"Nazi Punks Fuck Off" was the fifth single by the Dead Kennedys. It was released in 1981 on Alternative Tentacles with "Moral Majority" as the B-side. Both are taken from the In God We Trust, Inc. EP, although the version of the title track on the EP is a different recording from the single version. The single included a free armband with a crossed-out swastika. The design was later adapted both as the Dead Kennedys' logo and as a symbol for the anti-racist punk movement.
"Nazi Punks Fuck Off" was famously covered by the English grindcore band Napalm Death for their 1993 EP of the same name[1]
Contents[]
History[edit][]
[1] | This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2014) |
In the late 1970s, some members of the punk subculture on the West Coast of the United States began to use Nazi symbolism for shock effect, and others adopted neo-Nazism in earnest. Dead Kennedys were one of the bands that became popular among the neo-Nazi punk movement when they were misinterpreted as right-wing polemicists. Their gigs began to attract a significant audience of neo-Nazi skinheads, perhaps thrown off by the title of the song "California Über Alles". The Dead Kennedys were actually quite the opposite and vehemently opposed the fascist tendencies of the neo-Nazi movement. Angry at what the Nazi punk movement was about (believing it was not true punk), the group wrote "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" as a response to the White power skinhead attending their shows, making clear that they wanted nothing to do with neo-Nazism and that the use of Nazi symbols and imagery was opposite to the punk subculture they claimed to be a part of (as shown in the lyric "We ain't trying to be the police/If you ape the cops, it ain't anarchy").
Production[edit][]
Biafra names Manchester engineer Martin Hannett, more usually associated with Joy Division and Buzzcocks, on the opening of the In God We Trust, Inc. version, accusing him tongue in cheek of having "overproduced" the production.[2] The mention was intended as ironic, as Hannett, although a highly respect producer, did not worked with the Dead Kennedys; Biafra instead pays tribute to the iconic producer and makes a sly dig at his work with Joy Division, a band that initially felt unhappy with Hannett's cold production values.