The Walking Ruins "Bomb Threat" & "Enemy Within"

The above video is of the Walking Ruins performing 2 songs (“Bomb Threat” and “Enemy Within”) back to back. We wrote these in late 1987, after the band had first formed. We based our general credo on hating both minimum wage jobs and political fascism (rooted in the far right movement in the United States, of course), and we started putting together original material.
We were a punk rock band and proud of it. We did have a vaudeville tinge overlaying the musical mayhem we inflicted on the public at large. Perhaps that made us a tad bit easier to digest, but we wouldn’t back down from the confrontational approach we pursued.
The original songs were going to be important to putting us over. While we would probably never be able to play better than a true top notch national act, we would try our best to be competitive. We were aiming for extremely energetic, visual performances and our songwriting would be topical, funny, hopefully at least a little insightful, and most importantly of all memorable, even catchy.
I had just gotten my first real job and it was an eye opener participating in the capitalist system. My boss was a typically unhappy human being and he seemingly had no choice but to take out his frustrations on his employees as he tried to control the flow of dollars that rolled in and out again.
At the time I was fascinated by the phenomena of phoned in bomb threats (they usually happened at a school). What a crazy way to break up your daily routine! And what if you didn’t want to go to work but had no excuse? Just phone in a bomb threat and you’d be set!
I rolled a sheet of paper into the electric typewriter and wrote these words in one sitting: You think I’m weak & that you’re strong/You think I’m nothing but you’re wrong/The bosses stand accused of crime/The workers forced to stand in line/Here’s my chance to strike a blow/Against your stupid status quo/Bomb Threat (X 2)/You lie, you cheat, you steal, you rob/You think I’m thankful for this job/Nothing happens until you’ve had your say/But I’ll put an end to your power play/Here’s my chance to strike a blow/Against your craven status quo/Bomb Threat/(bridge) And the cops will come to clear the place/Check the expression on your face/And if you laugh a little too loud/They’re sure to do the bosses proud/Bomb Threat/I hated the day you hired me/I await the day you fire me/When I’m in my bed asleep/I curse your name you cranky creep/Here’s my chance to strike a blow/Against your stupid status quo/Bomb Threat
Not bad. The band came up with a nice crunchy hard core riff to put behind them (Joke: Who does a lead singer like to hang out with? Answer: Musicians) and we made the chorus a driving sing along chant to pump your fist to. Ian (the guitarist) eventually provided a Middle Eastern themed intro that was near lovely and we were set.
The next song “Enemy Within” (I copped the title from the Mafia expose written by Robert Kennedy) was inspired by a something that spooks me to this day. There was this skinhead guy called Little John. He was about 5 feet 2 and nice enough. He lived in an apartment that had walls covered in flyers from all these gigs he had attended. And then one day he disappeared. Months later I was working my schmuck day job when he walked in with a big smile, wearing a blue and yellow striped polo shirt and white yachting pants, accompanied by a fraternity brother.
I was flabbergasted. He sold us out, I realized. He dabbled with our scene, but when push came to shove (or the rent came due), he cashed in his ticket for a ride to the other side and went for the gold. I’m writing a song about you, dude, I muttered to myself. I went home a put a piece of paper in the electric typewriter and hammered out these words:
You’ve turned your soul inside out/Sold out your friends, burned by self doubt/You know the truth yet you’re afraid to speak/Their offers of success have made you weak/(chorus)And the enemy within is driving you/To a very hard bargain/You’ll hate to fulfill/And the enemy within is leading you/To the edge from which you’ll never return/(verse)There’s the enemy without and the enemy within/God only knows where it all began/Did our fear create their power/Did their power create our fear/It makes no difference/The choice is clear/And they’ve got you where they want you/They’ve got you so you’re haunted/(chorus)
Sounds good to me, I thought. The band came up with a pretty good stop action chorus and a martial sounding drum roll for the intro. I dug it. Somehow at one of the rehearsals when we played “Bomb Threat”, JT (the drummer) just went into the drum roll and it clicked. We now and basically for the rest of our existence played the two songs together, but the length of the 2 songs and the fast tempo made it a physical challenge that we sometimes failed. We recorded them in 2 different studios, sped up the tempo, slowed it back down, dropped the songs from our live show, brought them back (the recording above dates from 1994) again, got to where we couldn’t play them at all, and eventually played them at a reunion show at Rhinos in 2007.
I have an affection for the original songs my old band did. Good or bad, great or mediocre, they filled up a spot in the set. Some of them even proved to be real work horses, ready for any assignment and could be brought out to the fields time and time again. I like that. They’re almost living beings and I doff the fedora to them. “Bomb Threat” and “Enemy Within” weren’t the easiest or even the most user friendly of our songs, but they did yeoman’s work for us. Bless them.