Surfing With Outkast (CUSSING CAUTION)

A sad gospel wail, punctuated by frantic doubts:



Over three verses, Andre and Big Boi detail some of their relationships with women and then explode the meanings of those relationships into world-historical philosophical musings, sort of like how Jack and Diane sucking on a chili dog and talking about running off to the city becomes "Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone." And I can't claim this song makes a whole lot more sense than "Jack and Diane," either. But it's inescapable once it's in your head.

In verse one Andre talks about being a crack baby (actually cocaine baby), then about the cattiness of women who won't even give him back rubs; then he disses the powers that manufacture guns while they simultaneously criticize rap music for its violent imagery. I think. Remember, this is PERCUSSION-EFFUSIVE, so meaning is secondary. But then we get the sadsoul chorus:

"Ooooh, I fear the battle's just begun
Ooooh, though we're here someday we will be gone
so i'm hopin, wishin, prayin
to keep my faith in you, in you"

What battle? The battle for life? For learning to deal with being born a crack baby? For living in a world that's an inescapable web of violence and not getting what you want or need, and being unable to even distinguish what you want (back rubs from women) from what you need (a society without gats, the freedom to speak truth)?

And then we're back to the second verse! Which is all about dry humping in the woods during P.E. class! With... the squirrels? (It does rhyme with "girls".) Fun stuff, but the point of the verse seems to be the last couple lines, "They call it 'horny'/ Because it's devilish/ Now see we dead wrong." So Andre, because of his Adventist upbringing or whatever, feels guilty about his lust, and his lust is also part of this "Babylon."

Big Boi gets verse three, which is about his estrangement from "Rene" and people criticizing his lyrics for promoting violent crime, when in fact the violent crime and sex trade have been around since people could write, and probably before. And then he talks about the "pinks" who "moved in"--gay people? So to recap: characteristics of Babylon include drug-addicted babies, girl troubles, stifling of creative expression, violence in society, stifling of creative expression BY those who create the violent society, lust, estrangement from other people, and societal ills like drugs and prostitution, especially when you get blamed for them.

The song's borderline incoherence works to its favor in this sense: it convincingly depicts the desperation you feel when you have to deal with a problem so huge that you can't break it down, you can't separate the parts that are urgent from those that are inconsequential. And since it's a Babylon Song, Babylon seems to be the inescapable web of societal and personal ills that we can't break away from. If that's so, it's similar to reggae's Babylon--the web of civilized evil that staves off the Kingdom of God.

The chorus's simplicity settles the seeming randomness of the verses. Never mind that we don't know what the "battle" is, or even in whom the singer (Andrea Martin) is trying to keep her faith. She sees into the abyss--"though we're here someday we will be gone" (which, if you really UNDERSTAND it, is pretty much the deepest thing you can understand)--and expresses her "ultimate concern" (as dead theologian Paul Tillich would say). Unlike some Rastas (but like some others), Outkast aren't worried about "chanting down Babylon" here; they just have faith. For all they know, Babylon'll go on forever, but they'll still have faith. And that faith can be defined as "ultimate concern", NOT "expectation that Babylon will meet a sticky end at God's hand."

Babylon's overwhelming litany of sin either blinds you from your ultimate concern or--more interestingly--pushes you into your ultimate concern. Without Babylon, would faith be as accessible, or even possible? The chorus comes as a relief from the verses, because its meaning is less convoluted, and also because its musical style is much more straightforward. (NOTE: THIS IS WHERE I TIE IN THE MUSICAL ANALYSIS!) The chorus is sung, it sounds like a slow beautiful gospel song, nothing tricky to it, whereas the PERCUSSION-EFFUSIVE verses are full of weird rhythmic figures and oddly accelerated syllables, making us listeners uneasy and disoriented. Seriously, don't listen to the verses while you're on your feet, or you'll bump into walls! On the other hand, if you fall down during the verses, Ms. Martin's refrain will help you figure out where you are, and might give you what you need to rise again.

Stay-At-Home Parenting 101: A Toddler's Guide to Ungodly Squawl* featuring Diamanda Galas and 1/2 Japanese

Whether you're chauffeuring your little trooper to toddler Pilates, the kiddie salon, or just an everyday anti-vaccination protest, you'll both want some music for the ride. And if Sting and Baby Mendelssohn are getting old, why not try something different--what I like to call ungodly squawl?

My four-year-old, Liege, has recently latched on to "the Silly Lady," a.k.a. Diamanda Galas, a Greek-American avant-garde singer best known for her important, moving AIDS benefit piece The Plague Mass. But we don't listen to that one--instead, we enjoy her song "Skotoseme," a smorgasbord of vocal shrieks, cackles, and foreign tongues. (The word "skotoseme" means "kill me" in Greek, but unless your little one has taken the Language Stars Greek class--NOT recommended--that'll probably fly right over their heads!) The song is from Diamanda's 1994 collaboration with John Paul Jones (the bassist from Led Zeppelin--rock on!), called The Sporting Life, and you can sample a live performance of it here:



Liege demands "the Silly Lady" every time we get in the car. His therapist, Dr. Hoffmeister from the Center for Jung Development, speculates that the aggressive music gives Liege confidence to face the day! (It's similar to how, in my pre-Stay-At-Home days, I used EMF's "Unbelievable" to pump myself up before seeing clients.) Dr. H also suggests that Diamanda's barrage of noises acts as a "vicarious release" for Liege's busy inner life. All in all, he beams, it's "quite a progressive choice for one so young."

If modern American primitivism is more your thing, Liege would like to recommend the 1979 debut album from the band 1/2 Japanese (careful--we're not talking Jon and Kate's kids here!), called 1/2 Gentlemen/Not Beasts. No videos available online, sorry--too obscure! Here's the beautifully instinctive album art:



The band made this album before they could really play their instruments, so it all sounds sort of like the bang and clatter you hear every week at Kindermusik! But it'll give your kids the confidence they need, to turn their God-given noise-making chops into a useful living. (We've been looking for something to supplement Liege's budding modeling career!) Liege is particularly taken with 1/2 J's song "Funky Broadway Melody," which has introduced him to the memorable catchphrase "Papa's got a brand new bag," but in a more artistically complex way than the original James Brown would have done. In addition, Dr. H suggests that "Funky Broadway"'s dissonant-yet-repetitive drone taps into Liege's "emotional comfort place"--it's sort of a substitute for me hugging him.

So remember--your kids' music doesn't have to be same-o lame-o! Put on some ungodly squawl instead. Those other parents won't know what they're missing!

*Apologies to the dead Lester Bangs; who, incidentally, appreciated 1/2 Japanese.

The Flowtation Device Presentz: RZA's verse from "Wu-Gambinos" vs. Outkast's "Babylon" (CUSSING AND WHATNOT)

In honor of RZA's recent media tour to support his new tome The Tao of Wu, and in honor of Raekwon's new sequel to Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which I was somehow unable to find at either Borders or Best Buy, a shameful disgrace for brick/mortar retailers everywhere, The Flowtation Device would like to present a celebration of RZA's verse from "Wu-Gambinos" off the FIRST Cuban Linx, contrasted with an exploration of Outkast's "Babylon," which is right at home on this blog and will probably be thematically explored here sometime soon.

In other words--Welcome back to some esoteric horseshit! Exhibit "A" will be Andre's second verse in the Outkast song "Babylon," from ATliens '96. Exhibit "B" is Big Boi's verse from the same song. Both exemplify what world-historic hip-hop scholar Adam Krims calls "percussion-effusive" flow (Major Tom, iz you IN DA HOUSE????) [caution: I no longer get that joke], which basically means the rhymes don't occur at regular intervals and the words conform to the rhythms, not vice-versa. Both also employ triplets and 16th notes, indicated here with italicized words. (If you see two syllables joined by italics, they're 16th notes; if you see three syllables joined by italics, they're a triplet.)

The best example of words-conforming-to-rhythms is in Big Boi's verse. Big Boi uses fairly regular triplet rhythms alternating with straight 8th beats:
"AUNTiewasTIGHTlikeSOUTHwesssst-be / FOREthePINKSmovedIN.LIKEthe /
NIGgaswhoOWNEDtheLIQUourSTORES. / CRACKcoCAINE.PIMPSandWHORES. /
LIVin'upONthisEARTHbeFOREa / NIGgaLIKEdadDYwasBORNbut /"

Andre's verse is less regular, but still sounds like curlicued and filigreed antique furniture.

