"Nazi Punks Fuck Off" is a song by American
punk rock band
Dead Kennedys. It was released in November 1981 through
Alternative Tentacles as a
7-inch single with "Moral Majority" as the B-side. Both are from the In God We Trust, Inc.EP, although the EP version is a different recording from the single version. The single included a free armband with a crossed-out
swastika. The design was later adopted as a symbol for the
anti-racist punk movement
Anti-Racist Action.
Composition
The song is a blunt indictment of the rise of far-right punk subcultures such as
Nazi punk or the
white power skinhead movement, which had begun rioting at punk shows in the late 1970s. The appropriation of fascist iconography had been common in punk for some time, often ironically, but the irony was not always clear to the extent that it began attracting the organized far-right to punk concerts.[1]Jello Biafra's lyrics condemn the infighting among punks for weakening the prospect of rebellion and hold of the far-right agitators that "in a real
Fourth Reich, [they'd] be the first to go."[2]
In the opening of the In God We Trust, Inc. version of "Nazi Punks Fuck Off", lead singer
Jello Biafra mentions English producer
Martin Hannett, who had worked with
Joy Division and
Buzzcocks, accusing him, tongue-in-cheek, of having "overproduced" the recording.[3] Hannett, in fact, did not work with Dead Kennedys.
The fictional band The Ain't Rights performed a cover of the song in a modern-day
white supremacist club in the 2015 horror film Green Room.[6]
Biafra himself rewrote the song as "Nazi Trumps Fuck Off" in 2017, performing it live with
crossover thrash group
Dead Cross.[7]
The German black metal band Hyems released a song titled "Nazi Black Metal Fuck Off" on their 2018 EP 1997. The song also appeared on the 2022 antifascist compilation Black Metal Rainbows.[8][9]
The song "Goodnight Alt-Right" by American hardcore punk band
Stray from the Path references "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" in the song's breakdown, as lead singer Drew Dijorio sings "Nazi punks fuck off" multiple times and the line "Well now you've heard it from me, and the Dead Kennedys".[10]