That's me singing a song in a garage with helicopters rattling overhead, and seeing racial-profiling dragnets pull people over and constantly hassle people of color. ... It's about the access of the natural world and places of peace for people of different classes. Why rich people get to live and see beauty and why working class and poor folks just get to live in a maze of concrete and steel and barred windows. It's about how people can talk about bootstraps and personal responsibly when people are kept in these urban corrals, with such limited options. It's very difficult. So, "South Central Beach Party" is about the neighborhood where there's two King riots – Dr. [Martin Luther] King and Rodney King – passing by on the streets. What is the nature of rebellion? When one piece of history calls it a riot and the other piece of history that you never read calls it something organized. It's the exclamation point at the end of a long story about one people's oppression. It's the happiest song we've probably ever written [laughs]. It's about recognizing the twists of history and people needing to let it out and reorganize and take apart the things that are oppressing them and be a part of the world again.
Quoting Thomas Barnett:
That's me singing a song in a garage with helicopters rattling overhead, and seeing racial-profiling dragnets pull people over and constantly hassle people of color. ... It's about the access of the natural world and places of peace for people of different classes. Why rich people get to live and see beauty and why working class and poor folks just get to live in a maze of concrete and steel and barred windows. It's about how people can talk about bootstraps and personal responsibly when people are kept in these urban corrals, with such limited options. It's very difficult. So, "South Central Beach Party" is about the neighborhood where there's two King riots – Dr. [Martin Luther] King and Rodney King – passing by on the streets. What is the nature of rebellion? When one piece of history calls it a riot and the other piece of history that you never read calls it something organized. It's the exclamation point at the end of a long story about one people's oppression. It's the happiest song we've probably ever written [laughs]. It's about recognizing the twists of history and people needing to let it out and reorganize and take apart the things that are oppressing them and be a part of the world again.