The Danish Peace Academy

Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp Songbook

22 Four minutes to midnight

Four minutes to midnight
Four minutes to Armageddon
Four minutes before we die,
Four minutes to say goodbye.

Three minutes to midnight
Three minutes to Armageddon
Three minutes before we die,
Three minutes to say goodbye.

Two minutes to midnight
Two minutes to Armageddon
Two minutes before we die,
Two minutes to say goodbye.

One minute to midnight
One minute to Armageddon
One minute before we die
One minute to say...

Chorus: This isn't the way they said it would be
They said that the bomb was only keeping us free
Now that they are underground so they don't have to see
The eyes of the dying.

Why didn't we shout, why didn't we cry?
Why didn't we call deterrence a lie?
Why didn't we listen to the women who tried
To keep us from dying?

This isn't the way they said it would be
They promised that the bomb was only keeping us free
Now that they are underground so they don't have to see
The eyes of the dying.

[Written by the Fallout Marching Band.
Peggy Seeger has written a song with the same theme: Four-Minute Warning in 1980.]

Hear Four minutes to midnight sung by Rebecca Johnson.

[Four minutes to midnight is translated into Danish in the Ravnstrup Women's Peace Camp songbook and in Når uret bliver til ret bliver modstand en pligt, 1985. The translation is dated October 1984.]

[The Bulletin Clock, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1981 added by Holger Terp
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Editorial: The hands move closer to midnight.]

[Arnot, Chris: Nucelar families. [interview with the author Michael Symmons Robert]. Guardian Society, February 28, 2001.]