My Top 1000 Songs #446: Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

A second contribution from the Minutemen's 1984 opus Double Nickels On The Dime, "Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing" is as deliriously ludicrous as the title suggests. It's a band-defining track, a 90-second romp that rips with pure punk rock energy & anger, but delivered amiably and almost academically, nonsensical yet still somehow politically loaded lyrics that fly by at a rapid clip while still finding time for a quick, killer hook and a concise guitar solo. 

"Organizing the Boy Scouts for murder is wrong!" seems pretty hard to argue with; and, yeah, "I must look like a dork!" is among the most readily repurposed of all rock & roll proclamations.

Live!

Bassist Mike Watt keeping the flame burning.

Random cover version on YouTube:

Superchunk just released their latest collection of b-sides and extras (Misfits & Mistakes) which includes a faithful but still great cover: