After recording new material, the band each selected songs for different sides of the double album, with the fourth side named "Chaff". Several songs on Double Nickels on the Dime were outsourced to or inspired by contemporaries, such as Black Flag's Henry Rollins and Jack Brewer of Saccharine Trust.
Double Nickels on the Dime is seen not only as Minutemen's crowning achievement, but, as critic Mark Deming notes, "one of the very best American rock albums of the 1980s." The album now appears on many professional lists of the all-time best rock albums, including Rolling Stone' s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Slant Magazine listed the album at #77 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".
D.'s Car Jam / Anxious Mo-Fo
Minutemen Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
No device to measure, no word can define.
I mean what I'm trying to say is how can I express – let alone possess?
Serious as a heart attack! Makes me feel this way...
The Minutemen's song D.'s Car Jam / Anxious Mo-Fo features enigmatic lyrics that convey a theme of intense emotions that are almost impossible to express through words. The opening lines of "Serious as a heart attack! Makes me feel this way..." immediately set the tone for the rest of the song. It's clear that the singer is feeling intense emotions, but the lyrics dig deeper into how difficult it is to articulate those feelings.
The second and third lines of the verse suggest that the singer is struggling to find the right words to accurately convey their emotions. The line "no device to measure, no word can define" suggests that there is no way to quantify or communicate the depth of what is being felt. The last line of the verse goes further, with the singer admitting that the feeling is so intense that they can't even fully possess it, let alone express it adequately.
Overall, the lyrics to D.'s Car Jam / Anxious Mo-Fo seem to touch on the universal feeling of being overwhelmed by emotion and struggling to put those feelings into words. It's a relatable experience, and one that the Minutemen explore in their typically incisive and poetic way.
Line by Line Meaning
Serious as a heart attack! Makes me feel this way...
The intensity of this situation is comparable to a heart attack, and it evokes a strong emotional response within me.
No device to measure, no word can define.
This situation cannot be quantified or described adequately with language.
I mean what I'm trying to say is how can I express – let alone possess?
I struggle to articulate my thoughts and feelings about this experience, let alone fully understand or control it.
Writer(s): Mike Watt
Contributed by Sadie K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.