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The first thing I notice in this song is the violin. She starts out in brisk bottom-of-the-bow staccato, scarcely sounding like the refined instrument you’d think it was, but like the rhythm guitar’s short and crass cousin. Then she breaks away from the accordion, doing her own thing. She’s still laying low, she’s still not looking you straight in the eye, but you just know that the she is starting to act like a real violin now. She flying up and down no more than three notes, like a twisted “Flight of the Bumblebee” with her heads rolled into the back of her head.

I should come clean: I played the violin when I was younger. (SUZUKI METHOD, FOOL!) I wasn’t ever one of the best young violinists, mainly because I hated to practice. Thus, I got left behind while my betters filled up the first violin slots. Perhaps a different side of the violin was shown to them: the violin as the champion of classical music, carrying the melody proudly into battle, with swords and painted armor and crap like that. I was always in the second violin section, and my playing was always there to support the first violinists. But that sweet, sweet jealousy was the very elixir to wake my young eyes. I knew what was missing from my colleagues’ understanding of the violin: Satan.

No, really. The violin is the devil himself, and if you’ve heard any of the really good stuff (HINT: Zigeunerweisen by Sarasate) you understand this. When someone is truly great at the piano or harp or banjo, you might presume some angels was guiding the fingers. You make no such mistake with the violin: when she sings out, whether in her low bellow or her high scream, and when she spins around faster than God would allow: you then understand that the violin, for all her good intentions, is a purely diabolic entity.

This is Gogol Bordello, and they just don’t care. So you’ve got this violin. She started fast and mean, and now she’s getting faster and meaner. If I were you I’d duck right about now.

The second thing I notice in this song is a piercing scream, crossed with the violin finally wailing upwards, breathing fire and cutting the bow to bits as she climbs up the octave, throwing tremolo across the note like it was cheap vodka. The violin is now dirty and fast, mean-spirited and violent, and entirely soaked in flammable spirits. Just like the violin was meant to be. You? You’re loving every minute.

The punchline is that you’re just thirty seconds in a 3 1/2 minutes song. This is Gogol Bordello, and they just don’t care. Cue the vocals.

“Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike” (Gogol Bordello)