112
Popular Culture Review
Name one thing on earth lower than a tough guy who talks with
his fists instead of using his head
who beats the shit out of anything it can’t understand
behind the muscle mask is a scared little boy
Along with chronicling the violence perpetrated by humans against each
other, Dead Kennedy s’ works also capture the violence waged against the
environment. Two songs in particular sadly illustrate corporate America’s
ambivalence toward protecting the environment. In the 1982 song, “Moon Over
Marin,” the protagonist stumbles through a bleak, murky world in which toxic
pollutants choke the sky and the oceans are dark with the remnants of spilled oil.
And in the 1986 song, “Cesspools in Eden,” moral bankruptcy on the part of
corporate America has transformed a once beautiful nation into a land of poisoned
groundwater, toxic chemicals, and cancer-causing agents.
A final critique of fascism in America focuses on the punk rock
movement itself, with Dead Kennedys making it clear that the band refused to be
associated with the neo-Nazi punk fans who were brandishing swastikas and
calling for the formation of a Fourth Reich. In the 1981 song, “Nazi Punks Fuck
Off,” Biafra sets the neo-Nazis straight by emphasizing what the punk movement
means to him:
Punk ain’t no religious cult
Punk means thinking for yourself
you ain’t hardcores cause you spike your hair
when a jock still lives inside your head.
This sentiment is buttressed in the 1986 song, “Chickenshit Conformist,” in which
Biafra laments that in large part it was the fascistic tendencies of some of the
punk rock performers and fans that led to punk’s demis e. Biafra concludes:
When thugs form bands
look who gets record deals
from New York metal tables looking to scam
who sign the most racist queerbashing bands they can find
to make a buck revving kids up for war.
Conclusion
The legacy of the music of Dead Kennedys is that it captured the
tensions, turmoil, and inherent contradictions of 1980s America. The hardcore,
abrasive sound, the graphic lyrics, and the outrageousness of some of the band’s
more extreme political positions—all of this was a calculated attempt to shock
Americans out of their apathy and fear of change, and to convince people to think