“Once You Hear This, Act Fast”

Abstract

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), in cooperation with the Ad Council, featured television commercials that served as public service announcements and fifteen-minute television civil defense advertisements that educated the public about civil defense protocols. Part of its mission was to educate the public in the event of the detonation of a nuclear bomb. This chapter surveys the styles of music used in the televised civil defense advertisements from the early Cold War. The music is distinctly different from what was normally heard on television at the time, often featuring distinct moments of atonality or musical stylings of “us versus them,” that is, American political songs alternating with distinctly Soviet-style music to convey the origin of the threat without directly naming it. These musical oppositions were employed to persuade people to pay attention to the important message onscreen, underscore the potential destruction of the bomb, and relay the importance of civil defense.