Dead Kennedys – Let’s Lynch the Landlord

The landlord’s here to visit
They’re blasting disco down below
Says, “I’m doubling the rent ’cause the building’s condemned
You’re gonna help me buy City Hall”

But we can, you know we can
But we can, you know we can
Let’s lynch the landlord man

I tell them, “Turn on the water”
I tell ’em, “Turn on the heat”
Tells me, “All you ever do is complain, ” yeah
Then they search the place when I’m not here

But we can, you know we can
We can, you know we can
Let’s lynch the landlord, let’s lynch the landlord
Let’s lynch the landlord man

There’s rats chewin’ up the kitchen
Roaches up to my knees
Turn the oven on, it smells like Dachau
‘Til the rain pours through the ceiling

But we can, you know we can
We can, you know we can
Let’s lynch the landlord, let’s lynch the landlord
Let’s lynch the landlord man

The landlord man

The Thought-Provoking (Yet Humorous) Debut That Helped Usher In Hardcore Punk — 45 Years Later, It’s Still as Strong as Ever

Ultimate Guitar || By the late ’70s and early ’80s, punk rock had become largely a bunch of copycats, mimicking such trailblazers as The Stooges, Ramones, and Sex Pistols, and not really putting their own unique spin on things. But there were certainly some most-welcomed exceptions, notably the debut full-length by the Dead Kennedys, “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”, which on September 2nd will be celebrating its 45th anniversary.

Originally formed in 1978 in San Francisco, the DK’s core included singer Jello Biafra (real name: Eric Boucher), guitarist East Bay Ray (Raymond Pepperell), and bassist Klaus Fluoride (Geoffrey Lyall), along with original drummer Ted (Bruce Slesinger). Although using punk rock as the basis of their sound, the group refused to be one-dimensional or predictable, as heard by their original melding of surf music, jazz, psychedelia (largely due to Ray’s use of an Echoplex), rockabilly, and even spaghetti western soundtrack sounds. Plus, Biafra’s lyrics seemed evenly split between politically-charged, witty, and comical.

And it was during this era that the group penned the material that would eventually comprise “Fresh Fruit.”

“The writing process, there were basically two processes,” Ray told Guitar World in 2022. “One, like ‘Holiday in Cambodia,’ came out of a jam session – that was literally in my garage. Our first rehearsal studio was my garage – until the neighbors complained and we had to move. And we would tape it, and Biafra would go through his lyrics and find lyrics to fit the music.”

“The other way we would do it is we would sit on the sofa at Klaus’ with an acoustic guitar. So, it would be Klaus, Biafra, and myself going over the songs, finding keys, finding arrangements, finding chord changes. One of the interesting things I’d do is I’m from the East Bay, so I’d go across the bridge and I’d be listening to Merle Haggard on my car stereo. It helps with your songwriting structure – he’s kind of a master songwriter.”

After building a following on the strength of their unpredictable and high-energy live shows and a handful of singles, the lads congregated at San Francisco’s Möbius Music from May through June 1980 to work on their full-length debut. The producers on the LP would be listed as Ray plus a mysterious person by the name of “Norm,” which turned out to be a cat that lived in the studio!

Song for song, the album would be one of the DK’s strongest, as it included such classics as “Kill the Poor,” “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” “Drug Me,” “California Über Alles,” and the aforementioned “Holiday in Cambodia,” the latter of which is possibly the best-known tune of the DK’s entire career. Biafra discussed the creation of this album with Songfacts in 2013.

“Some Dead Kennedys songs had more than one writer – a lot of the best ones did. ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ was one of the few that actually was group-written – or at least group-constructed. The original ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ is more a straight punk song. We called them ‘chainsaws’ back then, ‘chainsaw punk’ after the Ramones song [‘Chain Saw‘].”

“The other guys didn’t like it. They didn’t want to play it. I was heartbroken, I was crestfallen, they’d never done that to me before. And then Klaus began noodling around on what became that signature bass line. I thought, ‘Hey, wait a minute. That’s cool. What would happen if we swiped everything from my ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ song – verse, chorus, bridge – but used that as the original root rhythm?'”

“Actually, we had a three-chord chorus and bridge that came from the original, and then the verse we swapped out. Eventually, Ray came up with that signature guitar part when he enters the song.”

Released on September 2, 1980, via the band’s Alternative Tentacles label, the album’s front cover would include a black and white photo of police cars on fire, snapped during the White Night riots on May 21, 1979. “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables” would immediately become an underground hit, eventually being certified gold in the UK, and is widely considered one of the greatest punk rock recordings of all-time. I also helped usher in a new era of hardcore punk, along with acts such as Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Misfits, etc.

But it turns out that it took many years for Ray to recognize that the album was special and a classic. “Way later,” Ray said in the previously mentioned chat with Guitar World. “We kind of stopped playing in 1986 and figured, ‘I’ll have to get a day job in about two years.’ Everybody in the band kind of did.”

“We all tried solo projects, but the Dead Kennedys was a collaboration of we were ‘2+2=5.’ We were still selling pretty well, so we were like, ‘OK. People are still interested in us.’ We didn’t really think it was a classic at the time. We were just playing the best we can and writing the best we can – and working hard on it. And we liked it. Then Nirvana came out and punk rock got kind of rediscovered. And it’s been kind of building since then.”