1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 465. Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables (1980)

 

You can get a rough idea of the kind of dark humour behind the Dead Kennedy’s lyrics from the punk name of their frontman, Jello Biafra. Combining the name of a dessert that’s got associations with children’s parties and slapstick comedy, inherently light-hearted and silly, with the name of a short-lived African ethno-state that was basically starved into submission by Nigeria. Famine and feast in one name. It doesn’t have the immediate reference to nastiness like Rat Scabies or Sid Vicious, but has more layers of meaning. 

Much like the Dead Kennedys’ music, really. It’s fundamentally more of the same punk, veering into hardcore, with Biafra’s voice sounding not unlike Fred Schneider of the B-52s. With tracks like Let’s Lynch The Landlord (which is a fairly good example of some relatively traditional punk) or Stealing Peoples Mail, the Dead Kennedy’s aim for maximum shock value. Usually, though, their songs are from an almost absurdist perspective that satirises, rather than supports, the position (or an aspect of society). The track I Kill Children, for example, goes into the mind of somebody looking at lots of ways to murder children (“Feed 'em poison candy, to spoil their Halloween”) but in the penultimate verse the narrator reveals that they’ve evidently suffered some kind of trauma (combat PTSD, perhaps?) - “I don't wanna see people any more, things I never ever saw before, make me see them for the shit they are”. Hidden within the provocative lyrics is a biting commentary on the state of mental health for veterans (perhaps). Or maybe it's just a provocative statement about how annoying other people's children can be. Or both.

Death is ever-present on this album. Chemical Warfare is a blackly comic fantasy about gassing the smug rich patrons of a country club, that descends into coughing and choking. Holiday In Cambodia takes a double swipe both at the cruelties of the Khmer Rouge, and at oblivious yuppie tourists. 

It all comes across as highly un-subtle, until you spot the knowing wink hidden in the music – don't worry, they say, we don’t really want to kill children, but have a think about what governments and corporations are doing to the world. Are the real child killers the lone psycho, or the pursuit of the bottom line?