Song of the Day 2/23: The Business, “Drinking and Driving”

Would-be politician Scott Walker, the guy who runs for office by setting up home-painted campaign signs along Delaware roads, has never come close to being elected, but his odd behavior makes it obvious that isn’t his goal. Like the guy who fell into a lens grinding machine, he’s making a spectacle of himself.

He’s in the news again, but this time he’s not running for office — he’s gone to federal court to overturn his guilty plea in a drunken driving case. The News Journal’s Esteban Parra explains it better than I could:

Walker argues in his 47-page complaint that because of his disability, police should have heeded his request to be left alone in order to sober up after being found semi-nude and sleeping behind the wheel of his running car in a restaurant drive-thru. Having not followed his request, Milford police violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, he claims.

The self-filed lawsuit stands as much chance of success as Walker in an election, but you have to admit that he’s right about one thing — he wasn’t driving at the time, so maybe this song doesn’t apply.

The Business was a British band in the vanguard of a working-class punk offshoot called Oi! in the early ’80s, a reaction against the commercialization of the genre. They released their debut album, “Suburban Rebels,” which included this song, in 1983. Though many of the Oi! bands were socialist, they attracted fascist fans, and the Business broke up before the end of the decade. They later reformed and enjoyed a revival until frontman Micky Fitz died in 2015, about a decade after he overcame his alcoholism.