This is about death and that it is just a matter of time (hence waiting for the hammer to fall). However, this is specifically about Brian being a child in the 1950s when they would have "fall out drills" in school and thought of nuclear war was ever present (and still within the minds of the people who were alive during WWII and Hiroshima). The fear of imminent death was instilled in even the young in the 1950s. Although fall out drills were no longer happening in schools, myself, being a child of the 80s with Reagan and the Cold War when this song was written, the nuclear threat was very present. I dreamed about seeing mushroom clouds and there were many nuclear war films such as War Games and The Day After out around the time Brian wrote this. I feel like this was Brian's discussing the current Cold War with images and the fears he had as a youth in the 1950s.
This is about death and that it is just a matter of time (hence waiting for the hammer to fall). However, this is specifically about Brian being a child in the 1950s when they would have "fall out drills" in school and thought of nuclear war was ever present (and still within the minds of the people who were alive during WWII and Hiroshima). The fear of imminent death was instilled in even the young in the 1950s. Although fall out drills were no longer happening in schools, myself, being a child of the 80s with Reagan and the Cold War when this song was written, the nuclear threat was very present. I dreamed about seeing mushroom clouds and there were many nuclear war films such as War Games and The Day After out around the time Brian wrote this. I feel like this was Brian's discussing the current Cold War with images and the fears he had as a youth in the 1950s.