ABSTRACT
The speed with which economic change came about in certain parts of the world could be disorientating at times. The socio-economic changes in the Thatcher-Reagan era inspired songs about the harsher realities of life, and artists sang about how jobs were being lost to the new technology, for example, or how money was hard to come by. In July 1985, a global audience of more than one billion people watched Live Aid, open air concerts organised to raise money for famine-hit Ethiopia. This chapter discusses some of the causes of people’s anxieties in the 1980s, and considers certain songs that reflected this unease. The fear of a nuclear war became more intense after Margaret Thatcher decided to allow American cruise missiles to be stationed in Britain. This was part of the country’s commitments to NATO as the organisation modernised its long-range nuclear forces.
