Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
I Hate the Bloody Queen (1983)
Punk is an attitude that isn't always easy to pull off. So it definitely came as a surprise when I was watching my favorite sketch comedy show, SCTV, in March 1983 and they pulled off one of the greatest punk songs ever.
SCTV, which started in Canada as Second City Television in 1976, had a great premise. It wasn't just a random collection of sketches, but it revolved around the broadcast day of a TV station in the fictional town of Melonville. That conceit allowed the show to parody all sorts of pop culture ridiculousness: news broadcasts, talk shows, commercials, monster movies. All of which had been done on Saturday Night Live, but SCTV had the added bonus of featuring the behind-the-scenes antics of the station. And the cast were all brilliant comic actors who went on to bigger (although not necessarily better) things.
One of the recurring SCTV features was Mel's Rock Pile, an American Bandstand-type show that was hosted by the ever-nerdy Mel Slirrup (played by Eugene Levy) who would interview dorky high school-age dancers and bring on musical guests. On this particular episode (which aired during the show's stint on NBC), Slirrup introduces the Queenhaters, who play their song "I Hate the Bloody Queen," much to the dismay of the dancers, who want to go back to the generic rock songs they were previously dancing to.
The Queenhaters were led by Martin Short as the Johnny Rotten-esque lead singer, Levy and Andrea Martin on guitar, Joe Flaherty (who just died this week) on bass and a hilariously deadpan John Candy on drums. Short, as he usually does, really throws himself into the performance.
"I've always had a dream/I'd like to meet the Queen/I'd punch her in the face/Yeah, that would make me laugh/I'd love to kick her in the teeth/And then I'd make a picture of it/In lovely Ektachrome/And then I'd give it to the prince."
The crowd's not digging it, but the band doesn't care. Levy's playing a Flying V guitar as rips through a solo, Flaherty and Martin provide backing vocals and a bald, expressionless Candy plays the drums robotically. Every time the camera pans to Candy is laugh-out-loud funny.
Short also throws in a timely jab at the Falklands War, a bizarre 10-week conflict between the U.K. and Argentina over some islands that took place a year earlier.
"I'd like to drown the Queen/Off the coast of Argentine/Throw her off a battleship/With her Falkland war machine/She taxes me to death/I can't afford me dope/I'd like to get her high/Yeah, that would make me laugh."
It doesn't matter that the heyday of punk was several years earlier, the Queenhaters deliver the goods. The song is legitimately great. But the Rock Pile kids don't agree. They also aren't thrilled when Slirrup starts a slam dance competition, especially after it ends in violence when a football player from Michigan throttles everyone.
Mudhoney actually covered the song for a compilation years later, but the original is better.
Sadly, this was the only appearance of the Queenhaters, but that's also kind of perfect. Candy reportedly said the actors played their own instruments, but that was unlikely, although Short definitely provided those amazing vocals. I saw a blog post that said the music might have been played by Toronto punk act The Young Lions, but who knows? All I know is it rules and I hate the bloody Queen.
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