Fallout revision 1

[Todd]

Hi Jana,

I'm not a songwriter so some of what I saw may not functionally be right for a song. I do however hope that there will be some benefit to considering the individual strength of your lyrics. 

Your meter is a bit all over the place throughout. You may want to settle on something more consistent. That said, I would probably ignore meter and rhyme until the content was worked out and then back into it with some readjustment of the phrasing and make substitutions. Depends on how you work though to determine how feasible that is.

Fallout 

v.1
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear scattered around--around feels like its just there to make the rhyme work. It isn't totally forced but if I'm truly thinking of a prepper mentality even back in the 50s it's debatable how "scattered around" everything would be. Even if it had been abandoned for decades and current conditions are necessitating a return. 
Drums of grains--In this stanza you have an aa/bbb rhyme scheme with the last b being a slant rhyme rather than a perfect rhyme due to the plural/singular issue. To me drums of grain feels more normal than grains. Most drums are 55-gallon barrels (though I could see some smaller ones) it's debatable how many drums you could fit into a typical underground fallout shelter. I do like the concrete detail of this line and the one below though. It does give a sense of the dankness underground and the preparation put in place to survive.
Mildew stains 
Cold war relics still remain--The way you're using Cold War (specifically and not generically) it should be capitalized.  If you want to keep the rhyme scheme perfect you may want to settle on singular or plural and adjust accordingly.

v.2 
Rural folks lived to tell--rural because the shelters weren't placed in dense urban centers. 
Of days gone by, they knew too well--So they lived to tell and now the fallout shelters are just rusting curiosities. They remembered how they felt. 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked--This is a missed opportunity. The problem with these shorter lines is they don't give you much space for concrete details. Therefore, this line needs to be adjusted. You already mention nightly war fears above. You can imagine a news report with Walter Cronkite or some PSA spreading fear. Paranoia doesn't give you anything truly new. You need another concrete image ("children under school desks for atomic bomb drills, or some such"). You need to work to build mood and stack imagery with every opportunity. 
Armageddon's been provoked--See this doesn't make sense given that they lived to tell. They thought Armageddon was provoked but it hadn't been. This may work as a subtle shift at the end with the thought of what does the future hold--but it's inappropriate here when they are thinking back to their fears that were unrealized. It's hyperbole at this point in your narrative flow. 

c.1
The fallout is here--You haven't earned this chorus yet. Probably need something that makes this axiomatic. 
We see it clear--This is here for the rhyme. Clearly would be the proper syntax. Also you shift your rhyme scheme here to AAAAA with the last one being a slant rhyme. You probably should look for more consistency.
Racketeering political sphere--This just feels bolted on. What does racketering have to do with this sort of nuclear imagery your presenting.
Choking off our atmosphere--I can accept this imagery as it seems a logical result of fall out. 
Armageddon perseveres 

v.3
Another generation's passed 
Fallout shelters holding fast--But are they the same fallout shelters or do they take different forms? I think your missing an opportunity to make this feel more relevant to modern speakers--they don't go underground anymore but how are they hunkering down. You haven't proved this line. It needs more development to sound believable. 
Nightly war fears stoked 
Paranoia stroked 
Armageddon's been provoked--While I don't mind repetition. You need to have the repetition present this new verse in a different light from the previous one for it to remain fresh. It doesn't expand your meaning in any way so it's wasted space and opportunity. 

v.4 
Fallout shelter underground 
Survival gear hand-me-downs--I don't mind the slant rhyme here becuse this is a good example of what I meant above. The hand-me-downs repurposes the line. Though you may want to think about how to use your fallout shelter metaphor to speak about what's really being handed down the generational fears and prejudices. 
Drums of grains 
Mildew stains--Again for these lines the repetition without reworking something does nothing to advance your narrative. 
Armageddon's drum still sounds--That's a nice change introducing an image--though it is a deviation from your rhyme scheme again--this is not to say that you can have no deviations. It's just that they feel haphazard and not planned.

c.2
The fallout is here 
We see it clear
Racketeering political sphere 
choking off our atmosphere
Armageddon perseveres--Same comments as above for this strophe.

This lyric is from a poem I wrote and converted into song format. I hope it's okay to post in this forum. Please ignore the font size differences. I'm not sure how that happened with a straight copy/paste. Odd. 

I hope the comments help as you consider this piece.

Best,

Todd