I’d write songs about her too…
Can you believe October is already here? Didn’t this year just start about nine months ago? It’s a month full of all kinds of strange and unusual things… and The Nest is going to add a few more weird ghosts of music past that go bump in the night to you pumpkin spice celebration. It’s time for the next fun entry in our Top 30 Novelty Songs of All Time Countdown! DJ Scratchy’s got a fine piece of all American alternative that somehow didn’t make the classic Punk album… while the Sponkies look up what a milkman was.
#14. “Punk Rock Girl” – The Dead Milkmen
Every decade has its strange and unusual music that is so “out there” that you wonder what in the hell people were smoking at the time that actually made it popular. Thanks to MTV, the 80’s had more than its fair share of bizarre melodies brought into the living rooms of everyday people in America that Casey Kasum would have never played on Sunday mornings. Among these deep underground treasures that got to be appreciated by a wider audience was a 1988 single from a band that was strange for even a punk band. The video and the music and… just everything about this song are so completely goofy and almost random. But it works. Damn, does it work…
Maybe, like me, you were introduced to this lost late 80’s gem when it was mercilessly mocked on an episode of Beavis & Butthead a few years after it came out. The Dead Milkmen don’t really look like a punk band in this video, but they allegedly are one, and aren’t just some geeky garage band trying to hilariously skewer the stereotype of the punk lifestyle by singing about one of its mohawked fangirls.
Not that non-punk people would ever unintentionally mock the whole genre.
There are so many great references contained in the lyrics that are “sung” by Milkmen frontman Joe Genaro. One that may make you scratch your head is when he sings about someone putting a Beach Boys song on the jukebox, and it turns out to be “California Dreamin’.” Now you probably know that as a Mamas and the Papas hit (Although Barry McGuire of “Eve of Destruction” fame was actually the first to record it), but the Beach Boys did cover the song on their 1986 comeback album Made in USA, and it did become a minor hit. And that helped re-establish the 60’s icons and give us the dreadful song “Kokomo” the same year “Punk Rock Girl” came out…
Punk rock squirrels HATE “Kokomo”…
We don’t have no Mojo Nixon in this countdown, but it doesn’t need a fixin’. Come back for lucky song #13 next Monday…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
The thing that strikes me with this one is how much OBVIOUS fun this group had putting this together…..The music itself is nothing special but the visuals are hilarious.
Pam
They were definitely having fun. Their Wikipedia article noted that The Dead Milkmen were known for bringing a sense of humor to punk rock… just in case anyone thought all the mohawks and spiked collars were serious business!
Bob & I love the Dead Milkmen! This song is fun.
Great pick!
I had a feeling you would know and like this… I just wasn’t sure if it was maybe too goofy. The song and video are always good for a laugh!
Snorts the Dead Milkman. I guess those are the ones that got caught by husbands delivering milk on the wrong days of the week. Snorts and rolls with piggy laughter. XOXO – Bacon
Bacon!!!!!!!! I’ve missed you! Hope everything has been OK…
haha I love this song! My daughter bought a CD with it on there, and played it all the time. Of course I have to sing along to it. 🙂
It’s hard not to sing along to it. And you can’t say that about many songs by “punk” bands!
Oh. my. That was a very snappy little tune. And one very bizarre vid.
It’s a work of absurd genius, which is probably why I like it so much…
😊
ody N biskit; de videe oh lookz funnee….will for sure hafta listen ta thiz when de food servizz
gurl getz home !!! 🙂 ♥
It’s a riot!
I don’t remember this at all!
I don’t remember it new, but they did the video on Beavis & Butthead during one of the early seasons and that’s how I learned this strange song and video existed. I remember the two of them laughing their trademark laugh when the “iced tea lady” shows her ugly mug on the screen…
I seem to have a vague recollection of this song but admit I really enjoyed the 80’s and some of it is slightly…. blurred.
You did make me cringe with Kokomo though.
**shudders**
Oh, that song is so awful! The Beach Boys really should have stayed retired…
Worst. Beach Boys. Song. Ever!
Blech!
Wow. I can’t believe I’ve never heard this wonderful little song. I am loving it. Yes, this definitely deserves to be on the list. This is so much fun.
Yes, it is Friday. I’ve been off line most of the week and … now I have some decent earworms for the weekend.
It has been earwormed into my head since I wrote the post Sunday, so I’m sure you’ll be singing about the punk rock girl all weekend!
I always thought the Beach Boys ripped off the Mamas and Papas – I didn’t realise they’d ripped it off first.
The freakiest part of this video is right at the start where that guy is staring straight at me with his arm jiggling up and down. I can only hope he was strumming a guitar…
I didn’t know the Moms and Pops didn’t write that song either… it’s probably their signature song and it’s not even theirs.
Apparently that guy got a little excited by the punk rock girl….