2000 Great Songs #1241: Institutionalized
The 80s college radio DJ cabal was largely divided between post-punk hardcore and jangly guitar pop; and anyone who's spent more than 30 seconds checking out these pages knows where I came down. Still, Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized," off their eponymous 1983 debut, was one of those tracks we all got a kick out of. And I suppose it's because it feels more like a goofy novelty song than true thrash, the spoken-word narration capturing some poor kid whose parents mistake his normal suburban teenage angst for drug abuse. (Also, for the second time in about a month, we've got a tune which got a nod in Repo Man , which we all rewatched religiously late nights in the dorm.) Is it a song I've played much (or at all) in the past 40 years? Nope. But for those of us who spent the 80s greeting each other by shouting " All I wanted was a Pepsi! " with the same gleeful abandon with which we'd quote Fletch and Caddyshack , it deserves some recogn...
