Make Me Laugh

Album: State of Euphoria (1988)
Charted: 26
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song finds Anthrax laying into televangelism, a popular target of thrash metal bands of that period (Slayer's "Read Between The Lies" comes to mind). Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante explained to Melody Maker September 17, 1988: "There's a lot of these guys in America. You turn on a channel, and you see a coliseum-type place, and there's this preacher looking out at you through the camera with this imploring expression, and he goes on about the will of God, and 'we really need the money'. And we see this all the time, and we think, 'this is so ridiculous'. It makes us laugh. But the sad part, the unfunny part, is that people believe in all this s--t because they have nothing else to believe in. And the evil part is that this guy is sucking the lost and lonely in, brainwashing them to send in money and then everything will be beautiful. It's sick.
    "The other thing," he added, "is that a lot of these evangelist organisations are ready to put down heavy metal music as corrupting, and there's the PMRC, but in reality they are the bad eggs, the mind-manipulators. All we're doing is playing our music.
    "The thing that hurts us is when some kid commits suicide, and they find a tape in his room with Anthrax, Ozzy, etc on it – and right away, they blame the music. They don't go into the background of how the kid got f---ed up, how his family was. Could be that the music was what kept the kid going for so long, his only reason for living. Who knows?"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Rufus Wainwright

Rufus WainwrightSongwriter Interviews

Rufus Wainwright on "Hallelujah," his album Unfollow The Rules, and getting into his "lyric trance" on 12-hour walks.

Which Restaurants Are Most Mentioned In Song Lyrics?

Which Restaurants Are Most Mentioned In Song Lyrics?Song Writing

Katy Perry mentions McDonald's, Beyoncé calls out Red Lobster, and Supertramp shouts out Taco Bell - we found the 10 restaurants most often mentioned in songs.

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

90s Metal

90s MetalFact or Fiction

Test your metal - Priest, Maiden, and Beavis and Butt-head show up in this one.

TV Theme Songs

TV Theme SongsFact or Fiction

Was a Beatles song a TV theme? And who came up with those Fresh Prince and Sopranos songs?

Female Singers Of The 90s

Female Singers Of The 90sMusic Quiz

The ladies who ruled the '90s in this quiz.