 I'd like to say thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Go to squarespace.com slash polyphonic for 10% off your new website. Satire is a powerful tool for protest. Dating as far back as the ancient Greeks, people have poked fun at social and political establishments to try to make change. Right now it seems like a lot of the best satire is reserved for the world of TV, but it can be equally powerful in music. And I think no band has ever been so good at this rebellious satire as the dead Kennedys. One of the greatest punk bands of all time, their brilliant lyrics wielded satire like a well-honed blade and used it to push their political messages. Let's take a closer look. Satire is the use of irony or sarcasm often paired with parody or exaggeration to expose flaws in people, ideas, establishments, or society. Despite that definition, it can really mean a lot of things and there's lots of different subgenres and interpretations of satire. One of these breaks satire into two forms, Horatian and Juvenalian. Horatian satire is a lighter, more playful take on the form that intends to bring laughs by poking fun at folly in society. This satire is often more sympathetic and less intense. The dead Kennedys use this kind of satire sometimes, but they tend to tap more into Juvenalian satire. This form is named after the Roman writer Juvenal who wrote a number of satires criticizing the government and society of the time. Whereas other satire can be mild and light-hearted, Juvenalian tends to be abrasive and scornful. One of the most seminal works in Juvenalian satire is Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Written in 1729, a modest proposal was a criticism of social engineering at the time posing as a well-meaning essay. In it, Swift says that a possible cure for problems of Irish poverty could be encouraging the poor to sell their children to the rich for food. It's a scathing mockery of British policy, and one that has a clear influence on the dead Kennedys. Just look at Kill the Poor, the first track of their debut album. This song is a 20th century take on a modest proposal. It imagines solving issues of poverty by using neutron bombs to kill the poor with radiation without worrying about damaging things like property value. The song sings with an upbeat, jingoistic sound that really drives home the message. While a lot of punk rock presents itself as ideological warfare, the dead Kennedys didn't shy away from fighting actual policy and people. Satire can be a great tool for exposing an individual's flaws, and that's what the DKs do on California Uber Allys, a takedown of Jerry Brown, then governor of California. When the DKs released the song, Brown was making a run for president. It's a savage attack on Brown's new-age ideologies, imagining a world where he brings on a fascist, hippie Nazi regime. The dead Kennedys openly criticized people all over the political spectrum. Brown ran with the Democratic Party, but a few years later, the band rejigged the song until We've Got a Bigger Problem Now, a scathing assault on Ronald Reagan, this time imagining him bringing on a fascist Christian theocrist. The songs aren't the only targets of the dead Kennedys satire. They also turn on the music industry regularly. Look at MTV Get Off the Air, which argues that MTV was neutering the rebellion of rock and roll and commercializing punk rock. The song opens with a satirical take on MTV VJs. That VJ impression is an example of how the band sometimes uses Horatian satire to drive home their points. We can see the band criticize the music industry some more in Pull My Strings. That song sees the DKs reinventing themselves, claiming that they're now a new wave band, and criticizing the way that money drives the industry. When they performed this song, the dead Kennedys came out with big S's on their shirt, and then pulled ties over them to turn them into dollar signs. The song's chorus is a parody of the hit My Charona, except they criticize Paola, the practice of paying radio DJs to air specific music. The masterwork of the dead Kennedys satire might be Holiday in Cambodia. The song is a parody of yuppie college students unaware of their privilege. It draws stark contrast between the lives of these people and the situation in Cambodia, which was under the brutal rule of Pull Pot's totalitarian dictatorship. The song starts out with a frame of these college kids that claim they know the plight of the poor, and then it suggests that they take a holiday in Cambodia, where a dictatorship was in the middle of putting the educated, city-living people of the country into forced labor camps. The song takes on societal elites who the dead Kennedys have a distaste for, while also condemning the US government for lack of action in Cambodia. The song shows how powerful satire can be as a tool of social commentary. The dead Kennedys had it down to a science, and thanks to their witty lyrics, they were able to separate themselves from the punk pack and leave a legacy as one of the funniest, most powerful, and most important bands in punk history. I'd like to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform where you can use designer templates to build your own website. Whether it's a new business, a creative pursuit, or a personal portfolio, Squarespace can help you build your website to your vision. They've got award-winning 24-7 customer service, online store capabilities, and simple domain hosting and transferring. 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