yeah lemme get uhhhhhhh midrange, hold the music

Sorry for the Reddit essay, I’ve just always wanted to make this connection.

I like to read the Boys of Summer example a little deeper than that. Beyond being a just Dead shoutout, it depicts the passage of time by putting the idea of youthful counterculture onto the image of someone that’s gotten older and successful enough to afford an expensive car.

It’s framing the Dead as almost post-countercultural; much like the relationship with the girl in the song, it’s an example of something Don enjoyed in his youth that he looks back on fondly but has since slipped through his fingers with time. The Dead were still around, of course, but they meant something different now. A certain Steely Dan lyric comes to mind, but I digress.

I say all this to say, when the Ataris did their cover of the Don Henley song in ‘03, a time where old Cadillacs are mostly either collector cars hoarded by old money or complete rat traps that reek of dying exceptionalism, and pop-punk was fully mainstream and far removed from the hardcore ‘80s punk scene, their decision to instead shout out the foundational SoCal hardcore outfit with “Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac” is just perfectly fitting to me.

Being a pop-punk band they almost certainly just wanted to do a Black Flag shout-out for the clout but all of the external circumstance coming together so beautifully is what makes it my favorite example.

TL;DR the Ataris changed “Deadhead” to “Black Flag” in their “Boys of Summer” cover and seemingly by complete accident it’s the most thematically perfect reference they could’ve made

Completely unrelated, but Soulwax’s cover of Daft Punk’s “Teachers” is also like 4D chess levels of referencing