The Tyranny of Tradition

After spending the better part of 20 years uttering a completely indecipherable mixture of portuguese, broken English, latin, spanish, urdu, punjabi, swahili, clicking noises and grunts, ska punk band Rancid plans to record their next album “Songs That Kind of Sound Like The Clash” in pure American English.

The band’s “singer”, Tim Armstrong has spent the last six months in an intensive American English language immersion program that will allow him to sing in a way that is moderately coherent to the people of The Greatest People on Earth.

Early on in his career, many music fans believed that Rancid’s enigmatic singer was attempting to gain a distinct sound for the band that allowed them to stand apart from the other 7,000 or so bands who came out around that time and sounded exactly the same.  Others were concerned he had accidentally severed his tongue.  At first, Armstrong was troubled by these accusations, but later he learned to brush aside many of the criticisms.

He told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview last year this year that “sema cunna sima, heh heh, the new kid is blacajema, sayin’ like a hema slucka jem-inon, heh, Yeah!  Sa…YEAH!”

While Rancid’s fame has diminished over the past few years, many fans still fondly remember when they rocketed to fame on the heels over several hit singles including “Ruby Soho”, “Roots Radical” and “Semi-Comma Henem Draaba”.

Armstrong At A Political Rally Last Fall

In 2004, they recorded the critically acclaimed “Ehhh..Guple Dema”, a poignant reflection on Tim Armstrong’s difficult divorce and his lifelong battle with cerebral moosebumps.  After that, they all but disappeared from the music scene. Now, they are back and ready to make sense.  They parted ways with long time concert translator Michael Stepanac and plan to rely solely on words that can be understood by a good portion of The Hardworking and Pious American Public.

Rancid had faced protests at concerts back in the early 2000s from nativist groups who wanted to deport Armstrong to Iraq for not speaking, as Moral Majority Leader Jerry Falwell referred to it,  “The Language of God and Freedom”. Many Americans, particularly in the southeastern portion of The Land Our Savior Has Smiled Upon and Granted Endless Bounty have taken a break from getting worked up about the many satanic spells buried in the Obamacare bill and have become deeply concerned about this new assault upon Our Way of Life.

Lawmakers in Georgia have considered passing legislation that prohibits Armstrong from speaking anywhere in the state.  In Texas, many Righteous and Upstanding Citizens of This Great Nation are concerned that the new album will begin in English and then veer off into “one of the many mud languages spoken by the terrorists who live in other countries”.

According to former Texas governor Rick Perry, “This new album is like that Trojan Horse that the Romans used to defeat the Germans in World War The First One.  It will pretend to be in American English, but if you play it backwards, it will be no different than their earlier stuff.”