RZA's verse on Raekwon's "Wu-Gambinos" (Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, '95) is the klassic Krims example of "speech-effusive," which basically means the rhymes don't occur at regular intervals and the rhythms conform to the words, not vice-versa. RZA's verse was much harder to analyze rhythmically. All these guys have some ambiguity in their rhythms--they'll attack words ahead of or behind the beat or whatever--it's like comparing a transcribed Wynton Kelly solo to what Wynton's actually playing--but RZA was totally rushing words and employing septuplets or some shit. (As payback, I totally gave up trying to figure out the penultimate line. My payback's a mutha.)

Perhaps paradoxically, the Outkast verses that focused on rhythms-over-words were much easier to comprehend than the RZA verse that focused on words-over-rhythms. I'll get down to brass tacks on the Outkast verse in a blog or two, but just reading it you can understand what they're talking about. But I have no idea what the shit RZA is talking about, except that he's awesome and he will harm me. Perhaps also paradoxically, I like his verse better than the Outkast verses, and I'm not just saying that because he'll break 206 of my bones and watch my ass get blown into a sea of fire and brimstone. His flow's livelier and looser and he covers a lot of lyrical ground. During the span of his verse he is a dapper diamond thief, a cop, a thug, Noah Bean (the actor from Damages? not in '95...), a Klan Wizard, a Revolutionary War soldier, a doctor, and a Genie inside the Bottle that is the Projects. Where Outkast sound kind of bottled by their rhythms, RZA's a total genie on the rampage.

(Not to dis Adam Krims, who seems like the kind of nutty academic I can get behind--and he's certainly researched this stuff more than I have--but take his nomenclatures with a grain of salt. After all, it's not like anyone's done any subsequent research on the subject of flow, or indeed corroborated or refuted his three-fold classification system. At least, not anyone I can find. I plan to contact him once I have something intelligent to say.)



Andre 3000 (percussion-effusive) starts at 1:04:

*i'mFASciNAtedBYthe /
WAYyo'NIPplesPEAKatMEthrough / YO'blouse*.*.*. /
FREAkyMEfreaKYyou-can't / HELPbutBEaROUSED.'SCUSEme /
LORD_LESSforTHINkin'but THATwasthe / WAYweWASbroughtUP.*. /
SNEAKin'toWATCHplayBOYatNIGHTwe / ALLmustBEcaughtUPinWORLDly /
WAYS_*.CHEMisTRYbet / WEEN.BOYSandGIRLS_ *isa /
LOT_like -whenweWENT totheWOODSand / LAID_WITHtheSQUIRrelsDURin' /
Pe*.WEbe*ex / PLORin'eachOTHers'PRIvates*. /
HUNCHin'withALLourCLOTHESon*un / TILweFELTexCITedTHEN_ /
AHHH_*.*.*oh / NOWit'sONfromHEREonOUT. /
PUTyo'HANDS intheATmosPHERE. / IFyouKNOWwhati'm TALKin'aBOUTnow /
IFtwoHEARTSdoneWALKonOUT andi / SEEyouONtheNEXTsong*they /
CALLitHORNybeCAUSEit'sDEVil / ISHnowSEEweDEAD.WRONG.


Big Boi (percussion-effusive) starts at 2:03:

*.*.*.PEOpledon't /
KNOWtheSTRESSi'mDEALin'withDAYto / DAY.*.SPEAKin'aBOUTthe /
FEELingsI'MposSESSingFORre / NEE.*.MOPin'aROUNDand /
WONDeringWHEREsheSTAY.SAWher / LAST.THATsheLAY. *GIVE itan /
OTHerDAYiSAY.* butthe / LORDheTAKethaWAYnowGIVEit /
BACKlawd*causeTHAT'SlikeBACKboards / -withOUTtheRIMS_ MEandmy /
AUNTiewasTIGHTlikeSOUTHwesssst-be / FOREthePINKSmovedIN.LIKEthe /
NIGgaswhoOWNEDtheLIQUourSTORES. / CRACKcoCAINE.PIMPSandWHORES. /
LIVin'upONthisEARTHbeFOREa / NIGgaLIKEdadDYwasBORNbut /
THEYbeMAKin'aSCENE.THATmy / MUSicand CRIMEareaTEAM. *buti'm /
SPEAKin'theTRUTHnotDREAMS. *.so / WHATintheFUCKtheyMEANmyLYRics /
AIN'Tclean

