“Boxcar” was Jawbreaker’s perfect kiss-off to punk purists

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing.
My We’re No. 1 piece this week on Blink-182’s album, Take Off Your Pants And Jacket—the first punk album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200—sparked the always-tiresome debate about punk: who is, who isn’t, what does punk mean? Many people responded to us on Twitter with variations of “You should put punk in quotation marks” in regards to Blink-182, because as everyone knows, punk died in 1977. Or 1979. Or 1984. Or 1989. After all, there hasn’t been a legitimate punk band since Minor Threat, or the Dead Kennedys, or another band beloved by some loudmouth who stopped paying attention two decades ago.
Minor Threat changed my life, but arguing about the parameters of punk rock has always been a fool’s errand. It tends to indulge the most self-righteous, alienating elements of a scene created by misfits. Any time these debates flare up, my mind instinctively cues Jawbreaker’s definitive three-chord kiss-off to the tongue-clucking punk police, “Boxcar.”