We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Enewetak Atoll

from we are because you were by barrow burrow

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

TL/DR: I'm constantly reminding myself that I might only exist because of the atomic bomb.

This song is for my maternal grandfather, Allan Donald "Mac" McCullough. Grandpa Mac would often tell the same stories, usually by my request. One story that persisted was about the time a tree fell on him at one of his properties in the mountains of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1970.

Everyone in my family knows this story. Every once in awhile, Grandpa Mac would sneak in a deep cut - and if you were really lucky, you'd get a story about his time in the Army during the World War II. One of the last times I saw Grandpa Mac, he told me one of these stories.

Towards the end of the war, Mac was briefly stationed at Enewetak Atoll, which is part of what is now called the Marshall Islands. He had assumed, much after the war, that his fate likely would've been on a beach in Japan, had President Truman not decided to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Grandpa Mac was lucky to escape the war, and even luckier to live a long and fruitful life to the age of 94 (nearly 95). He went to a small Christian college in rural western Pennsylvania, where he was the star of the basketball team. He lived in several states, and traveled to all fifty during his lifetime. In his last days, he found his was into a nursing home that overlooked the campus green of his alma mater.

In an ironic and cruel twist, the beautiful Enewetak Atoll had dozens of nuclear weapons detonated on its surface between 1948-1958.

lyrics

My grandpa
Told me a story of a
Beach in the shape of a halo

Floating
Like a memory of seafoam
Green from a toxic wastehole

Buried in the deep blue sea
A half-life away from me
Buried in the deep blue sea
A dome made of concrete

Come for the coral reef and
Wait for the fallout
Surf with me now buddy
Enewetak Atoll

My grandpa
Told me another story
This one was after the war though

1970
Was the year a tree fell on me
Somewhere in the Alleghenies

Barely even listening
I asked “what about that beach?
Tell me more about this ring”

This whole thing is haunting me!

Come for the coral reef and
Wait for the fallout
Surf with me now buddy
Enewetak Atoll

We don’t talk at all about
Enewetak Atoll,
How come
We don’t talk at all about
Enewetak Atoll?

credits

from we are because you were, released September 8, 2022
Jack Rosenberger: Guitar, Baritone, Vocals
Mitch Masterson: Bass
Dan Barker: Drums

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

barrow burrow image

barrow burrow Blacksburg, Virginia

barrow burrow (pronounced bare-oh burr-oh) is songwriter Jack Rosenberger and multi-instrumentalist Mitch "mix master" Masterson. Jack and Mitch met in the Albany NY music scene in 2009. Jack left Albany in 2010, and kept writing songs, and kept tricking Mitch into making them sound way better.

Dan Barker, Ian White, and Dylan Palazzo are other musicians that have been involved in this project. ... more

contact / help

Contact barrow burrow

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like barrow burrow, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now