The Headless Children is the fourth studio album by heavy metal band W.A.S.P., released in April 1989 through Capitol Records.

The Headless Children showcases a new level of maturity from the band compared to their previous three albums, which had stereotypically lewd "rock and roll" lyrics.

The cover art, designed and illustrated by John Kosh, is based on "Gateway to Stalingrad", a cartoon by Daniel R. Fitzpatrick, depicts a string of historical figures including Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Benito Mussolini, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Al Capone and the Ku Klux Klan, with an image of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald shown prominently in the foreground.

Lawless stated in an interview shortly after the release of the album, that "The Neutron Bomber", is about Ronald Reagan and the power he and America had over the world, with such a large nuclear arsenal.

Alternatively, in an interview entitled "Headhunter" published in the May/June 1989 edition of Metal Forces magazine, Lawless said the song "is about a guy named Ronny who I grew up with over in Staten Island who was the biggest mass fire starter in the history of the Northeast!

In a contemporary review for the German magazine Rock Hard, Thomas Kupfer considered The Headless Children second only to W.A.S.P.

"brilliant debut album" and remarked how the song structures were simpler and the music more melodic than in previous works, but Lawless' voice had "lost nothing of its charisma".