Marin is the county in California where the Dead Kennedys are from - it's near San Francisco. In this song, lead singer Jello Biafra sings about taking in the moonlight from the beach, but with a gas mask to protect him from the toxic fumes. Biafra liked to set up idyllic scenes so he could knock them down with cold reminders that humans are destroying ourselves for the benefit of the rich and powerful. His warnings of beaches littered with dead fish seemed alarmist at the time, but not so much decades later when global warming took hold. In this case, the beach has been polluted by an oil spill, possibly a reference to the San Francisco Bay oil spill of 1971.
This is one of the more radio-friendly Dead Kennedys songs, which is like saying Attila was one of the friendliest Huns. According to the group's guitarist, East Bay Ray, it was chosen for a sampler album put out by another label, but Jello Biafra wouldn't allow it because it's a song he and Ray wrote together, not one of his solo compositions. "It's catchy," Ray told Songfacts. "Jello said it was too pop-y, but if you take The Clash as an example, one of their biggest songs is 'Should I Stay or Should I Go?.'"
East Bay Ray describes this as a modal song with a psychedelic feel.
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