Words Are Enough: Jello Biafra

In the late '70s, there was exactly one man on earth who could mock you for "braggin' that you know how the niggers feel cold/ And the slums got so much soul" and not only get away with it, but make you feel viscerally guilty in the process. Such is Jello Biafra, whose impious humor, devastating erudition and magnificent sense of mischief took oddly perfect form in the Dead Kennedys' East Bay hardcore. Equally damning of Jesse Helms and Gilman Street scenesters, exhorting listeners to trash banks, steal mail and lynch landlords, he came out of nowhere as a punk Pied Piper, the figurehead of safety-pinned wise-asses everywhere.

From the Dead Kennedys' 1978 Demos to 1980's brilliant Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables EP to the incendiary Frankenchrist (yeah, the one with the H. R. Giger penis poster), to his work with Lard, Mojo Nixon and countless other solo spoken-word records, Biafra's lyrics have always been at least two things: smart and funny. "Zen fascists will control you/ A hundred percent natural/ You will jog for the master race" — no one was safe from Biafra's scathing pen, including '80s-era liberals, and ultimately his former band: "Only playing hits from the good old days/ About how bad the good old days were."

It's anyone's guess whether the man ever wrote a love song, a party anthem or an ode to joy. His relentless lyrical focus on politics and social problems led many to brand him one-sided and gimmicky. But Biafra's immersion in political haranguing is part of his genius. When punk lyrics seemed in dire peril of sinking into shiftless, pissy diatribes, Dead Kennedys records surfaced, brimming with calls to arms disguised as audacious cracks. Naturally, those cracks were too deadly cynical for many listeners, but in Biafra's words the bleakest vision of the future attained a sort of dystopian poetry. He couldn't even make environmentalism boring in the haunting, lovely "Moon Over Marin":

O' shimmering moonlight sheen upon/ The waves and water clogged with oil/ White gases steam up from the soil.

The most surprising thing about Biafra's lyrics wasn't his gall, his news-hound chops or his cagey turns of phrase, but how they reached and moved punk listeners everywhere. In 1981, only three years after the Dead Kennedys' formation, "Too Drunk to Fuck" came within one chart position of the United Kingdom's Top 30, meaning it would have featured on BBC's Top of the Pops. While certainly not the best example of Biafra's lyricism, its deadpan hilariousness nearly embarrassed an entire nation; the sole fact that its popularity had broadcasters so worried is a beautiful international prank. The Dead Kennedys recorded fine, inventive, hooky hardcore, but Biafra's giddy invective was what cut millions to the bone, made us laugh hard, cry a little and think global.

Prior to their intra-band legal tribulation (a cynical farce in itself), Biafra and the Dead Kennedys were an unfailing godsend to punk rock, churning out records so dynamic and fun their sociopolitical criticism never seemed tiresome — because Biafra himself has never seemed tired. He has brought his manic energy to independent activism, spoken-word records and all-round rascality since the Dead Kennedys' implosion in the late '80s. He is a lyrical provocateur without equal, the 20th century's Voltaire, at his arrogant, histrionic best when he infuriates and delights in the same verse.

— Eve Adams (ultimaluz at gmail dot com)