(What's So Funny 'Bout) White Genocide Fuck Men's Warehouse, what's even the use of a new funeral suit these days Stinging lights on, we lingered too long, they'll be happier when we're gone Casseroles for bereaved families who just want us to leave so they can mutter and grieve I regret all my talk of death, there's just so few of us left Sketchy reports from pediatric wards in the cities of the north They say a few base pairs out of place is all it takes to forfeit the whole race All my friends are skeletons, their bones are shining through their skin I'm thinking our extinction could be greatest, I never guessed we'd clean up our own mess Hats and sunscreen can't shelter our unborn from the ultraviolet storm outside Bunker up, son! Our numbers are so slight and the winter sky so bright No one mourned the dinosaurs so why shed a tear for us and our fences and our lust? One or two generations hence they'll make jokes at our expense Don't yearn for what we could have been, we were never gentle men When we're done running out of kin, someone better can begin Strum the lyre, hum the hymn, oh, the pale fire is growing dim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From Nadalands - The Days of Awe LP (September 25, 2023) (What's So Funny 'Bout) Pilfered from "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding," written by Nick Lowe and made famous by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Though generally considered a decent guy, Elvis Costello once drunkenly said some horrible things and also dropped the n-word in "Oliver's Army" (also on the album Armed Forces). In the year 2022, Costello asked radio stations to stop playing "Oliver's Army," which he had released in 1979. Unlike peace, love, or understanding, Elvis Costello's clumsy attempts at apology are genuinely hilarious. White Genocide A white nationalist conspiracy theory that immigration from non-European countries, low white birth rates, and mixed-race marriages will eliminate or politically marginalize the white race. Particularly in its French "Great Replacement" form, this line of thinking is explicitly anti-Semitic (Lindenbaum is Jewish). Violence inspired by this idea is decidedly not funny, but the notion of 81% non-Latino white Larimer County (Colorado) losing its white population is almost comically absurd. Men's Warehouse "You're going to like the way you look" is not a convincing sales pitch for someone attending funerals. all my talk of death Many Nadalands songs are about death in some form. pediatric wards In this song, the white genocide is occuring due to a high mortality rate and lack of healthy white births, rather than a political race war. In Mohsin Hamid's 2022 novel The Last White Man, people are inexplicably turning non-white. Hamid and Lindenbaum attended the same undergraduate college, though not at the same time. cities of the north A similar conceit appears in Louise Eldrich's 2017 novel Future Home of the Living God, in which only Indigenous women can become pregnant (this is implied but not made explicit in the story). Eldrich's novel is set in Minnesota (the north). Margaret Atwood's classic 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale depicts a fertility crisis in another city of the north (Boston). base pairs out of place The nucleotides that make up DNA code for genetic traits. Skin color is determined by many different genes, or sequences of base pairs, in the human genome. Contrary to the race pseudoscience that informed the white genocide conspiracy theory, discrete genetic "races" do not exist. forfeit the whole race not a very clever pun All my friends are skeletons His friends are doomed to die, and also are so pale that they resemble white bones. our extinction could be greatest The Permian–Triassic extinction event, which eliminated 90% of marine species 251 million years ago, is also known as "The Great Dying." The narrator admits that the end of the white race would be great for the planet. Hats and sunscreen very important to parents of white children to prevent sun damage. ultraviolet UV light can cause mutations in DNA, especially in those with paler skin. In this song, the so-called "white race" is eliminated by its very whiteness. Bunker up in Kansas, South Dakota, or New Zealand. our numbers are so slight Non-Hispanic whites no longer account for the majority of U.S. births, but they still make up the majority of the U.S. population. dinosaurs The K-T extinction 65 million years ago eliminated non-avian dinosaurs. The dinosaurs also ruled the earth and were incapable of surviving a changing climate. fences The enclosure of common land and creation of private property in Britain, Ireland, the U.S., India, and elsewhere. This form of land ownership replaced others in much of the world. Garth Brooks and Roy Rogers would disapprove. lust for blood, money, and resources. jokes A powerful regime is more easily mocked after it ends. gentle men A 1993 song and album by the Afghan Whigs. lyre A musical instrument played in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, two eras romanticized by white nationalists. pale fire A 1962 novel by Russian-American Vladimir Nabokov about a fictional poet. In a white genocide, the seemingly eternal flame of the "white race" is dying out. "The dying of the light" is itself a phrase from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night". Rather than rage against the dying of the white race, the narrator accepts the fate of his "people."