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You gotta keep 'em separated
Like the latest fashion
Like a spreading disease
The kids are strappin' on their way to the classroom
Getting weapons with the greatest of ease
The gangs stake their own campus locales
And if they catch you slippin' then it's all over pal
If one guy's colors and the other's don't mix
They're gonna bash it up
CHORUS
Hey man you talkin' back to me?
Take him out
You gotta keep 'em separated
Hey man you disrespecting me?
Take him out
You gotta keep 'em separated
Hey they don't pay no mind
If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time
Hey come out and play
By the time you hear the siren
It's already too late
One goes to the morgue and the other to jail
One guy's wasted and the other's a waste
It goes down the same as a thousand before
No one's getting smarter
No one's learning the score
Your never ending spree of death a violence and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope
CHORUS
Like the latest fashion
Like a spreading disease
The kids are strappin' on their way to the classroom
Getting weapons with the greatest of ease
The gangs stake their own campus locales
And if they catch you slippin' then it's all over pal
If one guy's colors and the other's don't mix
They're gonna bash it up
CHORUS
Hey man you talkin' back to me?
Take him out
You gotta keep 'em separated
Hey man you disrespecting me?
Take him out
You gotta keep 'em separated
Hey they don't pay no mind
If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time
Hey come out and play
By the time you hear the siren
It's already too late
One goes to the morgue and the other to jail
One guy's wasted and the other's a waste
It goes down the same as a thousand before
No one's getting smarter
No one's learning the score
Your never ending spree of death a violence and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope
CHORUS
Lyrics submitted by sawg
Track duration: 03:18
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If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time
the offspring have explored themes of racism very comprehensively, both before and after smash. the idea that this is pro-segregation is preposterous.
what it is is a callout and a warning to the black community that if serious action is not taken to reverse the systemic causes of racism, then the white majority is going to go back to calling for segregation - as many of the comments i've seen here, on youtube and in other places are doing; it says get this under control, because you're tying your own rope....
you'll note that dexter holland never says 'keep 'em separated'.
it is a very harsh and alarmist analysis, and whether or not it takes a proper account of the root causes of racism is perhaps questionable. however, it is also starkly realist. one could perhaps tie it into clinton's social welfare and mandatory minimum policies, but that could be reaching a bit.
"You gotta keep 'em separated!" - that's a play on the Mexican gang OGs. They run the gangs on the street level, that's how the Mexican bangers talk. It's pretty much an exclusive accent to the West Coast. You probably won't hear that out in Colorado or West Virginia. It's also funny because it's the same mentality used in the penitentiaries, separated by race.
"Take him out" - that's also a play on the gangs. As I mentioned previously, there is social pressure from the gangs for kids to do shit. So "take him out" is like an order. I've lived in shitty areas and I've literally seen a kid laying in his own blood from getting shot - a Mexican lowrider was blocked off by the police - it was next to a notorious local gang club - where all the MS13 hung out at. The older guys give the kids orders. The kids all fight each other too, even within the gang. "You're under 18 you won't be doing any time" is something the older guys that have been to prison tell the younger kids - even without the older guys, it's the mentality among the gangs.
"Come out and play!" - Sometimes the gangs will literally go to someones house, to their front yard and call them out. The lifestyle is called "a game", but it's not a game, it's real life. So this is how these kids are playing, by killing each other.
I actually lived in the murder capital of the US in 1993, which was San Bernadino. People got shot there all the time. The early 90's was the height of Southern California gang violence. It's spread though, now, up North more - so now it occupies almost every major city on the West Coast.
"Getting weapons with the greatest of ease" - in areas like this, it's so easy for kids to get guns.
"The gangs stake their own campus locales" - that's the gang turf. Don't go there if you're not part of the gang.
"And if they catch you slippin' then it's all over pal
If one guy's colors and the other's don't mix" - if the gangs sense any sort of fear in you, or think that you don't belong in the area, you're going to get hurt. If you so much as look at someone wrong, you're being disrespectful. So many people get killed for being mistaken as rival gang members. A lot of the times for the gangs it's just about seeking out that thrill. I've known people that were unaffiliated, walking home at night, a car pulls up on them while they're on the corner, rolls down the window, and blows their head off. I've heard of innocent girls getting shot too, just by poorly aimed bullets. I've almost been shot myself walking home from work.
It's a huge cultural difference between these areas and the rest of the United States. It's almost normalized, but you would all know the difference like night and day if it were suddenly one day injected into your community.
It's a great song, but really sad.
In the year before this song was released, there were 24,530 murders in the U.S. Thats about what you'd get if you took the current murder rate and added a couple small towns full of people to it.
"The gangs stake their own campus locales
And if they catch you slippin' then it's all over pal
If one guy's colors and the other's don't mix
They're gonna bash it up"
Each gang wore different colors, different clothes, etc..., and protected their turf. If one gang member walked through the turf of the other, he was liable to be beaten or killed. Worst of all, even if you were an innocent bystander and wore the wrong color in the wrong place, you might be killed as well. A few miles from me, there was an innocent kid who wore his hat the wrong way, was chased into a store and shot to death. In addition to that, once a month or so, there would be a picture in the news of some little kid who got hit and killed by a stray bullet.
"Hey they don't pay no mind
If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time"
Kids under 18, or 17 in some states would be released even for violent crimes and have their records wiped clean because they were minors. This allowed some really bad characters to just keep on causing trouble.
"It goes down the same as a thousand before
No one's getting smarter
No one's learning the score
Your never ending spree of death a violence and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope"
Reference to the stupidity of the whole gang war scene along with a warning that those who get involved in it will tie their own rope and hang themselves.
Anyway the lyrics reminds me of a lot of the kids here in New Zealand. A lot of teenagers here are joining 'gangs' and they get into big fights over their colours.
"Hey they don't pay no mind
If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time"
That's why I think the song is about teenage gangs and teenage violence.
"Your never ending spree of death a violence and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope"
I think those lyrics are really clever. Basically saying that killing others and being violent means that it's going to get you into trouble in the long run.