And then, by way of contrast:



Verse Three: RZA, a.k.a. Bobby Steels (speech-effusive) starts at 5:40:

*.*.SOlidGOLD_ /
CROWN_BEshin-in'ANDblind / -in'LIKEsomeDIAmondsIbe /
PINin'THEstyle-inTHEcloud / *withSILverLINingsDOUble /
BREASTed*.BULLET proof--vest / ED.WELLproTECTed*the /
HEARTtheRIB.CAGE.THEchest / -andSOLarPLEXusCASTin' /
STONES.*.CRACKin'TWOhun / DREDandSIXbones-andWATCHyo' /
ASS_GETblownINtoAsea / OFfire-andBRIMstone*. /
*howDARE youapPROACHitWITHdim / -pones-theOVerFIEND_ /
LIKE.NOahBEAN_GREEN / SOULS_WIT'aSOLDierMEAN. /
*theGRANDexQUISiteIMper / IAL wiz ARDOH isITtheRYza /
RECtorCOMEtoPAYyourASSa / VISit*.LOCalBIo /
CHEMical*.UNiVERSal / GIANT theBLACK_GENeralLICKin' /
SHOTSatDAvyCROCKett*. / ONtheBIcenTENniALhap /
PYmilLENniumTWOthou-sand / MICroCHIPS_TWO shotsofPENi /
CILlingoesUPyouraDRENalin*. / SONit'sTIMEforBOUTin'
It's a mileage resemblin niggaz who like followin
TRAPPEDinSIDEyourPROjectsLIKEa / GENieinSIDEtheBOTtleN'.

As I said, that RZA verse was way more difficult, and thus it's fairly impossible to read. My HOPE is that we'll somehow be able to detect the difference between "percussion-effusive" and "speech-effusive" just by looking at the flowtated lyrics--or at least that the flowtation will help differentiate in some way. Before we get to that, though, here's the reasons Krims gives for calling Outkast percussion-effusive and RZA speech-effusive (this is all from his invaluable book Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity):

1. Outkast are percussion-effusive because "the MC(s) rap rhythmic patterns that, if spoken American (including Ebonic) English is taken as 'natural,' could only be called, by contrast, 'stylized' or 'musical.'" (p.77)

2. Also true of Outkast: "The rhythms are rapid, often producing constant alterations between, on the one hand, groups of quick and even attacks, and on the other hand, slower and more differentiated rhythmic values..."
FOR EXAMPLE: "LAID_WITHtheSQUIRrelsDURin' /
Pe*.WEbe*ex / PLORin'eachOTHers'PRIvates*. /"

3. Outkast are from Atlanta, and, according to Krims, "certain over-the-top percussion-effusive styles could... be said to mark out an MC geographically, albeit negatively as "not-New York." (Not sure where he stands on Busta Rhymes, who's from NYC but to my ears is WAY percussion-effusive.) (Dude, I should TOTALLY do his verse from "Scenario" next!)

4. In re RZA's verse on "Wu-Gambinos": RZA "is capable of engaging in extreme speech-effusiveness with very little percussiveness... his delivery veritably overflows with complex polyrhythms, but in something approaching a monotone." (p.52)

5. On the difference between the two "effusive" styles, compared with the more old-school "sung" style (think Sugarhill, Beasties...): "there is... reason to associate the percussion-effusive with the sung style. The association would then pair off the more 'musical' (for current lack of a better term) manners of MCing against those closer to 'natural' speech." That is, RZA is closer to "natural" speech--his rhythms conform to his words.

Here are my preliminary insufficient findings, on how to distinguish styles of effusiveness by looking at the flowtated lyrics:

1. As Krims says, percussion-effusive lyrics will display more regular rhyme patterns, with fewer internal rhymes, than speech-effusive lyrics. Percussion-effusive lyrics are still more variable in their rhyme schemes than "sung" lyrics, but you can discern some regularity. See, for instance, Andre's "yo' blouse," "aroused," "brought up," "caught up," "girls," "squirrels." All those rhymes fall at roughly the same place in second bars, with almost no competing internal rhymes in the first bars. In contrast, RZA's verse starts off with some fairly regular second-bar rhymes, but in context they're barely distinguishable from all the surrounding internal rhymes and assonances. In the first two bars alone we have "shinin'," "blindin'," "like some," "diamonds," and "I be."

