Released 1965 Recorded July 15, 1965 Length 3:38 | Format 7" Genre Folk rock | |
Label Dunhill (U.S.)
RCA (Canada) | ||
"Eve of Destruction" is a protest song written by P. F. Sloan in mid-1964. Several artists have recorded it, but the best-known recording was by Barry McGuire. This recording was made between July 12 and July 15, 1965 and released by Dunhill Records. The accompanying musicians were top-tier LA session players: P. F. Sloan on guitar, Hal Blaine (of Phil Spector's "Wrecking Crew") on drums, and Larry Knechtel on bass. The vocal track was thrown on as a rough mix and was not intended to be the final version, but a copy of the recording "leaked" out to a DJ, who began playing it. The song was an instant hit and as a result the more polished vocal track that was at first envisioned was never recorded.
Contents
McGuire's single hit #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the UK Singles Chart in September 1965.
Background
The song had initially been presented to The Byrds as a Dylanesque potential single, but they rejected it. The Turtles, another LA group who often recorded The Byrds' discarded or rejected material, recorded a version instead. Their version was issued as a track on their 1965 debut album It Ain't Me Babe, shortly before McGuire's version was cut; it was eventually released as a single and hit number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970. The song was also recorded by Jan and Dean on their album Folk 'n Roll in 1965, using the same backing track as the McGuire version, and by The Grass Roots on their first album Where Were You When I Needed You in 1966.
McGuire also mentioned that "Eve of Destruction" was recorded in one take on a Thursday morning (from words scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper), and he got a call from the record company at 7:00 the following Monday morning, telling him to turn on the radio—his song was playing.
After becoming a born-again Christian, McGuire re-recorded "Eve of Destruction" as the lead track on his second contemporary Christian release: "Lighten Up". McGuire updated the lyrics when he performed at a reunion of folksingers, with the line about the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches replaced by the words "Columbine, Colorado", referring to the student massacre of 1999. On March 12, 2008, McGuire appeared on the Australian music comedy/game show Spicks and Specks, performing an updated version of "Eve of Destruction", with new lines such as "You're old enough to kill/ you just started voting" and "...can live for ten years in space". The reference to "Red China" was also removed, and in its place were the more generic "Now think of all the hate, still living inside us/ its never too late, to let love guide us".
Reception
In the first week of its release, the single was at number 103 on the Billboard charts. By August 12, Dunhill released the LP, Nick Featuring Eve of Destruction. The LP reached its peak of number thirty-seven on the Billboard album chart during the week ending September 25. That same day the single went to number one on the chart, and repeated the feat on the Cashbox chart, where it had debuted at number thirty. McGuire would never again break into the top forty of the Billboard Hot 100. It went to number one in Norway for two weeks.
The American media helped popularize the song by using it as an example of everything that was wrong with the youth of that time. The song also drew flak from conservatives. A group called The Spokesmen released an answer record entitled "The Dawn of Correction". A few months later, Green Beret medic Sgt. Barry Sadler released the patriotic "Ballad of the Green Berets". Johnny Sea's spoken word recording, "Day For Decision", was also a response to the song.
Due to its controversial lyrics, some American radio stations, "claiming it was an aid to the enemy in Vietnam", and Radio Scotland banned the song. It was placed on a "restricted list" by the BBC, and could not be played on "general entertainment programmes".
Use
In the late 1970s, Los Angeles punk band The Dickies recorded a cover of "Eve of Destruction". New wave group Red Rockers covered the song in their 1984 album Schizoprenic Circus. Johnny Thunders recorded it on his 1984 album Hurt Me and also frequently covered the song in concert, while veteran Canadian punk outfit D.O.A. also covered the song on their 2004 album Live Free Or Die. Tiny Tim included a 23-minute cover of the song as the final track of his 1993 album Rock. The song has also been covered by Australian band Screaming Jets on their 1997 album World Gone Crazy. Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman released his cover version on a maxi-single CD in 2004. Left-wing Christian punk band Crashdog also covered it on their album Cashists, Fascists, and Other Fungus. Post-Industrial psychedelic rock outfit Psychic TV released "Eve Of Destruction" as a limited edition single in the late 1980s. In 2003, the reggae singer Luciano recorded a version of the song. The band Bishop Allen also released a song titled "Eve of Destruction" on their 2003 album, Charm School, which takes its chorus from this song. The Cookeville, Tennessee, rock band MerseySide released a rocked up version in 2012 with the lyric "Think of all the hate there is in Al Qaeda", with the Mayan Calendar as the cover. Irish singer-songwriter Eleanor McEvoy also covered the song on her 2011 album Alone, and often performs the song live with the lyrics altered to acknowledge more contemporary issues.
The Temptations' song "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)" mentions the song title. The song was briefly featured on Stephen King's 1994 miniseries The Stand. With a burning Des Moines, Iowa as a backdrop, Larry Underwood sits atop the hood of a car, belting out the song to amuse himself until interrupted by another survivor of the superflu. It also appeared in The Simpsons episode GABF16, "The Girl Who Slept Too Little", and was also featured in Michael Winterbottom's 1997 film Welcome to Sarajevo. A Joey Scarbury cover was played repeatedly in the original airing of The Greatest American Hero episode "Operation Spoil Sport" to encourage the hero to prevent an automated nuclear strike being triggered by a renegade U.S. general (the aliens who provided the hero's super-powers commandeered his car radio and tuned it to stations playing the song). Due to copyright issues, the song does not appear in the DVD version of the episode. A French translation is used in the closing credits of Michael Moore's film Sicko. An Italian version, "Questo vecchio pazzo mondo" ("This old crazy world"), was recorded by Gino Santercole in 1967; a 1984 recording by Adriano Celentano was included in his album I miei americani (a collection of US hits translated into Italian). This song also makes an appearance in The Doors (directed by Oliver Stone), as the opening act performs it before The Doors take the stage in Miami.
Public Enemy covered the song on their 2007 How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul album.
The song is played during the fourth-season finale of The A-Team, "The Sound of Thunder," when the team returns to Vietnam and flashbacks recall their tours of duty. The song is featured in the fourth level of the Vietnam War video game Men of Valor. While the song is playing, the main character's lieutenant is dying of his wound on the battlefield.
The song, like many other popular songs of the day, gave its name to a gun truck used by United States Army Transportation Corps forces during the Vietnam War. The truck is on display at the U.S. Army Transportation Museum and is believed to be the only surviving example of a Vietnam era gun truck.
"Eve of Destruction" is featured in the video game Mafia III, released October 7, 2016.
Other
ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman, famous for inventing nicknames for sports figures, and often bringing song titles into the play on words, dubbed slugger Mark McGuire as "Mark 'Eve of Destruction' McGuire".
The indie rock group Bishop Allen performs a version of "Eve of Destruction" borrowing heavily from the original, but with an even more sharply apocalyptic theme. It includes the lyrics "And if this moment is gone in a flash/ And my hand in yours becomes ash in ash", followed in the next verse by an imagining of rejection from Heaven: "Then we'll have a dance, yeah a dance, on the head of a pin/ Then God will grin, and shoo us away".