Holiday in Cambodia Lyrics
For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all
In daddy's car
Thinking you'll go far
Back east your type don't crawl
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Bragging that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slum's got so much soul
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear
It's tough, kid, but it's life
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife
You suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Until you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son
Where people dress in black
Need a holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll kiss ass or crack
Where you'll do what you're told
A holiday in Cambodia
Where the slum's got so much soul
It's self-explanatory. He's skewering the people in the opening of the song: So you been to schools For a year or two And you know you've seen it all
Basically, kid who has never been outside the suburbs goes off to college...learns about far left ideology (think Marx) and decides that he/she too will be a "revolutionary." They learn to "appreciate" jazz...thereby "understanding" the plight of Blacks in the US.
Student thinks to self, "Too bad we can't have a state like Marx talked about, where there really is 'justice for all.'"
Biafra is basically satirizing the student who has absolutely no clue what the real world is like.
As was pointed out, Pol Pot killed or "re-educated" college graduates. But Cambodia was just the example. Every "communist" revolution ends up killing the majority of the intelligentsia...they use the students as an alternative to the thugs, but, let's face it, the students get pissy when the great leader begins to oppress the masses. So the leader eliminates them.
Think about it. Then think about who makes up the majority of the student activists at any college campus.
Brilliant post. You almost begin to restore some faith in humanity.
Brilliant post. You almost begin to restore some faith in humanity.
Almost.
Almost.
@BitterGenXer You're fucking moron to politicize this song as somehow only leftist are clueless, as if no right wing silver spoon asshole has acted as if they know everything look at trump.
@BitterGenXer You're fucking moron to politicize this song as somehow only leftist are clueless, as if no right wing silver spoon asshole has acted as if they know everything look at trump.
Please oh please show where 'far left' and 'marxism' is referenced. So jazz and ethnicky mean they are leftist and marxist? This song could be referencing anyone who hasn't been out of the comforts of modern society that acts like they have lived and know everything. Lol
Please oh please show where 'far left' and 'marxism' is referenced. So jazz and ethnicky mean they are leftist and marxist? This song could be referencing anyone who hasn't been out of the comforts of modern society that acts like they have lived and know everything. Lol
You guys are interpreting this song incorrectly (at least partially).
The first half of the song is critical of "trust-fund radicals" who posture at being supportive or sympathetic to radical revolutionaries in places like Cambodia, because it's safe for them to do so from the warm cocoon of their upper-class, American liberal arts academic life. JB is saying that these college hipster types only know about revolutions through books and that they would piss themselves if they actually took a "Holiday in Cambodia" and had to give up their comfortable western lifestyle to see what revolution looks like in real life.
The SECOND half of the song is critical of rich yuppies who JB feels could use some humility training in a third world communist dictatorship like that in the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia.
My friend was forced to fight for the Khmer Rouge when he was a young boy (and after his grandparent's home was set on fire and the town ransacked). He didn't learn humility; rather, he leared how to fear and how to slaughter. Thankfully, one night he escaped alone (leaving behind his best friend for fear of snitching) and made his way into a neighboring country where U.S. "adoptions" were being arranged. The Khmer Rouge were brutal thugs...many very young. The word "humility" shouldn't be used in the same sentence as their group name. I agree w/ the remainder of...
My friend was forced to fight for the Khmer Rouge when he was a young boy (and after his grandparent's home was set on fire and the town ransacked). He didn't learn humility; rather, he leared how to fear and how to slaughter. Thankfully, one night he escaped alone (leaving behind his best friend for fear of snitching) and made his way into a neighboring country where U.S. "adoptions" were being arranged. The Khmer Rouge were brutal thugs...many very young. The word "humility" shouldn't be used in the same sentence as their group name. I agree w/ the remainder of your post. It's an interesting song...and a little too realistic.
