| The Earth Dies Screaming | |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | UB40 |
| A-Side: | Dream a Lie |
| Genre: | |
| Label: | Graduate |
| Producer: |
|
| Prev Title: | My Way of Thinking |
| Prev Title2: | I Think It's Going to Rain Today |
| Prev Year: | 1980 |
| The Earth Dies Screaming | |
| Title2: | Dream a Lie |
| Next Title: | Don't Let It Pass You By" / "Don't Slow Down |
| Next Year: | 1981 |
"The Earth Dies Screaming" is a song by British reggae band UB40, released as their third single in October 1980 as a double A-side with "Dream a Lie". It continued the band's chart success, peaking at number ten on the UK Singles Chart.
The song was inspired and named after the 1964 science-fiction horror film. The lyrics were written by drummer Jimmy Brown, who in an interview prior to the release of the song said that when writing a song he liked to use "genre forms… using something popular to get our ideas across" and that in "The Earth Dies Screaming", "the story has a science-fiction setting to say what I want about now".[2] At the time, the fear of the threat of nuclear war was prevalent and this is what the band referred to in the song.[3]
The 12-inch version of the song differs to the 7-inch in that it begins with a dub instrumental before going into the main song. This diverged from the normal, with other 12-inch reggae songs typically featuring the dub instrumental after the main song.[4] The 12-inch single also featured a different cover sleeve, depicting the band performing. The 7-inch featured a picture of the British UB40 unemployment benefit card which had also been used as the artwork for the band's album Signing Off, and so to avoid confusion with the 12-inch release due to their similarity in size, the artwork was changed.[5]
7": Graduate / GRAD 10
12": Graduate / 12 GRAD 10
12": Graduate / 12 GRAD 10 (Netherlands)