2. This is a little subjective, but it's much easier for me to recite the Outkast verses--in rhythm--from reading their flowtations, than it is to recite the RZA verse. At this point, I can't say if that's true of all speech-effusive lyrics or just this particular (insane) RZA lyric. But the percussion-effusive Outkast lyrics seem to settle in to easily-translatable musical patterns, whereas the RZA lines do NOT. Both verses feature sixteenth-beats and triplets, but maybe it's that RZA tends to have little regard for placing strong syllables on strong beats and weak syllables on weak beats. Other rappers play with syllabic placement, but they often do so for deliberate rhythmic effects that make sense MUSICALLY. RZA's verse, while awesome, makes less sense in conventional musical/rhythmic terms.

More to come, I'm sure--any input is welcome, as this is a work in progress.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Michael Penn doing "No Myth"

Well, I wasn't watching Arsenio, but you get the idea:



This song hit #13 in 1989, which makes me realize that 1989 was a different time, man. It's hard to envision a powerpop song with weird words and complex changes hitting that high today, or even getting any radio play outside Triple-A stations. Which is not to demean today's pop charts, because there's certainly plenty of great stuff and weird stuff that hits--it just doesn't sound anything like this. (Or like the Beatles, in other words.) I wonder when this sort of song was "phased off" the charts? (One thing in common with today, though: the drums on the single are entirely programmed!)

"No Myth" seems to be the definitive example of a debut song off a debut album that represents the peak of an artist's career. There were a couple other good songs on March, but otherwise it was all downhill from here for Mr. Penn! (It's a pretty high peak to start from, though.) The other definitive example might be Quarterflash's "Harden My Heart":



though other possibilities came up in this moderately fruitful ILM post.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Agalloch doing "Falling Snow"

Don't know if snow is falling where you are; even if it IS, I seriously doubt that the falling snow threatens to engulf your pitiful body like some incarnation of your wounded broken soul, the glacier that fills your heart come to "life," if you can even call this barren expanse through which we trudge "life." Me, I just heard it driving home from CPR training with a headache. (Outside the car was dying autumn, sure, but that's a long way from the desolate pix in some of these Youtube videos.) But it still sounded sad and glorious, and subtly changed the makeup of the atmosphere, as though the turning leaves had been waiting for this song to come along. Here it is, an epic beauty:

Best Thing I Heard Today: Yo La Tengo doing "Nothing To Hide"

The state of dadrock in '09! God bless WXRT.



And God bless Yo La Tengo, who could churn out stuff like this until record stores collapsed on their heads, and I wouldn't care. They've got their Clean Farfisa and their wispy vocals and, at 1:30 or so, a very Velvety guitar solo, and it sounds as good as anything. In the same way I could while away the day looking up indistinguishable '70s roots reggae on Youtube, I could completely neglect family and responsibility seeking out little three-minute YLT chugalugs.

That's, uh, not them in the video.

Surfing with Big Youth, Sam Bramwell, and Jacob "Killer" Miller

First up! Big Youth, from '74, thinking with some foreboding about his hair. The dreadlocked mane, you see, is a portent of FIRE:



Once again I lodge my complaint that you can't find lyrix for any of these roots tunes online. This one's a little easier to understand, though. After that awesome high "DREAAAAAAAAAD!!!", Mr. Youth sings about a "lion in the jungle, the concrete jungle," which is Rasta code for a dreadlocked fellow--whose hair makes him look like a LION--in Babylon, the "concrete jungle."

Except there's an interesting difference: lions live in the savannah, yes yes Dr. Science, but are commonly known as the "kings of the jungle." Presumably Mr. Youth is playing off that cliche rather than naturalistic fact when he sings about his "lion in the jungle." But if a lion is "king of the jungle," you'd think it'd feel comfortable in the jungle, part and parcel, like it BELONGS. The dreadlocked Rasta, on the other hand, does NOT feel part and parcel of the concrete jungle, Babylon. Instead, he wants to chant it down (and whatnot), and ride the Black Star Liner back to Ethiopia (or whatnot).