I agree with carolinahaze above - but I think rolypolyw-w has tapped into the anticommunist strand of the text as well. The hypocrisy of the idealist college Lefties is exposed for the privileged posing that it is - and is then eclipsed by the brutal reality of the Pol Pot regime trying to coerce Marxist theory into practice.
I agree with carolinahaze above - but I think rolypolyw-w has tapped into the anticommunist strand of the text as well. The hypocrisy of the idealist college Lefties is exposed for the privileged posing that it is - and is then eclipsed by the brutal reality of the Pol Pot regime trying to coerce Marxist theory into practice.
Eric Boucher, from bucolic Boulder CO, seems to believe in pure anarchist agitation. He is like the "useful idiots" used by Communist and Fascist thugs alike to rise to power on a wave of mayhem and civil unrest ("Burn it all down...
Eric Boucher, from bucolic Boulder CO, seems to believe in pure anarchist agitation. He is like the "useful idiots" used by Communist and Fascist thugs alike to rise to power on a wave of mayhem and civil unrest ("Burn it all down baby! Smash the state! Bedtime for Democracy! Etc. etc.)
Jello wrote some great lyrics and his band rocked - but, like a cheap vintage wine, he does not age well.
@carolinahaze I think it's a critique of "radicals" in general. Radicalism, no matter who advocates it is inherently dangerous.
@carolinahaze I think it's a critique of "radicals" in general. Radicalism, no matter who advocates it is inherently dangerous.
This song warns of what can happen when you try to overthrow systems that work.
This song warns of what can happen when you try to overthrow systems that work.
It asks the listener sincerely whether they wish to live in Capitalist America with it's few faults or Communist Cambodia, the genocidal dictatorship.
It asks the listener sincerely whether they wish to live in Capitalist America with it's few faults or Communist Cambodia, the genocidal dictatorship.
I think the message of this song can be summed up with this Churchill quote:
I think the message of this song can be summed up with this Churchill quote:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
I like what you guys are saying, but I have my own little spin to add. When Jello sings about rich, over-educated urban types with only the vaguest notion of what it's like to be poor and marginalized, and then sings about Cambodia, I think he's talking about how the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities of anyone with an education, money, etc., and forced them to break their backs working on forced-labor farms. I think he's saying that while that was awful for them, there's quite a few people in the U.S. that should deserve a little "re-education", to see what it's really like to be downtrodden and abused, as opposed to what you picked up in your Jazz History 101 class.
oops...place the text in the wrong place. here it is
to understand the meaning of the song, you have to understand some of the history of punk and the cultural environment that surrounded the dead kennedys.
Punk was a reaction against the spaced-out hippie culture that was rampant in middle to upper-class youth and college students during the 60s and (somewhat) 70s. Bored from their spoiled lives, they saw less fortunate life styles, such as those in ghettos and third-world countries, as more real and "soulful." The movement promoted "living as one" and "getting things done" by rallying against american authority. Though the hippie movement brought some good (women's rights, civil rights), the movement also encouraged unrealistic escapism and utopianism. DK came from San Francisco, the epicenter of the hippie movement.
Specifically, this song was a brilliantly-written reaction against the ignorance of first-world youth who think they know everything. Jello tells the ignorant, spoiled youth to move to communist cambodia to "live as one" (only to loose their individual identity and freedom of speech) and "get things done" (by living on a bowl of rice and slaving in the killing fields) in order to bring their romanticized outlook on the world back to reality. What these 60s hippies needed is some re-education back into reality.
Not to mention the hippies had pretty much gutted actual political resistance, considering that being enlightened was the real revolution. . . . much of the reason for punk was actually a reaction against this complacency, using tactics of shock first developed by the Situationalists during the much less flower-powery student rebellions in Paris '68.
Not to mention the hippies had pretty much gutted actual political resistance, considering that being enlightened was the real revolution. . . . much of the reason for punk was actually a reaction against this complacency, using tactics of shock first developed by the Situationalists during the much less flower-powery student rebellions in Paris '68.
