I’m late to the party, but I just figured out that the lyrics to “King of the World” by Steely Dan are about driving around a post-apocalyptic American Southwest…
I don’t want your bread
I don’t need your helping hand
I can’t be no savage
I can’t be no highwayman
Show me where you are
You and I will spend this day
Driving in my car
Through the ruins of Santa Fe
…
I’m reading last year’s papers
Although I don’t know why
Assassins cons and rapers
Might as well die
…
If you come around
No more pain and no regrets
Watch the sun go brown
Smoking cobalt cigarettes
There’s no need to hide
Taking things the easy way
If I stay inside
I might live til Saturday
And this… from Wikipedia, about nuclear weapons:
The cobalt bomb uses cobalt in the shell, and the fusion neutrons convert the cobalt into cobalt-60, a powerful long-term (5 years) emitter of gamma rays. In general this type of weapon is a salted bomb and variable fallout effects can be obtained by using different salting isotopes. Gold has been proposed for short-term fallout (days), tantalum and zinc for fallout of intermediate duration (months), and cobalt for long term contamination (years). The primary purpose of this weapon is to create extremely radioactive fallout making a large region uninhabitable. No cobalt or other salted bomb has been built or tested publicly.
Pop music is educational.
Well, maybe just pop music I like.
Well, a fraction of it, anyway.
