Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 119

Chart Week: September 24, 1983
Song: “It’s A Mistake” – Men At Work
Chart Position: #38, 13th week on the chart. Peaked at #6 for two weeks in August.

What clichés about Eighties music jump into your head the quickest? Big hair and spandex? Synthesizers? Gender ambiguous British men in suits wearing more makeup than your mom? Artists with little-to-no musical talent earning hits based on the quality of their videos and/or the prettiness of their appearance?

Here’s one I bet wasn’t top of your list: nuclear destruction.

Yep, kids, in the Eighties we were all a little obsessed with the potential end of the world due to nuclear war. It was a constant presence and source of anxiety that filtered into pop culture. Hardly a week went by without a song in the American Top 40 countdown that somehow referenced the geopolitical cloud that was hanging over all our heads.

One of the most unexpected such songs came from goofy Australians Men At Work. I say unexpected because, at the time, Men At Work presented themselves as stereotypical Aussies: out for a good time and getting into wacky adventures along the way. The true depth of lead singer Colin Hay’s lyrics, and their focus on his mental health issues, didn’t become obvious until many years later, when he stripped the songs down and performed them solo.

Still, even without having that insight, “It’s A Mistake” was already a departure from what we had heard from Men At Work to that point. Musically it was more somber and reserved than their earlier songs. While the video brought in some of their lightheartedness, it was still impossible to escape what the mistake Hay was singing about entailed. Which made it a bit of a bummer.

While other songs about nuclear annihilation were either strident, anti-war anthems or focused on turning the world’s anxiety into a dance party, “It’s A Mistake” instead examined the absurdity of the nuclear era.

First, it highlighted the disconnect between the troops on the ground, who would bear the brunt of any direct conflict, and their military and political leaders who were tucked safely behind the frontlines. And then how, in the nuclear age, that buffer would not matter once the missiles began flying.

Next, it hinted at the political argument that justified the massive military budgets of the era: that each side should amass as many weapons as possible to make the consequences of war so profoundly destructive that neither side would ever risk a first attack. By the time the Cold War spun down in the late Eighties, the US, USSR, and their allies collectively possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy humanity as we knew it several times over. Mutually Assured Destruction was counted on as the ultimate safety on the nuclear trigger.

Hay tapped into what was most ridiculous about that concept: when you have that many weapons, all it takes is one error to launch a single missile, which would quickly be followed by all the other missiles. In the video this is demonstrated by a raving general accidentally hitting his big red button when he’s attempting to put out a cigarette.

That idea was not so far-fetched. Two days after this countdown originally aired, the Soviet Union’s early warning system detected the launch of a missile from the United States. Soon four more missiles were identified in the air.

Soviet doctrine was to immediately launch a counter strike. However, lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov, the officer on duty monitoring the warning systems, felt something was off. Surely, he thought, if the US was launching a first strike, it would send hundreds, if not thousands of missiles towards the USSR. He decided to wait for further evidence that confirmed a launch. Just like in the movie WarGames, there were nervous moments until confirmation came that no missiles had struck the USSR. Had a less sober man – this was Russia in the ‘80s, so I mean that both figuratively and literally – been on duty, it is likely none of us would be here to read this silly blog post.

An investigation determined it was most likely an anomaly caused by the sun reflecting off clouds that fooled the Soviets’ early warning satellites into signaling an attack was in process.

Yikes.

This is one example, there are dozens of others that are public knowledge, and surely more than have been buried in classified records.

We didn’t learn of Petrov’s actions until 1998. So, as “It’s A Mistake” was ending its chart run, it still seemed like a fictional, worst-case scenario rather than a true insight to how precarious the line between war and peace was.

“It’s A Mistake” is a fine song. I remember being disappointed by it when I was 12, but that’s because I was an idiot.[1] Like a lot of other pre-teen dipshits, I was blinded by the classic “Down Under,” and the band’s earlier videos, in which they presented themselves as Antipodean goofballs. I wasn’t prepared for Hay’s deeper tracks like this. I do know I enjoyed the video, and understood its message, but the song itself didn’t really resonate with me.

Today, I really enjoy those sharp, open chords on the choruses. The reserved musical tone fits the mood of the lyrics. Eventually I realized how good those words were. And while Hay was not a great singer, the final chorus is probably his best performance.

Alas this was Men At Work’s final Top 40 song in the US. As often happens with bands that become massively, globally successful overnight, the group fell apart because of egos, jealousy, artistic differences, and money squabbles. What remained of the original band recorded just one more album, which got bad reviews and barely snuck one single into the Top 40 in Australia. Hay eventually toured with two new versions of Men At Work, but that was because the band’s name was more recognizable than his. During their brief peak, Men At Work gave us two all timers and two other songs that might not have been as catchy, but were nearly as good. 7/10