To that end, it's not at all a surprise, really, that lead singer and songwriter Dexter Holland is now a doctoral student in molecular biology. You can just tell, in all of his songs, that he's no dummy, no typical rock and roller, that is, the "hoodlum" that has been terrifying parents in one form or another since the 1950s.
Nowhere is this more evident than in "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)". This song cracks me up, which ultimately is what it's supposed to do. But it's also painfully accurate. I KNEW a kid like this once... a lily white dude, hailing from west-central Wisconsin, he would swagger into work with his hat sideways and his pants low, muttering black slang so carefully considered and clumsily interjected into conversations, I'd have sworn he took an "Ebonics" course through Rosetta Stone.
No kidding, he actually had "Thug Life" tattooed on his skinny little white arm.
He even looked like the kid in this video. There were times looking at him, listening to him, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Which also, I'd venture, is the point of this song.
#206) "Come Out and Play" by The Offspring - See all of the above, only instead of a humorous look at white posers, "Come Out and Play" is a more intense examination of gang life in teen culture, from more than twenty years ago now. That fact alone is sort of hard to believe.
Both songs...all of The Offspring's music, really - belongs on a road trip. "The Kids Aren't Alright", "Self-Esteem"....great stuff. Holland's got a killer voice, as well.
"Your never-ending spree of death and violence and hate, is gonna tie your own rope, tie your own rope, tie your own..."