Perhaps Mr. Big peers more deeply into the leonine nature than I initially gave him credit for. Maybe he realizes the lion is a reluctant ruler, uncomfortable in his own domain, if not inside his own skin. When the Rasta cultivates his unwashed mane, is it with some reluctance? Does he take up this mantle of rebellion knowing that capitulation to Babylon would be easier? Is the Dread inna Babylon secretly tempted by a metrosexual Chandler Bing haircut, one that would enable him to land a sweet job in the advertising biz and a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in Kingston, rather than this heavy yoke of resistance? That's something to chew on, brother. (Aside from that gazelle you're working on...)

Along similar lines, here's Sam Bramwell from '79:



--and Jacob "Killer" Miller from Inner Circle, sometime in the '70s:



I and I wish you and you a rootsy Friday, and Jah go with you.

The Flowtation Device Presentz: Jay-Z's "99 Problems" (also Best Thing I Heard THIS DECADE) (Watch out for cussing and other offensives!)

Song of the decade? Ahhh, if we must. Somewhat surprising, then, that it wasn't a bigger hit: #30 on the Billboard Hot 100, #10 on Hot Rap Tracks, and only the third-biggest hit off The Black Album, behind "Dirt off Your Shoulder" (maybe understandable) and "Change Clothes" (really?). Indeed, I remember opening my ears wide whenever I listened to '04 radio, trying to catch a glimpse of Rick Rubin's massive beats or power chords. It was like seeking the attributes of some rare bird--a giant redheaded woodpecker, maybe, or a bluebird, amid countless robins and wrens. Amid the Hoobastank. (I remember Scott Seward complaining on ILX, in a now-unsearchable post, memorable for its pathos, that he kept hearing "The Reason" when all he wanted to hear was "99 Problems.") But whether because of its language or because the world wasn't ready, we didn't hear it nearly enough.

Jay-Z himself goes back and forth on the issue: "Got beef with radio; if I don't play they show, they don't play my hits--well I don't give a shit, so..." Which is it, Jay? Beef or not giving a shit? Can we safely say that this is the dialectic that defines the song? Do I even know what a dialectic is? Does that matter? (If a dialectic falls on ignorant ears, does it still exist?) "99 Problems" raises many questions, not least of which is: Is there really a Wilson Pickett sample in this song?



The songs credited for samples, presumably for the drum sounds, are Billy Squier's "The Big Beat" and Mountain's "Long Red," which have been used on 99% of rap songs in the world. (Not sure about the cowbell.) The title and lead couplet come from Ice T's slightly more--shall we say?--pedantic '93 non-hit "99 Problems":

*.*.*.IFyou / HAVin'GIRL_PROBlemsIfeel / BADforYOUson*iGOT_ /
NINEtyNINE_PROBlemsBUTa / BITCHain't-one*

At the beginning of Verse 3, Jay also quotes a Bun B verse:

*.*.*.*once / UPon-aTIME_NOTtoo / LONG_Ago*aNIGga /
LIKEmySELF.HADtoSTRONG_ / ARM_Ahoe*.THISis /
NOTaHOE_INtheSENSEof / HAVin'ApusSY.*but(a) /
PUSsyHAVin'noGODdam-sense / -.TRYan'PUSHme*. /

(FORMATTING NOTE: Since underlining appears to be impossible, I'm using unorthodox italics to indicate triplets, as above.)

You can read the title couplet a couple ways: Jay's got lots of problems, but his woman's not one of them (this was during the winky-winky period of his relationship with Beyonce); or, he can easily overcome those "bitches"--foes, critics, radio, magazines, cops, Bun B's "pussies havin' no goddam sense"--who are the cause of his problems. Hence the dialectic: Jay spends the entire song in an extended reverie of beef, but his swagger and humor are such that you never doubt he'll overcome. He ends Verse 2, for instance, in a state of uncertainty--he's got drugs in his trunk and the cop says, "We'll see how smart you are when the canines come." Eek! But we know he'll make it out of the situation, because it took place back in '94, and 10 years later he's a business, man. He's SuperJay! He doesn't have to give a shit, so...

