Fight for Your Right

Adam Yauch wrote the song with Tom "Tommy Triphammer" Cushman, a friend of the band who appears in the video. The pair initially intended it for Brooklyn, a side project, but Yauch proposed giving it to the Beastie Boys instead. It was meant as a joke, an exaggerated take on "party" and "attitude" songs like "Smokin' in the Boys Room" and "I Wanna Rock". Instead, audiences took it at face value, and it unintentionally became representative of the group's artistic style. Writing credits ultimately went to Yauch, Ad-Rock and the band's producer, Rick Rubin.

Released in 1986 as the fourth single from Licensed to Ill, the song reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of March 7, 1987. That made it the group's highest-charting single and their only top-10 hit. The band initially embraced the booze-fueled party identity the track gave them, but their social habits shifted toward marijuana after touring, and their style changed with it. They kept playing their early hits on future tours, a change that had the welcome effect of alienating much of the audience who preferred the old material. Mike D later expressed regret that the song might have reinforced values in listeners that the band never actually held, noting that many fans singing along had no idea it was a goof on them.