History
Ironically, the song, written by Adam Yauch and band friend Tom "Tommy Triphammer" Cushman (who appears in the video), was intended as a parody of party and attitude songs, such as "Smokin' in the Boys Room" and "I Wanna Rock". However, the irony was lost on most listeners. Mike D commented that, "The only thing that upsets me is that we might have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different. There were tons of guys singing along to 'Fight for Your Right' who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them."
The band Public Enemy sampled the song for their 1988 song "Party for Your Right to Fight". Both bands were signed by Def Jam at that time.
Brit-Pop Band McFly covered the song as an B-Side on their Baby's Coming Back/Transylvania Single. It's also featured on the album The Greatest Bits: B-Sides & Rarities.
Sammy Hagar covers the song on his 2008 solo album Cosmic Universal Fashion.
Warrant, Trixter, and FireHouse covered the song as an end of the show jam during Warrant's Cherry Pie tour.
NYCC remixed this song in 1998, their dance version hit #14 on the UK Singles Chart.
Ke$ha covered the song as the finale on her 2011 Get Sleazy Tour.
Blondie covers the song as an interpolation with their 1981 hit "Rapture" in the shows of their Panic of Girls Tour.
On August 2, 2009 Coldplay performed an acoustic piano-based version of this song during their concert on the final night of the All Points West concert series as a tribute to the Beastie Boys, who were unable to perform on opening night following Adam Yauch's announcement that he had cancer. The band performed this version again on May 4, 2012 at their concert at the Hollywood Bowl as a tribute to Adam Yauch, who had died earlier that day.
In 2011, the song was sampled by experimental hip hop group Death Grips in the track "Spread Eagle Cross the Block" from their debut mixtape Exmilitary.
The YouTube-based cartoon band Your Favorite Martian covered this song in 2012.
Read more about this topic: (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)