Many born between 1945 and 1965 still remember air raid siren drills and the fear of a nuclear holocaust — and they tried to warn us.

However, their concerns became passé — even memes.

The style of music in this track is also a throwback to classic rock of the mid 1970s and 1980s. So what relevance is it today?

The thing is — Just because a problem is passé, doesn't mean it's gone away. In fact, since recording No Time To Run, the threat of nuclear warfare has grown more sinister than ever.

When I first published this page in 2019, President Trump was pulling the USA out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty with Russia, Los Alamos was gearing-up for renewed nuclear weapons production, a Russian missile testing facility blew-up causing several radioactivity monitoring stations to go offline, and the Doomsday Clock was closer to midnight than it had been since the peak of the Cold War.

Then Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made the situation even worse. Russia's President Putin threatened nuclear retaliation if Western nations interfere with his military campaign. However Putin's aggression has been condemned by nearly every world leader, and NATO has not backed down. So the Doomsday Clock continues to click down.

Background

No Time To Run was first written in 1985, and performed during 1989 by an underground alternative rock trio I was in at the time called 9-DAZE ( not to be confused with any current band by the same name ).

The song was inspired in part by the politics of US President Reagan, in particular what had become known as his Star Wars program.

The Star Wars program was officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI ). It was mainly an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile ( ICBM ) defense system consisting of ground and space-based detection and tracking sensors, high-performance computer systems, particle beam weapons, missiles, and hundreds of combat operations centers around the globe connected by military satellites. Some of this technology was built and tested during the 1980s, and research continues to this day under other project names.

Why No Time To Run?

The idea that there would be no time to run from a nuclear attack first made an impression on me during grade school when we learned about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities in Japan during World War Two. We were told that the intense flash etched shadows onto surfaces, and that many people died instantly.

As a result of the ensuing nuclear arms race, so many nuclear weapons were built, that in the event of a nuclear war between superpowers, both sides would be obliterated. This became known as Mutually Assured Destruction ( MAD ), hence the lyric, "Nothing fight for. Only to Die for."

Later I had a dream of being in a park overlooking Calgary's city center watching children playing with their parents on a beautiful summer day, when an ICBM detonates over the downtown core. It is what inspired the dreamy artwork and musical styling.

Coincidence & Synchronicity

Coincidentally, and paradoxical to one's expectations, the phenomena produced by a nuclear explosion has been called beautiful. One witness described the Trinity Test as a searing light with an intensity many times that of the midday Sun, that lit every peak, crevasse, and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described, but must be seen to be imagined.

The first performances of the song also coincided with the release of the movie Terminator 2 Judgement Day, which contains a disturbing portrayal of a nuclear detonation over the city of Los Angeles USA. Like my own dream, the mother, played by Linda Hamilton, has a dream in which she sees herself and her young son in a playground prior to a nuclear attack.

She tries to warn herself of the danger, but her voice makes no sound. So it wasn't until 2024 when updating this page that I noticed that at one point in the scene, she appears to be telling her dream self to run.

Twenty-six years after the release of Judgement Day, while I was preparing to record the studio version, The Washington Times reported that director James Cameron believed Terminator 2 to be as timely as ever, not only for the danger of nuclear destruction, but for artificial intelligence.

Also, while updating this page in 2024, I ran across a campaign ad from the 1964 US Presidential election. Known as "The Daisy Ad", it features, a young girl in a park counting the leaves of a daisy — unaware of the threat of nuclear war looming over her.

Toward the end of the segment, the camera zooms-in on one of the girl's eyes. Although there is no reflection in her eye of anything coming down from the sky — the imagery is eerily parallel to that of No Time To Run. Could there be some sort of collective consciousness at work?

The NTTR Video

The original NTTR video uses a series of clips that create a contrast between the oblivious contentment of 1980s youth and the possible consequences of a nuclear arms race that took place before they were born.

Using archival footage, it takes the viewer back in time to that past. Then it wraps around to the start in a way that reminds us that there's still hope.

The closing and opening scenes of the original video ( still capture above ), were also meant to give the impression that the fate of civilization now lies in the hands of today's younger generation, particularly anti-nuclear weapons activists. But now that the atomic genie is out of the bottle, will future generations ever be free from the fear of nuclear Armageddon?

The U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

On January 22 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) went into effect — But to what effect?

Back in 2017, an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations agreed to ban nuclear weapons.

It took a decade for ICAN to achieve that goal. The only problem is that nations with nukes aren't signing-on.

The new agreement is intended to fill gaps in international law by prohibiting nations from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities. See more about ICAN in this link — International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

💡 Because No Time To Run can be interpreted in ways other than nuclear annihilation, I decided to remove the video from YouTube and leave listener's imaginations to create their own imagery. However, creative ideas and resources for a reimagining the video would be most welcome. If you'd like to participate in a creative or logistical way — please contact me.

💡 Most people know that an air-raid siren signals danger from an aerial attack. Fewer realize that the long steady tone is the All Clear signal. In the song, the sound of the siren can be heard receding into the distance. Fate it seems, has given our protagonists time to run after all.

Lyrics