“‘Holiday in Cambodia’ is a song by American punk rock band Dead Kennedys. The record was released as the group’s second single in May 1980 on Optional Music with ‘Police Truck‘ as its B-side. The title track was re-recorded for the band’s first album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980); the original recording of the song, as well as the single’s B-side, are available on the rarities album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death (1987). The photograph in the front cover of the single was taken from the Thammasat University massacre in Thailand, and depicts a member of the right-wing crowd beating a hanged corpse of a student protester with a metal chair. The song is an attack on a stereotypical, moralizing, privileged American college students. Its lyrics offer a satirical view of young, well-to-do and self-righteous Americans, contrasting such a lifestyle with the genocidal dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot and his Communist Party of Kampuchea (mentioned in the lyrics), which is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of some two million people in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The re-recording of this song that appears on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is different from the single version, being fifty-five seconds longer, at a higher tempo and featuring an extended, surf-influenced intro, as well as an extended bridge and guitar solo. …”
Wikipedia
Rock History 101: The Dead Kennedy’s
Genius (Audio)
YouTube: “Holiday In Cambodia”, Police Truck – (Live at DMPOs on Broadway, SF)