D.O.A. Right to be Wild (Free the Five benefit single) (1983)

On January 20, 1983, former Subhumans bassist Gerry Hannah and four others involved in a series of politically-motivated bombings were arrested by a group RCMP officers masquerading as highway workers on a highway just outside of Squamish, British Columbia. The Squamish Five (documentary HERE), as they were called became a source of outrage for the Canadian media and a rallying point for friends and fellow-travellers.

Unlike the FLQ and the October Crisis, during which I was an infant, this was a chapter in the short history of Canadian terrorism, for which my memories are vivid. My family were chatty but during the eighties we listened to CBC Radio's The World as Six during dinner every day. As a result, I heard about every action in this political drama as it happened*. So when CBC TV made a kinda-terrible docudrama, The Squamish Five (watch a bit HERE), I actually stayed home solely for the purpose of watching it. Well before that odd viewing experience,  I'd submitted an essay on the Squamish Five for a Great Canadians project in my grade eleven Canadian History class (with the lyrics to D.O.A.'s "Trial By Media" carefully typed out as an appendix). The project actually involved poring over microfiche of newspapers from 1983 in the public library and helped spark an interest in history, not as something ancient and settled but as something still breathing down our necks.

After this benefit single, Gerry Hannah's "Fuck You" -  my vote for The Great Canadian Punk Song - effectively because D.O.A.'s. So strongly did they come to own the song, that when I played The Subhumans' version to my favourite dyed-in-the-roots punk girl back in '85, she dismissed it as "too slow". Of course, by that time D.O.A. had effectively assimilated The Subhumans by bringing it's leader, Brian "Sunny Boy" Goble (a.k.a. 'Wimpy Roy'), on bass and vocals.



 ("Fuck You" is the second song of three songs in the above video.)

So? Is "Fuck You" The Great Canadian Punk Song? Is D.O.A.'s version better the The Subhumans version? Let us know what you think in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the Right to be Wild link)

 

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* Please forgive that programming schedule joke that only CBC-fed Candians of a certian age will get.