‘California Über Alles’: the incendiary blueprint for Dead Kennedys
Punk is a truly multifaceted genre. The tag acts as an expansive umbrella that welcomes many different subgenres. Though there are similarities between all of the many different iterations of punk, clear distinctions still remain. However, it is the genre’s ability to speak to our basest desires and most animalistic rhythms that means it has inspired some of the music world’s finest creations. One of the most unique acts it would produce was the Dead Kennedys.
Led by the caustic frontman Jello Biafra, the California band imbued punk with a situationist and yippie form of thinking that saw them carve out their own space. While the genre had long been in the game of performance art and political thinking, Dead Kennedys approached both with a visceral veracity that defied expectation.
Despite not releasing an album since 1986 and Biafra leaving that year, the group still exists in some form today. The band operate with a healthy fire in their bellies, and it is with this spirit that Biafra has managed to remain so relevant all these years. Incorporating the embers of his former group into every new iteration of his thinking.
Dead Kennedys’ early period primarily stands out for the potency of their formula, which mixed a frenetic form of punk with Biafra’s political surrealism. Whilst many tracks from this era are considered highlights, such as ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ and ‘Kill the Poor’, the band’s 1979 debut single ‘California Über Alles’ set the blueprint for all the incendiary establishment bashing to follow.
Notably, the track is about the Democratic California governor Jerry Brown, who ran against Jimmy Carter in the democratic primary for president in 1976. The song is brimming with Biafra’s caustic wit; in it, the imaginary President Brown outlines his zen-fascist vision for America. Lines include: “Carter power will soon go ‘way/ I will be Führer one day” and “Zen’s fascists will control you/ Hundred per cent natural/ You will jog for the master race/ And always wear the happy face”.
Famously, “Über Alles” is a phrase in the German language meaning “above all else”. It was a part of Nazi Germany’s national anthem, which was employed until Hitler’s state was dismantled at the end of the Second World War. Since then, it has been closely associated with the ultranationalist politics of Nazism. Duly, Biafra’s use of it in the song explicitly tells fans what he thought about Jerry Brown.
In 1981, Dead Kennedys released a sequel to the track, in the form of ‘We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now’, for their EP In God We Trust, Inc. They updated the material to be about then-President Ronald Reagan, the preceding Governor of California to Brown. Configured in a lounge style, it’s one of the more impactful pieces the quartet wrote, with the juxtaposition between music and lyrics stark.
Speaking to Songfacts in 2013, Biafra explained why he wrote a sequel to the band’s blueprint: “I realized I was wrong about my conspiracy theory about Jerry Brown. Sure, I’d made it up all by myself, and it turned out not to be true, so it was updated with Reagan lyrics until ‘We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now,’ and the jazz version we goofed off with at sound check wound up becoming a staple of that record and the live show”.
Despite the song not landing the killer blow for Biafra’s conspiracy that he had hoped, the track became a blueprint for the band. Using Biafra’s acerbic takes on the political landscape and the band’s ferocious performances, Dead Kennedys became one of the most dangerous bands of the 20th century, delivering the kind of potent punches of punk rock retaliation that the genre was founded on.
