4/21/08: Dramarama: “What Are We Gonna Do?” (1991)

Dramarama was one of the best bands of the ’80s and ’90s, and were timeless in their dedication to catchy and sensitive glam-rock. That’s why it was fairly alarming when 1991’s Vinyl included an ode to Earth Day. As it turns out, the band also found the topic to be distressful. The details are discussed in Jerry McCulley’s fine liner notes for The Best of Dramarama:

…“What Are We Gonna Do?” parodied late–period Beatles pop to cynically skewer the bumper-sticker mentality of all-too-many armchair environmentalists. “I still don’t think people get it,” notes [frontman] John Easdale. “Environmental people listen to it and think, “Wow, this guy is really ‘Green’!” It disturbs me to think that there really are people who believe that they’re ‘spokesperson for a generation.’”

Easdale recalls the song’s genesis: “We played at the festival celebrating the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. Forget about the last 19 that nobody celebrated; ‘It’s the 20th anniversary, let’s have a party!’ And they did, at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Linda Gray from Dallas is in our trailer smoking cigarettes and drinking beers, and there’s a quarter of a fucking million people in front of us! When everyone left, we looked at all the garbage left behind and wondered just what we were celebrating.”

“What Are We Gonna Do?” captures Dramarama’s exasperation. The lyrics begin with the band “trying hard to think of something meaningful and worthy, kind of earthy.” By the end of the song, Easdale is passing along a message from “a tiny little man” that the world will end by 2041. The song closes with the classic hand-wringing Leftist angst of a repeated refrain: “What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?”

Of course, it’s a lot more fun to hear the tune. We could’ve sworn there was a video made for “What Are We Gonna Do?” Instead, all we can find is a recent Earth Day video that earnestly uses the Dramarama song as its soundtrack. So, there’s the joke made real.

Make it your own: Everything by Dramarama is worth owning—although the recent reunion album should be the last of your priorities. John Easdale also made a great solo album, and contractual reasons had the band releasing one album as The Bent Backed Tulips. As noted, “What Are We Gonna Do?” is on The Best of Dramarama. You can also get the brilliant Vinyl for really cheap. You can pretty much get all of Dramarama for really cheap.

Here’s the band’s MySpace page. John Easdale would later protest Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial campaign with a cover of Dead Kennedy’s “California Uber Alles.” We discussed that with Easdale, though, and he sounded perfectly reasonable about his concerns. There’s really no reason for anybody not being a Dramarama fan. Just ask Ellen DeGeneres.

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion