‘Merican’: Descendents’ seething lampoon of American patriotism
It is the duty of every half-decent punk band to criticise, attack, and satirise the political establishment, and the modern history of American politics has certainly provided no shortage of material to groups like Descendents, whose output has become far more politicised in recent years.
Not only is the Milo Aukerman-fronted outfit one of the most essential groups in the history of American punk, but Descendents are inarguably among the most enduring groups ever to arise from the scene. From their initial emergence in 1977, the group have lent their output to the changing landscape of the States for nearly half a century – even if that output has been peppered with hiatuses and multiple break-ups along the way.
So, while attention inevitably attaches itself to the group’s masterful debut album, Milo Goes to College, some of the band’s later material is just as revolutionary. During the dark days of the mid-2000s, for instance, the group launched a seething assault on phoney ideas of American patriotism on their EP, appropriately entitled ‘Merican.
Despite Aukerman’s claim, at the time of the EP’s release, that “there are very few [Descendents songs] that have any ‘political’ content in them,” their work has long since touched on political themes. Nevertheless, it was ‘Merican which truly set the band on the path of overtly politicised protest music; something which they have continued on with, on more recent tracks like ‘On You’ from 2020.
That politicised spirit should perhaps come as no surprise when you look back at the context in which that 2004 EP was created. After all, that was the year that George W Bush successfully ran for re-election, continuing to prey upon the fears of American citizens in a post-9/11 landscape, having led the nation into an illegal invasion of Iraq under a thinly-veiled guise to steal oil. Meanwhile, back home, islamophobia and racism were rife, with hate crimes rapidly on the rise across the States.
With all that in mind, coupled with the fact that some of Descendents now had children of their own, the political commentary of ‘Merican was pretty inevitable. Its title track, in particular, gives a furious rundown of American history, lamenting it as “a land of the slaves and the Ku Klux Klan,” while also mentioning the Vietnam War, Joe McCarthy, and police brutality.
At the same time, though, the song highlights some of the US’s greatest contributions to the world, in the form of Otis Redding, Duke Ellington, and writers like Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe. In an age that was dominated by misguided patriotism and warmongering (some things never change), Descendents reminded the US that it had reason to be proud, but also a multitude of reasons to be utterly ashamed of itself.
In addition to being a criticism of that stars and stripes patriotism that excludes any mention of the genocide that the United States is built on, ‘‘Merica’ is pretty patriotic in its own way; as a means of resistance against the historic horrors committed by the nation and the modern-day horrors being approved by its government.
Over 20 years on from its initial release, that 2004 EP remains one of the most enduring assaults on American politics and patriotism, which is both a credit to Descendents’ songwriter power and a stunning indictment of how little change there has been in American history over the past two decades.
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