Do not panic: Hawkwind, the Cold War and “the imagination of disaster”

Abstract

The English rock band, Hawkwind, was amongst the founders of the genre known as “space rock”. From the early 1970s to the early 1990s, their work also included references to Cold War issues. An examination of their concert appearances, musical output and printed matter reveals that relevant material often reflected the “imagination of disaster” made famous in an essay by Susan Sontag. As well, there are correlations between the waxing and waning of Cold War tensions, and the presence and absence of such themes in their work. Thus, their work provides an example of how popular music could serve as a barometer of the impact of the Cold War on popular culture.

Keywords

• Cold War
• Hawkwind
• music
• nuclear
• disaster
• performance
• popular culture
• science fiction