999,887: G.G. Allin - Expose Yourself to Kids

There are two sides to EVERY story. (Or three, if you’re watching Rashomon.) Kids subjected to anti-smoking PSAs never get to hear about the alleged benefits, unless members of older generations make them watch episodes of the old Jack Benny Show, sponsored by Lucky Strike. Luckies taste better. Cleaner, fresher, smoother. Oh sure, there’s now a broad consensus that they’ll kill you, and that this is not an area which needs the lost art of critical thinking. But there is vast entertainment value in watching someone try to defend the indefensible.

Punk rock invertebrate G.G. Allin was always willing to do so in the name of danger, rebellion, and being a self-consciously horrible human being. Thus, “Expose Yourself to Kids” takes up a counterargument that relatively few people had been waiting to hear. Allin’s advocacy of the issue is framed not around the morals or benefits, but rather the convenience (“Let’s fuck some kids! They can’t say no!”) and the urgency of a limited time frame (“Do it now before they grow up, and it’s too late!”). Ah, they do grow up so fast, don’t they. However, upon closer examination, his argument quickly breaks down from lack of focus. Allin can’t seem to make up his mind whether he wants to have sex with children or just jerk off in front of them at recess. And there is no supporting explanation of why, as the chorus says, it’s all right to expose yourself to kids. The inherent desirability of the goal is never even questioned, and Allin’s failure to anticipate this natural challenge would never fly with any serious debate team member. It’s almost as if Allin completely ignored the discipline of logic when constructing his argument in favor of child molestation. Clearly the song is the product of a disorganized mind. And certainly not the cogent thesis that the members of NAMBLA had long been awaiting. (Of course, it’s all purely for shock value, and of course, you wouldn’t let your kids within six miles of G.G. Allin’s rotting corpse.)

Musically, by the time Allin recorded this, his voice had degenerated into a hoarse, tuneless bellow that resembled a distant cousin of the Muppets’ Animal. It’s actually one of his catchier three-chord ear-graters, though it failed to spark the sort of anarchic revolution Allin was always threatening to incite with his tales of brute, rampaging id. Shortly before his fatal overdose, Allin would take another quixotic political stand with his demand to “Legalize Murder.” For whatever reason, this also proved to be a non-starter.

Expose Yourself To Kids - GG A...