By Cyndi Ingle
Taking an event from our collective human history that is frightening and creating art that isn’t overly morose is no easy feat. Toronto based alt-rock trio The Nursery have accomplished this with utmost skill on their new track, Radium Girls.
Using an 80’s pop overlay, memorable hooks, and a by turns Pet Shop Boys/The Cure feel The Nursery have crafted a song that will remain in your mind. And you may want to investigate the song’s back story especially after viewing their campy and powerful video, shot at Hamilton’s Digital Canaries Film Studios.
The video embodies a surreal and vintage feel as three beauties, Agata Waclawska, Madison Whitmore and Archie Kamikaze literally start to glow and fall apart in front of our eyes. The downfalls of being a wage slave are explored with such lyrics as, “Poor you, poor you. All your chemical dreams came true like rats in their cages, for someone else’s wages.”
The “Radium Girls” were hundreds of young American women who worked from 1917 to 1926 painting radium on watches, clocks and military dials at three United States Radium factories. Part of the painting process was dipping the brush in radioactive paint and then rolling it on the tip of their tongues to make a fine point. Soon the young women started dying in horrific ways due to poisoning as the radium which had settled in their bodies started boring holes into their bones.
A company cover-up and legal battles ensured with the end result that the company was found liable. Ultimately the workers’ fight for justice led to the establishment of the United States’ Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which today operates nationally to protect workers.
How did the band, who were awarded the Best Independent Alt-Rock/Pop Band in Canada at the 2018 Indie Awards, find themselves writing about an event that took place so many years ago? How did they make art from such a tale?
The Nursery’s lead singer and primary songwriter Alex Pulec viewed a documentary released in 1987 called Radium City which featured some of the survivors and family members of those who lost their lives. Watching the documentary was the catalyst for Pulec to begin a creative journey, which is by turns dark, yet vividly entertaining at the same time. It is this juxtaposition of lightness and darkness that the band has become known for and continues with Radium Girls.
As he explains, “I began having dreams of these ghost-like figures, claiming to be the dead girls themselves, re-telling their story and asking for a song.”
These beautiful young women got their wish in the track Radium Girls, which not only will keep their memory alive but is a wake-up call to distrust authority figures who may not have our best interests at heart. “It’s easy to look back, laugh and think it couldn’t happen to us. But our lives are being taken advantage of at almost every turn these days,” states Pulec.
Radium Girls is the first track from the band’s sophomore LP, Candy + Gloom, which will be released later this year, produced by Michael Fong (Electric Youth, Wintersleep) and Nick Boyd (Dizzy, Hollerado, Royal Mountain).
You can listen to Radium Girls on SoundCloud *** Apple Music *** Spotify
Find out more about the muses for the track, the original Radium Girls.
