My Top 1000 Songs #737: Bitchin' Camaro

[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.] 

Yes, "Bitchin' Camaro," off the Dead Milkmen's 1985 debut Big Lizard In My Backyard, is more a novelty song than a legit great (or, ok, even good) track.

Yes, it's silly and sophomoric and awfully cringe (its gratuitous and unfortunate AIDS joke was terribly dated even at the time of release).

But, still...

The spoken-word dialog over a bluesy shuffle between a couple stoner kids talking about heading out to the Jersey Shore to play video games and listen to a Doors cover band is otherwise good fun, and the pivot into a rapid-fire faux punk rock vamp is always a hoot.

"I ran over some old lady one night at the county fair. And I didn't get arrested because my dad's the mayor!"

Ok, you definitely had to be there--if it wasn't something we played to death back at the college station (ideally situated in New Jersey) when it came out, I'd probably hate the damn thing. But in 1985, it was a big part of our shared musical universe (I remember this LP and Camper Van Beethoven's similarly irreverent debut coming out around the same time), and still reliably conjures up many fond memories of a very specific time in my life.

Fan video, no opening dialog: