So, you've been to school
For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all
In daddy's car
Thinking you'll go far
Back east your type don't crawl
Playing ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five-grand stereo
Braggin' that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slum's got so much soul
It's time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear
Brace yourself, my dear
It's a holiday in Cambodia
It's tough, kid, but it's life
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife
You're a star-belly snitch
You suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
While your boss gets richer off you
Well, you'll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake
Now you can go where the people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son...
What you need, my son...
Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people are dressed in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll kiss ass or crack
Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll do what you're told
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul
Pol Pot
For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all
In daddy's car
Thinking you'll go far
Back east your type don't crawl
Playing ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five-grand stereo
Braggin' that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slum's got so much soul
It's time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear
Brace yourself, my dear
It's a holiday in Cambodia
It's tough, kid, but it's life
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife
You're a star-belly snitch
You suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
While your boss gets richer off you
Well, you'll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake
Now you can go where the people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son...
What you need, my son...
Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people are dressed in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll kiss ass or crack
Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll do what you're told
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul
Pol Pot
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So you been to schools
For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all
Basically, kid who has never been outside the suburbs goes off to college...learns about far left ideology (think Marx) and decides that he/she too will be a "revolutionary." They learn to "appreciate" jazz...thereby "understanding" the plight of Blacks in the US.
Student thinks to self, "Too bad we can't have a state like Marx talked about, where there really is 'justice for all.'"
Biafra is basically satirizing the student who has absolutely no clue what the real world is like.
As was pointed out, Pol Pot killed or "re-educated" college graduates. But Cambodia was just the example. Every "communist" revolution ends up killing the majority of the intelligentsia...they use the students as an alternative to the thugs, but, let's face it, the students get pissy when the great leader begins to oppress the masses. So the leader eliminates them.
Think about it. Then think about who makes up the majority of the student activists at any college campus.
Almost.
It is a warning of the dangers of far left ideology that has lead to millions of deaths worldwide.
Communists and Nazis are both left wing ideologies and both were criticized by DK.
Capitalism may not be perfect but it is the best system we have, communism and fascism have both failed.
We don't need brainwashed college graduates bringing about totalitarianism through their ignorance.
I am curious. What did Pol Pot do that made him a misunderstood leader? (Land reform = good; killing the landowner = bad.)
The first half of the song is critical of "trust-fund radicals" who posture at being supportive or sympathetic to radical revolutionaries in places like Cambodia, because it's safe for them to do so from the warm cocoon of their upper-class, American liberal arts academic life. JB is saying that these college hipster types only know about revolutions through books and that they would piss themselves if they actually took a "Holiday in Cambodia" and had to give up their comfortable western lifestyle to see what revolution looks like in real life.
The SECOND half of the song is critical of rich yuppies who JB feels could use some humility training in a third world communist dictatorship like that in the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia.
Eric Boucher, from bucolic Boulder CO, seems to believe in pure anarchist agitation. He is like the "useful idiots" used by Communist and Fascist thugs alike to rise to power on a wave of mayhem and civil unrest ("Burn it all down baby! Smash the state! Bedtime for Democracy! Etc. etc.)
Jello wrote some great lyrics and his band rocked - but, like a cheap vintage wine, he does not age well.
This song warns of what can happen when you try to overthrow systems that work.
It asks the listener sincerely whether they wish to live in Capitalist America with it's few faults or Communist Cambodia, the genocidal dictatorship.
I think the message of this song can be summed up with this Churchill quote:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
to understand the meaning of the song, you have to understand some of the history of punk and the cultural environment that surrounded the dead kennedys.
Punk was a reaction against the spaced-out hippie culture that was rampant in middle to upper-class youth and college students during the 60s and (somewhat) 70s. Bored from their spoiled lives, they saw less fortunate life styles, such as those in ghettos and third-world countries, as more real and "soulful." The movement promoted "living as one" and "getting things done" by rallying against american authority. Though the hippie movement brought some good (women's rights, civil rights), the movement also encouraged unrealistic escapism and utopianism. DK came from San Francisco, the epicenter of the hippie movement.
Specifically, this song was a brilliantly-written reaction against the ignorance of first-world youth who think they know everything. Jello tells the ignorant, spoiled youth to move to communist cambodia to "live as one" (only to loose their individual identity and freedom of speech) and "get things done" (by living on a bowl of rice and slaving in the killing fields) in order to bring their romanticized outlook on the world back to reality. What these 60s hippies needed is some re-education back into reality.
This is a song warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and how leftist education systems are glorifying revolution without warning of the real life consequences.
Remember communism and fascism are both left wing ideologies that focus on COLLECTIVISM.
Punk was about INDIVIDUALISM. The sworn enemy of both communism and fascism alike.
"So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you"... ignorance to the fact that society uses you.
"Play ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin' that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slum's got so much soul"... Acting like something is cool, e.g. "the slums got so much soul", but really just ignorant to the fact of how it really is.
This is the first song I ever heard of the Kennedys... I still like it, though I've heard it so many times it's growing dull...
Go read the Autobirography of Malcolm X, that lyric was about kids like you, who just make assumptions about the ghetto, kids who think that they can make comments on it
"you'll kiss ass or crack"