Song of the Day 9/7: Maxwell, “Radiation Funk”

The invasion of Ukraine has mostly faded from the news, but one aspect threatens to put it back at the top of the broadcasts. Russia, demonstrating the ineptitude that has distinguished its war effort thus far, again shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, putting if off the power grid and bringing it closer to a meltdown. A second Chernobyl would definitely get the world’s attention.

This underscores the concerns of people who resist the idea of relying on nukes to counter global warming. Sure, they’re safe in a stable, responsible world. Unfortunately, we don’t live in one of those.

Americans have mostly ignored the dangers over the past 40 years, but they paid attention in 1979, when the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Lancaster, Pa., nearly melted down in 1979. That scared lots of people, and songwriters across the nation responded. Bruce Springsteen wrote “Roulette.” Dan Fogelberg wrote “Face the Fire.” Alice Cooper wrote “Nuclear Infected.” These were serious, often somber reflections on the perils of nuclear energy.

Yet one song that emerged from the near-disaster took the opposite tack. Charles “Marty” Moore, a Lancaster County native who had worked for a contractor on the island, sang on weekends with a popular local dance band called Maxwell. “It just interested me that there was so much going on about it,” Moore said on the 40th anniversary of the disaster. “I worked there at the time, so I was sort of familiar with everything that was going on.”

The band came up with a hunk of funk almost as hot as reactor 2. They cut as their first single, and it got a lot of airplay on stations in south-central Pennsylvania in the summer of ’79. This is the extended dance version. The band broke up in 1984.