California over everything

California over everything
Dead Kennedys
publication	June 1979
length	3:02 (album version), 3:27 (single version)
Genre (s)	Punk rock , political punk
Author (s)	Jello Biafra , John Greenway
Label	Alternative tentacles
album	Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Cover versions
1981	Dead Kennedys: We've Got a Bigger Problem, Now!
1994	Każik na żywo: Kalifornia pobad wszystko
1999	Hasidic New Wave : Giuliani about everything
2005	Jello Biafra & The Melvins : Kali-Fornia About Everything 21st Century (Live)
2017	Die Toten Hosen & Jello Biafra : California above everything

California Above All is a song by the California political punk band Dead Kennedys . It was released in June 1979 as the band's first single with The Man with the Dogs on the B-side. The old single version is included on the best-of and rarities album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death . The Dead Kennedys sold 6,000 copies of the single through their own new record company, Alternative Tentacles , before recording a second version for their debut album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables .

Emergence

The piece of music was composed by Jello Biafra ; the text is by John Greenway and was then supplemented and revised by Biafra. Biafra composed the music on one of his few attempts to compose music while jamming on the guitar. The original version was played by The Healers, a band with whom Biafra performed in his native Boulder , Colorado . The first recording was made in 1979 in Army Street / BSU Studios. As a template for the production, Biafra presented the studio owner Jim Keylor's single Sick of You by The Users.

Fast Product released a British pressing of the single.

Music genre

Gunther Reinhardt from Rolling Stone described California as a “ hardcore version of a flamenco ”.

content

The lyrics of the song prophesied a " hippie - fascist future" from the point of view of the then California governor Jerry Brown . Brown ran for president in 1976 and 1980 . Biafra combines two observations in the text: On the one hand, he disapproves of the escapism of the esoteric New Age movements that emerged from the environment of the hippie movement and whose followers he perceived during his time in Boulder as apathetic, docile and therefore easily steerable. Biafra was particularly concerned about their susceptibility to charismatic leaders. On the other hand, he criticizes the hunger for power of Jerry Brown, to whom Biafra trusted to manipulate this escapism for his own ends because of the allegation attributed to Brown that the citizens long for a guide on a white horse. The comment about the leader on a white horse is also taken up in the song.

Das über alles alludes to the first stanza of the Deutschlandlied , which begins with the line Deutschland, Deutschland über alles , which used to be part of the German national anthem and was used in particular in the Third Reich .

reception

California above all reached the top 10 of the then version of the Alternative Charts after the British pressing was released.

In 1981 the Dead Kennedys published a second version of the play under the title "We've got a bigger problem now", which no longer addresses Governor Jerry Brown, but the now-elected President Ronald Reagan .

The group Hasidic New Wave , which was active in the context of the "Radical Jewish Culture" scene around John Zorn in the 1990s , covered the title in 1999 under the title Giuliani über alles , in order to address the problem of increasing police violence during the tenure by then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani .

Jayne County covered the song with She Wolves in 2007.

Die Toten Hosen released a cover version of the song California über alles in 2017 with Jello Biafra as a guest singer. This song is included on the Learning English Lesson 2 album . In this version, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is at the center of the text and references to both his politics and his films are processed in it.

Biafra admitted in two later interviews that he was wrong in his assessment of Brown.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Heather Johnson: Dead Kennedys' "California Uber Alles". Mix, October 1, 2005, archived from the original on November 10, 2014 ; accessed on January 31, 2015 (English). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Gunther Reinhardt: Dead Kennedys . Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables. In: Rolling Stone . Axel Springer Mediahouse Berlin GmbH, Berlin July 2011, p. 62 .
3. ↑ Nardwuar: Nardwuar the human serviette vs. Jello Biafra. 2002. Retrieved May 3, 2018
4. ↑ KQED: California Songs: Jello Biafra and "California Uber Alles," July 14, 2006. Retrieved April 30, 2018
5. ↑ Die Toten Hosen: "Learning English Lesson 2" tracklist, cover artwork and guests published . In: Rock Hard . Rock Hard Verlags- und Handels- GmbH, April 5, 2017, accessed on April 24, 2017 . 
6. ↑ Interview with the Canadian journalist and musician Nardwuar in 2002. Accessed September 12, 2018
7. ↑ Interview with Greg Prato for Songfacts from June 4, 2013. Retrieved September 12, 2018