Here's one of two great scenes in Jay's concert movie documentary Fade to Black (the other is when an prancing Timbaland plays beats for Jay, finally arriving at the one for "Dirt Off Your Shoulder"): Jay wants to reconnect with the Old School, so he goes to Rick Rubin's house, raps some Chuck D, says hi to a tickled Mike D (strange to think Jay looking up to the Beastie Boys, but there you go), and lays down "99 Problems." Check out the part 3 minutes in, where Jay imitates the cop's voice, working to perfect his comic pronunciation of "lawyer":



Jay's working method is reputedly this: he listens to the beat, goes off in a corner somewhere, and emerges with a fully-formed lyric that exists only inside his head. (And I'm happy when I can do the Jumble without a pencil!) I can't make too many claims, in part because this is the only Jay song I've looked at so far, in part because artistic intent is a mysterious nebulous cloud of pixie dust, but it seems like such a technique might make him more sensitive to how his lyrics interact with the beat. For instance?

For instance: if you go back to the song itself, at around 2:20 you'll hear just Rick Rubin's basic beat pattern, sans lyrics, guitar, or cowbell. Here's the flowtated beat pattern, without differentiation between the drum sounds (lines equal hits, dots and asterisks equal rests):

-.-_-.*. / *_-_-_-.

Notice that the second bar of the pattern has no downbeat. This drum pattern occurs throughout most of the song, with only a few bars of exception. Now, take a look at Jay's first four lines, flowtated:

*rap*paTROL_ONthe / GAT_PAtrol-.*foes /
-thatWANTtoMAKE.SUREmy / CAS_KET'Sclosed-.*rap /
*criTICSthatSAY_HE'Smon / EYcash-hoes*i'mFROMthe /
HOOD_STUpidWHATtype*of / FACTS_AREthose-.*if /

Notice that, in every second bar, Jay raps a syllable on the downbeat. In lines 1, 2, and 4, he even waits until beat 2 to hit his second syllable, leaving a small (eighth-rest) gap. The effect of this is that, in every second bar, the drum eighth-beats cascade out from Jay's initial syllable. This continues pretty much throughout the song, with only a couple exceptions. Go back and listen, it's beautiful.

Now, remember Rick Rubin's power chords! They hit on the downbeat of every other line (with, of course, some end-of-line pickups and more variation toward the song's end). See above, how Jay avoids rapping on the downbeat of lines 1 and 3? It's almost as though he's getting out of the way of those power chords! In fact, he does the same thing, with only one exception, for every power-chord downbeat in Verse 1. (Verses 2 and 3 are a different story, maybe to increase the excitement, the headlong rush to the end of the song?)

Somebody--Kyle? my wife?--is going to ask me whether I SERIOUSLY BELIEVE that Jay did this stuff intentionally. Well, who cares? I mean, I doubt he anally reasoned out where he was going to place every syllable, and maybe he wasn't aware of the effects he was creating in partnership with the beat. On the other hand, as he has warned me in song, I'd be a fool to underestimate the intelligence that Jay-Z has. He obviously possesses great sensitivity for what he's doing musically, whether intuitively or otherwise. He's a virtuoso.

That virtuosity is further on display in the way he commands some special effects. As I said before, this is the only Jay rap I've looked at closely, so I can't tell you offhand what Krimsian flow he normally uses. (Adam Krims's three flow styles, remember, are sung, speech-effusive, and percussion-effusive.) I suspect he's often speech-effusive because he's from New York and people say he's great, but that's all I got. This song, though, is mostly in the old-school "sung" style. It has regular rhymes on beat 2& or beat 3 of every second bar--same as the title couplet's "son" and "one"--and it doesn't stray too far from that. There aren't even many internal rhymes scattered about. The sung flow sounds--well, like singing, right? It fits a neat beat, it features regular rhymes, and it's not all that much like regular speech. When you appreciate a sung flow--and who hasn't?--I mean, think anyone on Sugarhill Records--you suspend your disbelief. But Jay's virtuosity allows him to break through that suspension in a couple interesting ways.

