Synopsis

Culture Club perform "The War Song" amid stark images of conflict, military spectacle, fashion and mass media. Boy George appears in a series of flamboyant looks, including his striking flame-red hair, while wartime imagery and scenes of families watching television underline the song's protest message. The video builds toward an unsettling yet theatrical finale: George leads a large procession of children dressed as skeletons through a London street, turning the song's warning about war's impact on the young into its most memorable visual.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed at Beckton Docklands in London, an industrial location that gives the production its bleak, open backdrop.

• Boy George appears with flame-red hair and several brightly colored wigs, including white, yellow, purple and black styles. The costume changes make his appearance as visually changeable as the video's shifting imagery.

• The climactic procession features hundreds of children dressed as skeletons. The image became the video's signature, presenting children as the ultimate victims of warfare without showing a conventional battlefield.

• The video's deliberately theatrical look contrasts with the song's direct anti-war lyrics. Its bright pop styling and celebratory rhythm are set against explosions, wartime references and images of death.

• "The War Song" was released in 1984 as the lead single from *Waking Up with the House on Fire*. It reached No. 2 in the United Kingdom, helping make the video a prominent MTV-era presentation of the band's third-album campaign.

• Although made in 1984, the official video did not become available on Culture Club's official YouTube channel until June 12, 2026, when it was released as part of renewed archival promotion surrounding the documentary *Boy George & Culture Club*.