Excellent analysis. Actually, the first three or four posts are really on target, I think, concerning what JB had in mind. I like your socio-cultural analysis. I think where people need to be careful is thinking that JB (as the first poster seems to suggest) was essentially trashing liberalism and promoting rampant free market capitalism because the song focuses on how a "Marxist revolution" (which obviously Pol Pot's murderous regime was not) can be twisted into the justification for the horrendous acts of murder and brutality. The song is a brilliant critique of Pol Pol's insanely bloody leadership as it...
Excellent analysis. Actually, the first three or four posts are really on target, I think, concerning what JB had in mind. I like your socio-cultural analysis. I think where people need to be careful is thinking that JB (as the first poster seems to suggest) was essentially trashing liberalism and promoting rampant free market capitalism because the song focuses on how a "Marxist revolution" (which obviously Pol Pot's murderous regime was not) can be twisted into the justification for the horrendous acts of murder and brutality. The song is a brilliant critique of Pol Pol's insanely bloody leadership as it is a hilarious poke at the wealthy liberal college students of the late 70s and early 80s. (The song was perfectly released in 1980, when so many things swung right in this country--some of which was positive, but much of which translated supporting regimes as bad as Pol Pot's in the name of "freedom," such as teaching the Contras how to disembowel pregnant women in front of "left leaning" towns to teach them who they must support in the next election. The CIA did this and countless other atrocious things in the 1980s after supposedly having been reigned in by the Carter administration's new CIA regulations.)
This is a song warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and how leftist education systems are glorifying revolution without warning of the real life consequences.
This is a song warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and how leftist education systems are glorifying revolution without warning of the real life consequences.
Remember communism and fascism are both left wing ideologies that focus on COLLECTIVISM.
Remember communism and fascism are both left wing ideologies that focus on COLLECTIVISM.
Punk was about INDIVIDUALISM. The sworn enemy of both communism and fascism alike.
Punk was about INDIVIDUALISM. The sworn enemy of both communism and fascism alike.
This song is about how soft and easy it is to be white, rich, and live in america. If some of these preppy assholes around me were shipped of to Cambodia (in the late 70s or early 80s) they wouldn't last a minute.
Great song, but it basically boils down to being about ignorance. People living "happily" in America/Europe/Whatever, thinking they know everything, when there are people dying in poorer nations, being forced to kill, then killed themselves, living in squalor, etc.
"So you can get rich But your boss gets richer off you"... ignorance to the fact that society uses you.
"Play ethnicky jazz To parade your snazz On your five grand stereo Braggin' that you know How the niggers feel cold And the slum's got so much soul"... Acting like something is cool, e.g. "the slums got so much soul", but really just ignorant to the fact of how it really is.
I'm seeing this as partly a smug attack on American college "intellectuals" and preps. If anyone knows more about the Khmer Rouge, they were shipping these kinds people off to prison camps and executing them to eliminate the "threat" to their "perfect peasant society". They also compared the conforming or willingly ass-kissing nature of the corporate workplace to the labor camps where people were forced to kiss ass and strictly follow the regulations or face death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge's soldiers. The US government blindly supported the regime because they opposed Northern Vietnam and the Viet Cong, but this was only because of Pol Pot's nationalistic and isolationist politics. The band was pretty much sticking it in their faces by detailing the horrors of the regime.
I read some earlier post by this kid, HarlequinStars, saying how he believed that this was also about the black community in the ghetto, feeding off welfare, and i do have to say, you're an idiot, I'm sure Jello Biafra is real pissed off about those damned niggers, just sucking his goddamn paycheck down the drain, he works hard for his money, and if those lazy spooks would just get off their asses, and put down the crack pipe, and stop having babies they could get a job makin minimum wage at MdDonalds, that's exactly what those lyrics were about
Go read the Autobirography of Malcolm X, that lyric was about kids like you, who just make assumptions about the ghetto, kids who think that they can make comments on it
sorry to be so stupidly immature in the middle of this serious political conversation, but does any one else love the line "you'll kiss ass or crack"
I think there's something a lot of you are missing.
