We cannot allow this to continue.”įor nearly 40 years “We’re Not Gonna Take It” has been featured in film and television, including the 1986 films Gung Ho and Iron Eagle, Corky Romano and Max Keeble’s Big Move in 2001, and Ready Player One in 2018. “The examples I cited earlier showed clear evidence of Twisted Sister’s music being completely misinterpreted and unfairly judged by supposedly well-informed adults. “The beauty of literature, poetry, and music is that they leave room for the audience to put its own imagination, experiences and dreams into the words,” said Snider in his testimony. The PMRC also released a list of “Filthy 15” songs, which the group said contained sexually explicit lyrics or descriptions of alcohol use and intoxication, and included Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop,” Def Leppard’s “High ‘n’ Dry (Saturday Night),” and Sheena Easton’s “Sugar Walls.” Also on the list was Twisted Sister’s rock anthem. Already disturbed by lyrics in songs by artists like Madonna and Prince, the group quickly attacked the hard rock genre, which eventually led to the RIAA agreeing to put “Parental Advisory” stickers on albums with what was deemed “explicit” content. In the 1980s, the mutiny of heavy metal began, when many songs came under direct attack by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), led by Al Gore’s then-wife Tipper Gore. So I wanted to write an anthem for the audience to raise their fists in the air in righteous anger.” “I’m from the Alice Cooper school of ‘School’s Out,’ ‘I’m Eighteen’… and Alice was very big on these anthemic songs. “I wanted to write an anthem,” said Dee Snider in a 2018 interview.

Written by Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider for the band’s 1984 album Stay Hungry, the chorus came to Snider fairly quickly but took three more years to flesh out the song lyrics before its release.

Who we are lyrics