The other day I was at the gym and happened to hear from one of the spinning classes a relic of a song from my younger days - "Come Out and Play" by the Offspring. On any other day I would have simply slipped into a nostalgic reverie over all the crappy alterna-rock I listened to in middle school and thought nothing of it, but with the ubiquitous news coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings still in my mind I couldn't help but notice that this song is actually a tongue-in-cheek song about public school gun violence ("the kids are strappin all the way to the classroom/getting weapons with the greatest of ease. . . hee-eeey, come out and play"). So either the spin instructor is giving the world's most tasteless tribute to the victims of the shootings. . . or he's a moron.
The Offspring have always been a band with a social conscience, covering issues as diverse as juvenile delinquency, unemployment, and white kids with racial identity problems (all timeless), but "Come Out and Play" stands out for being, on one hand, ahead of it's time and covering the issue of school gun violence before it reached the national agenda, but, on the other, seeming incredibly naive and dated. While gang violence is certainly still a problem, it's really remarkable that a couple of socially retarded suburbanites with delusions of grandeur have made that all seem irrelevant. So here's to the good 'ol days (as I like to call them) when the only people getting shot up in schools were minorities in the inner city.
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1 comment:
People should read this.
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