All in the Family (song)

Music and structure

The song is a rhyme duel between Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst, mixing elements of hip-hop beats, distorted 7-string guitars, and Fieldy's signature bass sound. The song begins with Jonathan and Fred insulting each other on hygiene, sexual orientation, family roots, and other things. At the ending, both say they will perform sexual acts on each other in an ironic way, in fact giving the song a confusing twist. There are lyrical references to each other's songs, including Limp Bizkit's "Counterfeit" and Korn's "Blind", "Shoots and Ladders", and "No Place To Hide". Parts of the riff from "Blind" can also be heard during Jon's insults. Musical acts Vanilla Ice, Hanson, and Winger are also tossed around as insults along with references to the 1993 Waco siege, Buffalo Bill, Jerry Springer, Austin Powers, Raggedy Ann, Zingers, and Fruity Pebbles.

Concept

After the song's release, Davis said in an interview, "It's just me and him ragging on each other. Some kids think that Korn and Limp Bizkit hate each other. But hey, why we would be in the same room talking to each other if we hated each other? We have total respect..." Originally, the song was for B-Real of Cypress Hill, but his record label wouldn't let him do it.

Davis and Durst would often offer suggestions for each other's lyrics; a lyric written by Durst as "tootin' on your bagpipe" was changed to "fagpipes" by Davis, who stated "I helped him bag on me better".

Media response

In an otherwise positive review of the album, Rolling Stone wrote about the song:

It's too bad that Korn can go so easily from the potent to the pointless. The very next track, "All in the Family," is an MC duel between Davis and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, a stomping hip-hop track with a good-natured barrage of insults – except for the "faggot" and "fairy" cracks and lame-o lines like "Suck my dick, kid, like your daddy did" and "You're a fag and on a lower level." To Davis and Durst, that may just be harmless schoolyard jivin'. But Davis knows words can hurt – that was the whole point of "Faget" on Korn – and the homosexual slams in "All in the Family" cheapen, at least for those five minutes, the power and integrity of an album otherwise devoted to kickin' it against cruelty and prejudice.

Similarly, Steve Appleford of the Los Angeles Times called the song "a duet of cheap insults with Bizkit's Fred Durst that only diminishes one of Korn's strongest albums", and the Winston-Salem Journal wrote, "one wonders how [Davis] could stumble so badly with 'All in the Family' – a scatological song crammed with crude jive and anti-gay jibes that severely undercuts an otherwise potent disc." The Austin American-Statesman's critic wrote that the song's "pulsating rhythms... are undermined by countless references to guys' private parts, the f- word, 'faggots' and incest."

Mike Boehm, commenting in the Los Angeles Times, attempted to consider the band's motivations in writing the lyrics:

The homophobic epithets, the band might say, were not meant to disparage gays, but rather meaningless, street-talking jive by two guys "playing the dozens", greatly influential on rap—of verbal combat that emphasizes the competitive trading of fanciful insults. After all, the title "All in the Family" calls back that lovable TV bigot, Archie Bunker, doesn't it?

He goes on to write, "The ugliness of 'All in the Family' doesn't stem from overt homophobia; let's take Davis at his word that he harbors no ill feelings toward gays. Instead, it embodies the ingrained, unthinking homophobic bias that runs strong in our culture."

Track listing

1. "All in the Family" (rough mix) – 4:51
2. "All in the Family" (Clark World mix) – 4:45
3. "All in the Family" (Sowing the Beats mix) – 4:51
4. "All in the Family" (Beats in Peace mix) – 4:15
5. "All in the Family" (Scary Bird mix) – 8:40