“You Are (The Government)” by Bad Religion

"You Are (The Government)" comes off Suffer, the 1988 album that hauled Bad Religion back from limbo. After the Back to the Known EP in 1985 the band had gone on hiatus; when they regrouped, it was with their original members save drummer Jay Ziskrout, and Suffer was their first full-length in five years, as well as the first record Epitaph both released and distributed.

Greg Graffin wrote the words and the music and sings lead, Brett Gurewitz and Greg Hetson both play electric guitar, Jay Bentley holds down the bass and Pete Finestone sits behind the kit, and the band produced it themselves. Suffer never charted on the Billboard 200, yet some critics now rank it among the most important punk albums ever made, and this song is counted among its fan favorites.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.