Monday 8 October 2018

Holiday In Cambodia - Dead Kennedys

Of the millions of songs which have been recorded, only 30 songs can make it into The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians and at number 23 we have Holiday In Cambodia by Dead Kennedys (1980).

As i was 11 in 1980 i was confused about a song advertising going on Holiday to Cambodia when on the news was Pol Pot torturing and murdering Cambodians in their hundreds of thousands, turns out i misunderstood.
With jangly guitars, a great hook and lyrics spat at you by Jello Biafra it was bit more tuneful than the punk era music around at the same time, it also has a great solo where that jangly guitar hook seems to break out from the background and takes on a life of it's own for 30 amazing seconds before chants of Pol Pot who i now understand wouldn't have made a particularly good holiday host.  
The line 'Kiss ass while you bitch / So you can get rich / While your boss gets richer off you' is something which i have also used to justify my not doing overtime all these years.


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