---
title: "Keep Calm Atomic Bomb"

meaning: "KŌAN A closer: Keep Calm poster meets atomic dread: burden you benefit from, Damocles over the nursery, Vietnam, fog of war justified with numbers, then bomb bomb bomb."

year: 2022
release: "KŌAN"
releaseType: "album"

artist: "Scoobert Doobert"
artistId: "#scoobert"

credits: "Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp. Artwork by Grizzard Graphics."

spotify: "https://open.spotify.com/album/2wGa9TxP1UvCn1hnfyyV6v"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v3_C9fKBME"
officialVideo: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v3_C9fKBME"
apple: "https://music.apple.com/us/album/kōan/1618191665"

themes: ["KŌAN", "war", "atomic bomb", "history", "inherited burden", "Vietnam"]

isrc: QZDA42257785
isrcSource: soundexchange
lyrics: |
  What is your weight to carry
  What's your burden to bear
  Neither here nor there
  No use talking bout past

  But you benefit from it
  No blame looking from the summit

  Did they force your hand?

  Keep calm
  Atomic bomb
  Sword of Damocles
  Above my nursery

  Keep calm
  Vietnam
  My president
  He never really cared about you

  Keep calm
  Atomic bomb
  Keep calm
  Atomic bomb

  Yeah, I hear the fog of war
  Is a hard thing to imagine
  One more body for the fire
  Like a little wasp grasping

  Through logic
  Hide madness
  With numbers
  Reimagine
  There wasn't really any other way

  Keep calm
  Atomic bomb
  Sword of Damocles
  Above my nursery

  Keep calm
  Vietnam
  My president
  He never really cared about you

  Keep calm
  Atomic bomb
  Keep calm
  Atomic bomb

  Bomb
  Bomb
  Bomb
  Bomb
  Bomb
  Bomb
  Bomb
  Bomb

draft: false

---

Track six on [*KŌAN*](/albums/koan/), **KŌAN A** closer (after instrumental *Information*), full LP September 2022. Luke solo. Third leg of the EP hinge after [*Think About It*](/songs/think-about-it/) and [*SHIAWASE NO IMI*](/songs/shiawase-no-imi/): historical dread and inherited burden. The title parodies the WWII *Keep Calm and Carry On* poster, a stiff-upper-lip command pasted over apocalypse.

The song is about comfort built on violence you didn't commit but still benefit from: *no blame looking from the summit,* then the one question, *did they force your hand?,* aimed at Truman, parents, presidents, anyone who said there was no choice. The chorus stacks eras into single images, a *sword of Damocles above my nursery* and a president who *never really cared about you.* Verse two is justification culture, the *fog of war* and the math that hides madness with numbers until *there wasn't really any other way.* It's the same move as [*Think About It*](/songs/think-about-it/)'s Schrödinger koan, but the paradox here is moral, not quantum.

The outro is just *bomb* eight times, no melody left. Japan shapes the record's name and aesthetic; this track names the American twentieth century shadowing that thread, atomic dread as nursery furniture ([*KŌAN* essay](/albums/koan/)). Pairs with [*SHIAWASE NO IMI*](/songs/shiawase-no-imi/)'s *another world* invite: happiness offered, then the cost of how we got here.

---