Seven Minutes to Midnight (song)

"Seven Minutes to Midnight" was the second and final single released by Pete Wylie's Wah! Heat incarnation. The band had made major line-up changes and bass guitar player Pete Younger was replaced by Colm Redmond, then Carl Washington who became Wylie's right hand. The recording included keyboard player King Bluff for the first time. It was during this incarnation that they recorded their only Peel Session on May 19, 1980. The release of the single also marked the departure of Colm Redmond (who joined Faction for a short while and then joined as a full-time member the post-punk band Pink Military) and the transformation of Wylie's first outfit into the better known four piece Wah!.

The track's title is a reference to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and their iconic Doomsday Clock. In 1980, in an atmosphere of increasing nuclear paranoia and failing detente over Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, the Bulletin moved the clock forwards two minutes, to the eponymous seven minutes to midnight. This was the first popular song to make an obvious reference to the clock, a theme that has been repeated frequently ever since.