“Life in the European Theater” 1982. Compilation album of mostly British new wave/punk/ska bands, sale royalties went to benefit anti-nuke organizations. It’s a good – and weird – comp, with a couple of head-scratching, “one of these things is not like the others” moments. The best, and obvious, inclusions are the punk/power pop tracks (“London Calling” by The Clash and “Nuclear Device” by The Stranglers), followed closely by ska boppers “I Am Your Flag” (The Beat), “Grey Day” (Madness) and, surprisingly for me as I’m not a big fan, “Living Through Another Cuba” by XTC which is a rollicking great song. I adore Echo & The Bunnymen so appreciate their selection “All That Jazz” and the same goes for the The Jam with “Little Boy Soldiers.” I don’t fully understand Peter Gabriel’s appearance with “I Don’t Remember” — I like Peter Gabriel but his experimental pop rock song is just…odd in the context of the rest of the record. But that oddity is nothing compared to The Doors “Peace Frog.” I actually LOVE that classic ass-shaker – it’s my all-time favorite of theirs – but The Doors are most definitely NOT European, they recorded “Peace Frog” in 1970 (10 years or so before most of the other tracks on the comp) and it has nothing to do with any kind of anti-nuclear, energy or war, stance (it has more to do with Jim Morrison’s onstage arrest in ’67 and American highway accidents). Life in the European Theater was released on a different label (WEA) in ’81 that had Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ “Reasons to Be Cheerful Pt. 3” instead of “Peace Frog.” Which makes a lot more sense for this comp.

The liner notes explain the impetus for this comp: in the early 80’s fear of nuclear power was at an all-time high with the Three Mile Island meltdown (1979) still fresh in people’s minds. My family lived about 25 miles from a nuclear power plant that was (still is) on the shore of Lake Michigan and I remember my parents fretting big time about our safety in the early 80’s.

“Nuclear Power: No single civil industry threatens our lives, and the lives of future generations, with such brutal finality as Nuclear Power.
It will have a deep and damaging effect on all of us. An enourmous, appalling expensive risk. Despite the soothing words of the nuclear industry, accidents will happen.
Everyday, the radioactive rubbish dump of lethal nuclear waste grows bigger – in spite of the fact that no one yet knows how to dispose of it with safety and certainty.
It is a deadly inheritance to leave our children and their children. Of course, everyone needs energy – now, and in the future. But heat from atom spliting will fail to provide the kind of secure source of energy and we all need because it is complex, over-centralised, and unreliable, and also creates the materials for any country to assemble an atomic bomb.
Meanwhile, it is diverting vast sums of money and scientific resources away from the only true long-term solutions to our energy needs; an energy conservation programme, coupled with the harnessing of the only abundant source of energy the world will always have – the sun.
Will it dawn on us?”
-Roger Deakin, Friends of the Earth.