California Über Alles

"California Ãœber Alles" was the first single by the Dead Kennedys. The record was released in June 1979 on Optional Music with "The Man with the Dogs" as the b-side. The title track was re-recorded for the band's first album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980), and the latest version that appeared on this single, as well as the single's b-side, and the video games: Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and the Rock Band series are available on the rarities album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death (1987). The lyrics were written by Jello Biafra and John Greenway, and Biafra composed the music in one of his rare attempts at composing on bass. It is also sampled in a song by the dance-punk/big beat trio The Prodigy, "Dead Ken Beats". The song was also featured in the 2010 film The Social Network.

The title is an allusion to the first (and no longer sung) stanza of the national anthem of Germany, which begins with the words "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles." (literally, "Germany, Germany above all.") The song focuses on Jerry Brown, the Governor of California 1975-1983 (and later 2011—present), and is sung from his perspective. An imaginary Brown outlines a hippie-fascist vision for America, in which his "suede denim secret police" kill un-cool people with "organic poison gas" chambers. Lines such as "Serpent's egg already hatched" (a reference to a line from William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar) comment on the corrosive nature of power. The line "now it is 1984" refers to the totalitarian regime of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, describing a future (from 1979) where Jerry Brown has become President Brown presiding over secret police and gas chambers. The song is an early example of the Kennedys' trademark use of menace and musical tension. It fades in with sinister military-styled drums, joined by an ominous bass riff. Biafra paints the scene in low, sneering tones before bursting in manic chanting chorus: "California Ãœber Alles [x2], Ãœber Alles, California [x2]". After two verses and choruses, the song shifts into a slower middle eight section set to a martial drum beat over which Jello Biafra imagines the nightmarish actions of Brown's SS-styled secret police ("Come quietly to the camp; you'd look nice as a drawstring lamp," a reference to the claim that lampshades were sometimes made from human skin during the Holocaust. The pace speeds up as it approaches the last iteration of the chorus, closing with a repeated chord sequence accompanied by a final burst of explosive drums. German-American author Gero Hoschek was inspired by the song to title a 1988 magazine piece about the "Golden State" in the prestigious German Zeit Magazin weekly titled "Kalifornia Ãœber Alles!" (sic), as well as a never produced screenplay. Biafra complained, got and liked a copy of the movie script, understood that there was no copyright violation, and used the same spelling for the song's 2004 remake with Melvins, "Kalifornia Ãœber Alles, 21st Century".