“King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood” by Billy Bragg

EP (Extended play) cover for English musician and singer Billy Bragg’s 2017 release of album Bridges Not Walls (from Genius, 2017).

  • “King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood” was released in 2017 by English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg. This alternative song appears in Bragg’s EP Bridges Not Walls (image above).
  • Much of Bragg’s music reflects his activist sentiment and has political messaging. His music has been described as belonging to the genre of protest songs. Some of the issues tackled in his music include labor rights and economic reform. In “King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood,” Bragg addresses the climate crisis and stresses that action must be taken to mitigate it.
  • You can listen to the song here and read the lyrics here.

How is this related to climate?

  • Bragg sings, “But it don’t matter what you do, so long as we continue to burn our way through fossil fuels.” In the first two verses of the song, Bragg acknowledges the need for systemic change, rather than individual change, to prevent anthropogenic climate change. 
    • Burning fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases that capture heat in the atmosphere and are commonly referred to as greenhouse gases. Most of these gases exist naturally in the atmosphere and help regulate the planet’s temperature as part of the greenhouse effect. However, rising carbon emissions are amplifying the greenhouse effect (image below). As atmospheric carbon levels climb, more heat is captured and global temperatures rise.

Diagram demonstrating the greenhouse effect, the process of radiation from the Sun being trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which raises the temperature of the Earth’s surface by heat-trapping gases absorbing radiation from the sun and keeping the atmosphere warm (from Lai, 2021). On the left is a model of the natural greenhouse effect, and on the right is a model of the human-enhanced greenhouse effect. Burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation releases carbon into the atmosphere, amplifying the greenhouse effect and causing the planet’s surface to get hotter.

  • In the chorus, Bragg sings, “King Tide is-a-comin’, bringing floodin’ on a sunny day… King Tide is-a-comin’, gonna sweep everything away.” This reflects the increasing dangers of sea level rise and coastal flooding.
    • King tides are extreme tidal events that occur twice a year in coastal areas all over the world. These events are caused by the alignment of the Sun and Moon, creating a strong gravitational force that makes daily tides more extreme. High king tides can temporarily flood coastal communities, swallow beaches (image below), and poison agricultural land with salt.

Side by side photographs of before and during a king tide event in the New South Wales Central Coast in Australia in 2016 (Australian Government– Bureau of Meteorology, 2021).

      • The flooding caused by king tides varies by location but is similar to the amount of sea level rise expected due to climate change. In Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.A. for example, king tides can raise water levels by 12 to 18 inches (30 to 46 centimeters). This is the same amount of sea level rise expected in the area by 2050. Since 2009, local governments and nonprofit groups have used king tide events to educate the public about the dangers of climate change-induced coastal flooding.
    • The sunny day floods (image below) that Bragg references in “King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood” are becoming increasingly dangerous as a result of climate change. Sunny day floods occur at high tide on days with cloudless skies. While this type of coastal flooding is a natural phenomenon related to regular tidal cycles, it’s happening more often due to human activity. Climate change is causing sea level rise and increased coastal erosion, leaving cities vulnerable to tidal flooding. The weight of buildings constructed on sediments and pumping of groundwater also cause the land under cities to sink, bringing them closer to sea level and making them more flood-prone. During sunny day floods, water can overflow from underground drains or from nearby water sources like oceans and rivers. Between the 1960s and 2017, sunny day flooding has become 3 to 9 times more common in coastal cities around the globe.
tree ducks flooding

Photograph of a park in England after the River Ouse overflowed during a sunny day flood in 2008 (from Earth Institute and French, 2017).

References and additional resources

How to cite this page

“King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood” by Billy Bragg. (2024, July 9). Climate in Global Cultures and Histories: Promoting Climate Literacy Across Disciplines. Retrieved Month Date, Year, from https://www.science.smith.edu/climatelit/inundation-art-and-climate-change-in-the-pacific-2020/.