This is What We've Waited For

A warm winter’s welcome to Episode 20. Our countdown is finally complete and in this episode we discuss tracks 98 to 101 ending with arguably the greatest nuclear song of the 80s or any other era.

We start with “Nuclear War” by Jimmy Cliff; we weren’t originally planning to include it in this episode but the sad passing of Jimmy Cliff last week made it’s inclusion a necessity (and it’s a great tune too). Our next track is the Christmas pastiche “Christmas at Ground Zero” by Weird Al Yankovic. The song takes on a much darker mood when watched in conjunction with the video which uses American “Duck and Cover” film – all of which serves to demonstrate the futility of it all.

Perennial Christmas favourite “Stop the Cavalry” by Jona Lewie is up next. A song that surely needs no introduction to our UK listeners but it may come as a surprise to find out that it was never intended to be a Christmas song.

Finally, what else could we finish our list of 101 songs with apart from “99 Red Balloons” by the mighty Nena? She was also kind enough to introduce this episode for us.

We discuss this great song along with other great highlights from her extensive back catalogue.

Our playlist is updated to show all 101 songs and now we are asking listeners to contribute to our next episode in a fortnight’s time which will be a review of the first series.

We’d love a voice note giving us your favourite tune from the list and, as it’s that time of year, your favourite Christmas song as well. Use our email address as below.

Thanks for staying with us and don’t forget our 19 previous episodes.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0vLjQBbJEhiDaFNOTz9snD?si=4da04b17ed3347ea

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/bang-101-songs-about-nuclear-war-from-the-1980s/pl.u-6mo4j9KFByBgKXl

Make sure you contact us before 10th December 2025 if you want to get a voice note in for our final episode of the season:

Instagram: bangnuclearpodcast

Blue Sky: @bangpodcast.bsky.social

Facebook: Bang Nuclear Podcast

Reddit: r/bangnuclearpodcast

Email: bangnuclearpodcast@gmail.com

Opening and closing music: (Waiting for the) Heatwave – Fay Ray, appears courtesy of Fay Ray. Written by John Lovering

Artwork: Rachel Malbon

Assistant Producer: Shivam Pathak

Opening words: Richie Wheeler

With sincere thanks to NENA for her wonderful message.

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