The Sun is Burning - Simon & Garfunkel

A little music video project I did for history class! I’m not entirely happy with it so I might be making more, as it’s not due for a few weeks and I managed to finish this one in hardly over a day. This song was originally written by Ian Campbell, and it was covered by S&G in 1964 on their first album, Wednesday Morning, 3AM. It’s a beautifully haunting song, its happy melody belying a very dark message about the terror of atomic warfare. In this video I used it to show the terrible bombing of Hiroshima at the tail-end of the Second World War, which immediately killed 80,000 people and eventually tens of thousands more due to radiation exposure. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, instantly killing 40,000. Lyrics: The sun is burning in the sky Strands of clouds go slowly drifting by In the park the lazy bees Are droning in the flowers among the trees And the sun burns in the sky Now the sun is in the West Little kids go home to take their rest And the couples in the park Are holdin’ hands and waitin’ for the dark And the sun is in the West Now the sun is sinking low Children play and know it’s time to go High above a spot appears A little blossom blooms and then draws near And the sun is sinking low Now the sun has come to Earth Shrouded in a mushroom cloud of death Death comes in a blinding flash Of hellish heat and leaves a smear of ash And the sun has come to Earth Now the sun has disappeared All is darkness, anger, pain and fear Twisted, sightless wrecks of men Go groping on their knees and cry in pain And the sun has disappeared