Kill the Poor

The first song on the first Dead Kennedys album, "Kill The Poor" envisions a neutron bomb that can somehow wipe out poor people while everything else stays in tact. With it comes the elimination of welfare, urban blight, and all those other traces of the pesky lower class. It is a satire on the elite who wouldn't mind eradicating poverty by simply eliminating poor people. A shortsighted and churlish view, but one that is embraced in some form my many politicians. The song provided a great introduction to the band, who remained adamant in their political views and willingness to express them in song.

Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra wrote the lyric. He credits his dramatic training for the storyline and performance he came up with on this track. Biafra's high school had a rigorous acting program that he immersed himself in, and his chosen technique was method acting. Regarding how this training played into the song, he told Songfacts: "I think that helped influence the way I write a lot of 'you are there' lyrics or lyrics coming from somebody else besides myself. You can whine 'til kingdom come about the evils of nuclear bombs and nuke plants and everything else, but why not write it from the Dr. Strangelove Pentagon point of view and thus out comes 'Kill the Poor'?"

The band's guitarist, East Bay Ray, wrote the music for this one. In his Songfacts interview, he said it was inspired by the Ramones and "kind of a pop-y riff."