Hiding deep in the recesses of the Barenaked Ladies’ 30-plus years of musical output are likely to be more than a few misguided ideas.

Did you know, for example, that the band once did a television pilot for Fox that painted the members as horndogs and included an Asian-themed version of “One Week” that was rife with cultural misappropriation?

I don’t include that to criticize or to offer cancellation fodder—we are stated fans of this band, after all—but to offer some context around a song this band recently released that seemed wildly out of step with their “brand,” enough that it ticked off some of their longtime fans.

The song, titled “Too Old,” takes on cancel culture, an unusual choice of topic for a band that arguably owes its early fame to a cancellation attempt.

(via Newspapers.com)

That’s not hyperbole. In 1991, the band found itself removed from the lineup of a New Year’s Eve concert by the mayor of Toronto because its name was believed to be demeaning to women. But rather than leading the band to disappear, it ended up creating a media frenzy, which led to a massive surge in sales of their independently released demo tape, The Yellow Tape, especially in the Toronto area, where it outsold a number of major-label records of the period. They were painted as survivors of political correctness, and it ironically set them on the path to long-term success.

Within a year of the incident, the band was recording kids’ channel PSAs about the importance of racial harmony, along with soon-to-be-classic albums. Cancellation averted.

The band has only had one other real scandal—involving former member Steven Page’s arrest for cocaine possession in 2008, which led to his departure the next year—but otherwise has consistently remained active since their cancellation attempt 32 years ago.

The joke I heard about “Too Old” after it first came out in July was, essentially, “Who’s trying to cancel BNL?” It was a song that really needed some explanation, because it seemed absolutely out of left field for this particular band to complain about this topic. (Some also felt it wasn’t their best musical work, but I’ll leave that critique off the table.)

This week, the band gave us a little more to work with, with the band stating in a track explainer that it was a rumination on social media and cancel culture.

“We’re in a very strange time where everyone holds the nuclear codes,” Ed Robertson says in the clip, adding: “I just want to play music and entertain people and not live in fear of one joke I made 25 years ago bringing our career to a halt.”

And then he talked about it from the perspective of being an on-stage performer: “It’s a difficult time to be creative, to try to be funny. And I try to do that every night we’re on stage, and it feels like there’s more and more land mines placed around you every day.”

This is the kind of complaint usually heard from comedians that make a habit of performing blue—the Dave Chappelles of the world—not bands that dabble in clean comedy in their shows. (Page, on the other hand, has gotten more explicitly political in his solo work.)

But the thing is, complaining about the risk of cancellation is a privilege in its own right. It shows that you have something to lose, that you’re in a position to punch down.

I think the problem I see with this song is that, even if the goal is to state a truism of walking on a tightrope, it puts divisive thinking in a venue where it generally shouldn’t exist. It leads people to stay home that might have otherwise bought a ticket, and turns a neutral zone into yet another culture-war venue. It takes a band famed for not being particularly political or even offensive and makes them seem like they have something to hide.

At this point in the band’s career, if you’re still closely following, you’re either a die-hard or you are looking for a relaxing night out in the lawn seats. You shouldn’t have to think about the person on the stage getting cancelled.