This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) Lyrics

Cold concrete apartments
Rise up from wet black asphalt
Below them a few carcasses
Of the long gone age of privacy

It takes a scary kind of illness
To design a place like this for pay
Downtown's an endless generic mall
Of video games and fast food chains


One by one
The little houses are bricked up and condemned
A subtle hint to move
Before the rats move in


This could be anywhere
This could be everywhere


Those new kids at school seem cool
But dad says not to talk to them
Stick to your old friends
They're not our kind


So now there's lots of fights


So many people I know
Come of age tense and bitter eyed
Can't create so they just destroy
C'mon!
Let's set someone's dog on fire


Empty plastic
Culture slum suburbia
Is a war zone now
Sprouting the kinds of gangs
We thought we'd left behind


This could be anywhere
This could be everywhere


Kids at school are taking sides
Along color and uniform lines
My dad's gone and bought a gun
He says he's fed up
With crime in this town


This could be anywhere
This could be everywhere
This could be anywhere
This could be everywhere
Anywhere
Everywhere
I hope I'm gone before it explodes...


I linger late at night
Waiting for the bus
No amount of neon jazz
Could hide the oozing vibes of death


My dad's a vigilante now
He's bringing home these weird-ass friends
Like the guy who fires blanks at his TV
When Kojak's on
Or the guy who shows off his submachine gun
To his sixteen-year-old daughter's friends
Whose sense of pride and hope
Is being in the police reserve


This could be anywhere
This could be everywhere--Everywhere
8 Meanings

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Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

this is everywhere. hate? atrophy. frustration. "kids at school are taking sides along color and uniform lines" we learn at such a young age, to hate what we don't know and embrace a culture that would accept us. just for acceptance.

Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

Honestly, I think this is DK's best song, and definetly some of Jello's best lyrics. His voice perfectly compliments the haunting guitars. Definetly my favorite song of theirs. Awesome.

Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

i got the mutiny on the bay version, different lyrics?

Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

"i'm hope i'm gone before it explodes". i can relate to that where i'm living...

Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

Yeah a lot of DK's live versions are very differant from the recordings

Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

Heh, I love the way this song gets gradually darker and darker.

Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

"It takes a scary kind of illness to design a place like this for pay" - i once quoted this in my English class, without acknowledging the source, and people were baffled. behind all the stingy guitars and Jello-screams, it is sadly unknown to a wide audience what a great hilarious, poetic, and emotional lyricist this man was (and maybe still is, but i lost track of his musical whereabouts)

Cover art for This Could Be Anywhere (This Could Be Everywhere) lyrics by Dead Kennedys

other thoughts:

  • the clash song "up in heaven (not only here)" has a similar topic, the high rise estates crammed with workers, creating unfriendly, hostile surroundings
  • "No amount of neon jazz could hide the oozing vibes of death" is a variation on the Holiday in Cambodia theme of POOR being labelled COOL too often when well-off students talk about ghetto gangster shiat. Writers like Bukowski and Kerouac also did their fare share of glamourizing poverty ... as long as there's jazz playing, the barfly can't be that suicidal.
 
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