Avengers -- "The American In Me" (1979)

Ask not what you can do for your country

What's your country been doing to you?

Most of you are no doubt familiar with the line from John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural speech:  "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country."

The lines from today’s featured song that are quoted above turn that quote on its head.

Kennedy's assassination was obviously the inspiration for the first two lines of this song, which pull no punches:

It's the American in me that makes me

Watch the blood

Running out of the bullet hole

In his head

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This post is the last in my series of posts about songs I heard on Steven Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes” program 30 years ago.  

The Avengers

That's because “The American In Me” is the ne plus ultra song of that era – trying to top it would be like Chuck Berry trying to top his opening act, Jerry Lee Lewis after Lewis ended his act by setting his piano on fire.  

Some of the other “Mystic Eyes” songs I've written about are somewhat frivolous.  But there’s nothing light-hearted or tongue-in-cheek here.  The Avengers were not f*cking around.  

There’s another reason to make this the final “Mystic Eyes” post.  I stopped listening to (and recording) that program when I moved to San Francisco in November 1980.  In San Francisco, I started listening to (and recording) a Pacifica radio program that featured hardcore punk bands.  (I plan to do a series of posts on the very obscure music played on the Pacifica program some day.) 

One of the hosts of the Pacifica program was Jello Biafra, the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys and arguably American hardcore punk’s biggest name.  (According to his Wikipedia entry, Jello Biafra – whose real name was Eric Boucher – attended UC-Santa Cruz, where he “studied acting and the history of Paraguay.”)

Many of the bands featured on that program played at the Mabuhay Gardens, a Filipino restaurant and nightclub on North Beach that became the center of San Francisco's hardcore scene – sort of a West Coast equivalent of CBGB.  Among the regulars at “The Fab Mab” was the Avengers.

So this song bridges my “Mystic Eyes” era and my San Francisco sojourn.  

Before we get back to the Avengers, click here to watch a video of the Dead Kennedys' biggest hit, “Holiday in Cambodia” – accompanied by footage from the movie Apocalypse Now.

(Two sticks of dynamite in one post?  That’s the way we roll at 2 or 3 lines.)

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The Avengers were formed in 1977.  On the strength of a 3-song EP and their Mabuhay Gardens appearances, they were chosen to open for the Sex Pistols’ final show at Bill Graham’s Winterland Ballroom.  Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols then produced the band's eponymous (there’s that word again!) EP, which included “The American In Me.”

A couple of the band's original members (including singer Penelope Houston) re-formed the band after the release of a compilation CD in 1999.  In 2006, they performed “The American In Me” with Pearl Jam at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.  

Click here to read a 2005 interview with Penelope Houston that discusses the history of the band.

"The American In Me" is a startling song – a real kick in the *ss for anyone who lived through the Kennedy assassination.  It is anti-government from a leftist conspiracy-theory sort of viewpoint (another of its lines is “Kennedy was murdered by the FBI!”), as opposed to being anti-government from a right-wing Tea Party perspective.

Punk/rock music should be anti-government, of course . . . also anti-parent and anti-teacher.   

Without further ado, click here to listen to the Avengers doing “The American In Me.”

If you want to buy this song from Amazon, just click on the link below: