10 Rock Songs That People Have Completely Misunderstood
7. Dead Kennedys - I Kill Children
Punk is a genre that’s founded on the concept of being shocking, outlandish and outright disgraceful to generate a buzz. Many bands such as Sex Pistols, Reagan Youth and The Skids all mastered this art, but Dead Kennedys are arguably the only band from the punk rock revolution to have mastered it.
The Californian forefathers of hardcore punk were founded in 1978 with the original line-up of East Bay Ray, Jello Biafra, Klaus Flouride, 6025 and of course… Ted. Politically charged from day one, Dead Kennedys released their groundbreaking debut album, ‘Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables’, in 1980 and melted the minds of a straight-laced, conservative America. Songs like ‘California Uber Alles’, ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ and ‘Stealing People's Mail’ all had the obvious intention of getting a clear message across. Another song though, ‘I Kill Children’, was included for an entirely different reason. People were understandably outraged by a song called ‘I Kill Children’, which detailed giving kids poison candy and running them over, but that was the point.
‘I Kill Children’ was a satirical song which had no intentional malice behind it, which was written purely to feed on people’s resentment towards punk. Judging the backlash the song received, the general public fell for it like a charm*.
* No children were harmed in the writing of this article