MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM (11)
By:
February 4, 2024
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of metal records from the Eighties (1984–1993, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Heather Quinlan. Also check out our MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM playlist at Spotify.
TWISTED SISTER | “WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT” | 1984
The opening beats signal something’s coming. Steady, measured, insistent, the drum is anything but menacing, but oh, the words that follow. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” is more than an opening lyric. It’s a declaration of fed-upness and defiance and standing up, and the repetition of that one phrase creates a determination as steady and unyielding as the never-changing beat.
The song exploded on impact and won Twisted Sister and frontman/songwriter Dee Snider prominence in the heavy metal / hair rock universe. Yet their song differed from the wailing, snarling output of its brethren. The closest was an earlier adolescent outcry, “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper (one of Snider’s idols, no surprise), more ferocious but also more fleeting, capturing only a specific and unique moment in life. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was and remains immediately, universally accessible. It took me back, as a young adult, to the hive-mind rebellion of my high school class, an uncharacteristically complacent and cooperative group, who stood up as one and refused to go back to class after a classmate smashed a guitar against a piano during the senior talent show.
Standing up holds the threat of fighting back, of course. The song’s music video demonstrates this gleefully, with the band materializing like some a magically powered SWAT team to pursue and subdue a deranged drill sergeant of a father (played by Mark Metcalf, the overbearing Douglas C. Niedermeyer of Animal House). Snider leads the attack, his makeup like war paint and impossibly full mane flowing, absurdly comfortable in a suburban home. (He revealed his hair-styling secret decades later, in his memoir Shut Up And Give Me The Mic: a leaf blower.)
The juxtaposition was subversive, and the song’s staying power is, too, in a way. It’s emerged from the testosterone-fueled stage pyrotechnics of heavy metal into a battle cry for self-respect and backbone. Though the concept appeals to anger (and has led to political appropriation, some of which Snider has publicly rebuffed), it is, at its core, mature and grounding. These traits may have their roots in the outlandishness and outrage of the ’80s, but the nation saw them soon enough in Snider the man, when he showed up in Congress in 1985, to testify against censoring rock lyrics. Frank Zappa and John Denver played the game by wearing suits, but Snider appeared in take-me-as-I-am casual rockstar attire, that hair ever flowing, and unleashed intelligent, well-spoken and forceful arguments that blew his questioners away… like a leaf blower.
I have seen Snider’s traits close up. When I spent a day in a video shoot with him a few years ago (for “Mack the Knife” from his Broadway album; I played a crazy homeless woman), it was a rare and refreshing case of a famous person turning out to be a better human than I could have expected: down to earth, outgoing, and relaxed. And working easily and openly with his family, no hint of drill sergeant at all.
MÖSH YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Crockett Doob on Metallica’s ENTER SANDMAN | Dean Haspiel on Mötley Crüe’s HOME SWEET HOME | Jack Silbert on Poison’s TALK DIRTY TO ME | Adam McGovern on Dio’s INVISIBLE | Mariane Cara on Faith No More’s EPIC | Heather Quinlan on Blue Öyster Cult’s SHOOTING SHARK | Steve Schneider on UFO’s DIESEL IN THE DUST | Carlo Rotella on Primus’ JERRY WAS A RACE CAR DRIVER | Erik Davis on St. Vitus’ BORN TOO LATE | Greg Rowland on Motörhead’s ACE OF SPADES (remix) | Kathy Biehl on Twisted Sister’s WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT | Nikhil Singh on G.I.S.M.’s GAS BURNER PANIC | Erin M. Routson on Metallica’s ESCAPE | Holly Interlandi on Helmet’s MILQUETOAST | Marc Weidenbaum on Celtic Frost’s I WON’T DANCE (THE ELDERS’ ORIENT) | Amy Keyishian on Living Colour’s CULT OF PERSONALITY | Josh Glenn on Scorpions’ STILL LOVING YOU | Alycia Chillemi on Danzig’s SOUL ON FIRE | James Parker on Godflesh’s CHRISTBAIT RISING | Miranda Mellis on The Afflicted’s HERE COME THE COPS | Rene Rosa on Type O Negative’s BLACK NO. 1 | Tony Leone on Slayer’s SOUTH OF HEAVEN | Christopher Cannon on Neurosis’s LOST | Brian Berger on Black Sabbath’s HEADLESS CROSS | MÖSH CONTEST-WINNING ENTRY: Tony Pacitti on Metallica’s THE CALL OF KTULU. PLUS: CONTEST RUNNER-UP: James Scott Maloy on Accept’s MIDNIGHT MOVER.
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