On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled that if the President of the United States can justify something as an “official action” of the office, he’s immune from prosecution for it, even if it’s illegal. Given the increasingly broad and vague definitions of “terrorism” and “national security,” that means the president is officially above the law.

A few days later, on July 4, the United States celebrated 248 years since we declared that we would not be subject to an unaccountable ruler and wanted to live in a country where everyone is equal under the law. Except non-white people and women, but we had made some progress on those until recently.

Anyway, here are five songs about things catastrophically ending. You know, not for any particular reason.

The Doors — “The End”

It’s usually hard to argue where genres begin. Usually, by the time the public hears it for the first time, it’s already been developing in some local scene for years. “Rapper’s Delight” wasn’t the first hip-hop song in 1979, for example; people had been rapping in the Bronx for nearly a decade by that point, but it was just the first song that had wide commercial appeal.

That said, sometimes an established band with an experimental streak releases a song that’s got such a unique sound that multiple bands decide they want to make more of it. The Beatles did it a few times. Over time, the sound of that song evolves into an entire genre unto itself.

What I’m saying is that “The End” is the root of goth rock.

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The Beatles — “Helter Skelter”

Paul McCartney wrote this song. Seriously, Paul. The sappy one without any edge. Even Lennon confirmed he had no part in its writing. I never would’ve thought he had it in him.

A “helter skelter” is a British amusement park ride. It’s basically a lighthouse with a spiral staircase inside and a spiral slide around the outside, so kids can run up to the top then slide back down. England is incredibly boring, you see, so it’s easy to amuse their youth. As Macca explained it, he used the ride as a metaphor for the Roman empire, where you climb to the top, then slide right back to the ground.

Remember what I said about one song inspiring a genre? This came out in 1968, the same year Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were founded. I’m convinced that Paul McCartney of all people is responsible for heavy metal.

Monster Magnet — “Doomsday”

Despite me being in high school in the late ’90s and loving metal, Monster Magnet mostly escaped my awareness at the time. I knew and loved “Space Lord,” and I had that album because you had to buy the whole album when you liked a song back then, but I didn’t pay too much attention otherwise.

About 25 or so years later, Monster Magnet is hailed as a pioneer of stoner metal. The band has been in movie and TV soundtracks pretty steadily through that time, and there’s a comic book character named after one of the songs (Negasonic Teenage Warhead) that also appeared in multiple live-action movies.

Even when you were there, you never really knew until you’ve got the clarity of hindsight.

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Bob Dylan — “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”

The problem with looking for dour songs about the end of the world is that there are really three phases, and none suits the current moment.

Prior to World War II, there wasn’t really any non-Biblical concept of the world ending; it was all that there is and existed for us, so the world would always be here and us with it. Then we learned more about science and the universe, and the atomic bomb was invented. It suddenly occurred to humanity, “Uh oh, we could really screw things up permanently.” That’s when songs about the end of the world, this one included, started popping up.

When the Soviet Union fell, though, the apocalyptic predictions just kinda stopped. People in the early ’90s were really, really sure that they’d reached Antoine Augustin Cournot’s “end of history,” when we reached societal perfection, and everything would just stay the same forever. There was a whole book about it. So the music about the end of the world dried up, too.

Now capitalism has ground art down into a fine paste to be reconstituted into Chicken McNuggets of corporate-sanctioned pop that would never say anything bad about the glorious future we live in where their profit margins are reaching investors’ expectations.

Soundgarden — “4th of July”

A dark, grinding, vaguely apocalyptic dirge about thinking it’s the end and thinking it’s the 4th of July is a little on the nose for this column, but I’ve never been accused of letting low-hanging fruit go unpicked.

I got curious of what this song was actually about, so I checked if Chris Cornell had ever explained it, and this is what he told RIP Magazine in 1994: “One time I was on acid, and there were voices 10 feet behind my head. The whole time I’d be walking, they’d be talking behind me. It actually made me feel good, because I felt like I was with some people. At one point I was looking back, and I saw that one person was wearing a black shirt and jeans, and the other person was wearing a red shirt. They were always there. It was kinda like a dream, though, where I’d wake up and look and focus once in a while and realize there was no one there. I’d go, ‘Oh, fuck, I’m hearing voices.’ ‘4th of July’ is pretty much about that day. You wouldn’t get that if you read it. It doesn’t read like, ‘Woke up, dropped some acid, got into the car and went to the Indian reservation.'”

So… take that as you will, I guess.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and send column ideas to him at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky.