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Interpretations:Youth Culture Killed My Dog

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I think that someone forced the dog, who lived a carefree and happy life listening to Bacharach and David, to listen to music from the youth culture. The music was so horrible that the dog commited suicide to escape it's torture.

Geo 20:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

A great joke about the constant diversification of popular culture into more and more genres. Flans at his best, back when his lyrics were better than Linnell's. One wishes his more recent efforts had the kick that this early effort undoubtedly does.

(Mr Tuck)


A couple of things I observed while listening to this song: 

Youth culture killed my dog
And I don't think it's fair
And his suicide can be justified
By the tastemakers, how they cried and cried so

Suicide is the key word. Youth culture didn't directly kill the dog; the dog committed suicide. Therefore, either the dog is a member of the youth culture, or the youth culture inspired the dog to kill himself. Later, when the singer is singing "I don't understand what you did to my dog," that either means he's speaking directly to the dead dog, because of the suicide, or it means he's blaming the youth culture for the dog's suicide.

During the second verse of the "Bacharach and David" line, it sounds like it's saying "Bacharach and David, I used to write his favorite songs." Therefore, you might be able to say that Bacharach And David could be considered another nickname of They Might Be Giants. They are very capable of writing people's favorite songs. --My Evil Twin's Twin

(Burt) Bacharach and (Hal) David are actual songwriters. Thanks, though, I never knew what he was saying there.
Perhaps he's saying the dog was a rather staid sort who liked the mid-60's soph-pop of Bach/Dav, and hence could not hang with the "hip hop/white funk" contemporaneous in the youth culture of the 80's.

Anazgnos 15:21, 19 Jun 2006 (MDT)


Well, "(insert thing here) killed my dog" is a common (and darkly humorous) exaggeration to convey dislike towards that thing. Another variation is "(insert thing here) killed my father and raped my mother." I think John and John just wanted to write a silly song revolving around this statement. It's clever song, with appropriate jabs at the fads of the mid '80's. -- Rocker


Maybe he wasn't inspired to kill himself, and just killed himself because he hated the youth culture. I don't know.

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