attack, either from each other or by alien forces, like Men from Mars. This song is a good example of how popular culture absorbed the Zeitgeist. Being devout Southern Baptists, the Louvin Brothers thought in the context of Armageddon, so their answer to the predicament could come straight from a pulpit,  enhanced by hillbilly harmony and the twang of guitars. Interesting how they equate Christianity with an "army". Not all so far from the Knights of the Grail in Wagner's Parsifal. Maybe it's a universal response to threat, but Jesus didn't teach violence. Interesting too, how singers like Ira Louvin thought in strict religious terms but lived wildly irreligious lives. Ira died a wreck in 1965. Charlie, the less demon driven brother, (the babyface) died aged 83 last month, singing tributes to Ira to the end. That's genuine love.
 
"Do you fear Man's Great Invention that they call Atomic Power, Are we all in great confusion, do we know the time or hour? When a terrible explosion may rain down upon our land, leaving horrible destruction, blotting out the Works of Man?

"Are you ready, to meet that Great Atomic Power, will you rise and meet your Saviour in the air ? Will you shuddeer, will you cry, when the fire rains down from high, are you ready for that Great Atomic Power?

"There is one way to escape it, be prepared to meet The Lord, put your faith and heart in Jesus,. he will be your shield and sword. He will stand beside and you'll never feel the test, for your soul will fly to safety and eternal peace and rest.

"There's an army that can conquer all the regiments of man, ....when the Mushroom of Destruction falls in all its might, God will surely save his children from that awful, awful fate."

Satan is Real

Polyphony lives in Alabama

Polyphony lives ! This is one of Charles and Ira Louvin's greatest hits. Their close harmony is so tight, it's almost symbiotic, as if each voice grows out of the other. Like twins, intuitively completing each other's sentences. Ira (b 1924) was the tall, haunted looking brother, the creative fireball who wrote many of the songs and played a strange mandolin he built himself. His is the high tenor and does descant that can reach countertenor heights, truly surreal.Charles (b 1927) sings the steadier lower part.

This kind of harely accompanied harmonic singing was what people did in isolated mountainous areas in the Bible belt. No easy transport, no mass communications. People were dirt poor and made their own entertainment. Somewhere along the way, part song left the church and became folk idiom. Traditional folk tunes from Europe adapt, hymns become popular song. It's very creative.

This song, one of their greatest hits, develops like Lieder : anxiety, self doubt, sudden reversal on denouement, but understated and sincere. Love in that chaste, tentative but deeply felt 19th century way. It's even Allnächtlich im Traüme !

What I love about the Louvins is that they're so unself conscious that they they can be kitsch, because they're so totally sincere. It's refreshing. They sang a lot of goispel songs, but all that piety didn't help the troubled genius of Ira Louvin. By age 30 he was alcoholic. He married four times, and attacked at least one of his wives. Charles couldn't cope and the duo split up. In 1965 Ira was killed in a drunken car crash. Eeriely, many of his songs were about the evils of drink and drunk driving in particular - another very Liederish irony. Charlie's still performing, aged 82, he wrote a song remembering his brother which makes me weep.

Below is a rare clip from a radio show they did in thhe early 1950's. In those days people just turned up at the studio and sang and talked - no fancy takes. It's the real thing, not so far from performing live at home or with friends. They are so unsophisticated that they ask the audience to send dollar bills in the post to buy songbooks. (People used to buy song books then so they could sing the songs themselves, before records became common. I love the innocence of this clip, it comes from another world.