The consensus is this song is talking about people who think they know what the worst part of the world is really like and how to fix it, but really their clueless. And there's an implied "not like me, I'm clued in." there.
You're not.
Okay, there's a small chance you really know what it is to suffer like in a Cambodian labour camp, but since you seem to have internet access and still be alive, the odds are poor.
The mistake here isn't not knowing what it's like in the third world. The mistake is thinking you know.
As for those of you who think this is about how your damned rich, white oppressors wouldn't survive in a place like the Cambodia of the 70s... You'd hardly fare any better.
You can't be hard enough to survive something like that. Something like that can break your body as surely as a bullet and there`s about as much you can do about it.
Disease and starvation kill people. It doesnt matter if you think your a badass because you live in a dirty apartment and your neighbor got shot. It doesn
t give you any special kind of protection.
Surviving or dying in a situation like that isn`t even something you can predict. It's like the shipwreck stories where some skinny lil bugger hangs onto a piece of debris all night until someone rescues him while the big, tough guy beside him froze and slipped into the water after only half an hour.
A soft-bodied early twenties college student who's never gone more than twelve hours without eating in their life might survive while someone who's had plenty of bones broken in fights, struggled with drug addiction, and been in and out of jail might die.
And if you think someone needs to be sent to one of those camps just because you find their racial/economic/educational/whatever group distasteful... If you really think that... then you're the fucking monster. You're the person idealists enlist in armies to fight, and you're the monster pulling the strings to create a war for them in the first place.
Excellent post, especially the last paragraph. The song reminds me of that Simpsons episode:
Excellent post, especially the last paragraph. The song reminds me of that Simpsons episode:
Lisa - It's one of those campy 70s throwbacks that appeals to Generation X'ers.
Lisa - It's one of those campy 70s throwbacks that appeals to Generation X'ers.
Bart - We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little.
Bart - We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little.
That line is hilarious. It satirizes some of the more ridiculous justifications for war. This doesn't mean the show writers were pining for another Vietnam. Quite the contrary. The Dead Kennedys are basically saying the same thing. It's fascinating, yet a little depressing, that so many Americans enthusiastically take this at face value.
That line is hilarious. It satirizes some of the more ridiculous justifications for war. This doesn't mean the show writers were pining for another Vietnam. Quite the contrary. The Dead Kennedys are basically saying the same thing. It's fascinating, yet a little depressing, that so many Americans enthusiastically take this at face value.
Sheesh, listen to a little bit...
Sheesh, listen to a little bit of Sly & The Family Stone. It won't make one understand the ghettos. But it's fun. Nothing wrong with that.
@Tamaranis Jello is not saying that he and his clued-in listeners would survive and that the targets of the song would not and should therefore actually be sent there as punishment. The song uses large doses of irony. He is saying that nobody (including himself) raised as a privileged softie American could possibly last 5 minutes in Cambodia, and if they went there on "holiday," they would learn this very quickly. The song makes the statement that his (and my) generation, sometimes called Generation Jones, the cultural generation that came between The Woodstock Generation and Generation X, needs to drop...
@Tamaranis Jello is not saying that he and his clued-in listeners would survive and that the targets of the song would not and should therefore actually be sent there as punishment. The song uses large doses of irony. He is saying that nobody (including himself) raised as a privileged softie American could possibly last 5 minutes in Cambodia, and if they went there on "holiday," they would learn this very quickly. The song makes the statement that his (and my) generation, sometimes called Generation Jones, the cultural generation that came between The Woodstock Generation and Generation X, needs to drop the mindless worship of mass murderers like Chairman Mao and find a political path that actually has a workable endgame. Because Communism, especially as practiced in Asia, had so far led to nightmarish horrors. He's saying wake up, get off your privileged honky ass, and study up on the reality of what it is these stupid hippies have been advocating. A virtual, not actual, holiday in Cambodia, if you will.