He uses triplets! The rap is overwhelmingly comprised of eighth-beats, so when Jay whips out the triplet, you know he means it. And basically, he means it to be funny. He's either expressing frustration:

(Verse 1) GOTbeef /
*withRAdiOifIdon't / PLAYthey-show*theyDON'T- /
PLAYmy-hits-.WELLidon't / GIVE(a)shit*so-.*. /

(Verse 3) THISis /
NOTaHOE_INtheSENSEof / HAVin'ApusSY.*but(a) /
PUSsyHAVin'noGODdam-sense / -.TRYan'PUSHme*. /

--or he's imitating spoken dialogue, as in Verse 2, the delicious encounter between him and the Richard Pryor-esque cop:

(Jay:) DOi /
LOOKlikeaMIND_REAderSIR. / Idon't-know*.

(the cop, who gets the best line in the song:) AREyou /
CAR'yin'aWEAponONyouiKNOWa / LOTofYOUare-.

Jay's other tactic to draw our attention from the regular beat is to employ an uninterrupted string of eighth beats. There are only three bars in the song that contain eight uninterrupted syllables. In context, here's Verse 1's, which occurs near the end of the verse, right before the title line (a climax point):

ORun /
DERstandTHEinTELLiGENCEthat / JAY-Zhas

Verse 2's represents some naturalistic dialogue, and also a moment of rhetorical triumph for our narrator:

ANDi /
KNOWmyRIGHTSsoYOUgon'NEEDa / WARrantFORthat*.

Verse 3's occurs right when the beat breaks down and somebody screams "Whooo!" It's exciting:

andONly /
THINGthat'sGONnaHAPpenISi / 'MAget-toCLAPpin'

Finally, that carefully worked-over "lawyer" line. It's the only point in the song where Jay deviates from his regular rhyme scheme, of rhyming on beat 2& or 3 of every second bar. Instead, we get this drawled exemplar of naturalisme:

AREN'T_YOU_SHARPasAtack / *.YOUsomeTYPE_OFlaw /
-y'orSOMEthin'SOMEbodYim / PORtantORsomeTHIN'

That's the line that made Mike D, and me, grin upon first hearing. Jay breaks free of the pattern we've come to expect, and for a moment it seems like there's nothing he can't do with a beat. So we grin at his virtuosity, we grin at his impression of a white cop, and we grin at the dialectic of Jay-Z brazenly asserting his rights to a racial profiler WHILE he's got raw in his trunk. He's got beef but he doesn't give a shit. And his performance on this song is a glimpse at how that kind of forceful insouciance--and his career since '94--might be possible.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Hole doing "Awful"

Even though her voice often resembles a vacuum cleaner, I could listen to Courtney Love sing pretty songs all day long. Here's one:



She sounds good on unpretty songs, too, but the contrast of her roar with pop chords is hard to resist. "Awful"'s album Celebrity Skin falls into the category of "Albums that are way better than I remember them." (It's been a pleasant surprise that there are more of those than I expected. I think my tastes have relaxed.) (I just got to the "H"s!)



Below is the same tune on Letterman, if you want to see them performing with a slight drop in sound quality:

Best Thing I Heard Today: the Stones doing "It's All Over Now"

You should never trust singers. Mick Jagger you can trust though, because he admits the girl made him cry. That's why he has now jettisoned all emotion, his voice turning as hard as his heart, or as hard as the guitar tone in the intro and outro.

First the 45, then live, for some Satanic dancing and tambourine playing:

Best Thing I Heard Today: Merle Haggard doing "Cherokee Maiden"

In lieu of the un-Youtubable Merle version, may I direct your attention to this also really-good version by George Strait, live in '99? Thank you.



"Cherokee Maiden," written by the freakishly prolific Cindy Walker, was a hit for Bob Wills and his Playboys in '41, and Merle took it to the top of the country charts 35 years later. (So what would that be like today on the pop charts? A disco or glam revival? Both are easily imaginable, and in fact may have already happened.) The words are cute, nostalgic, and not-at-all racist; the music's straight-up jazz, with a Bo-Diddley-beat for an intro, no doubt meant to recreate in exacting detail a native Cherokee tribal ceremony. No word on whether the maiden's parents approve of this courtship, or why the lovers had to part in the first place, but Merle seems nothing but respectful.

Merle's had a long and varied career, hitting #1 with songs from all sorts of country subgenres: electrified Bakersfield outlaw songs, slow honky-tonk waltzes, even some synthy pop-country things in the '80s. He's got one of my favorite voices, so rich and smooth I sometimes think he'd sound more natural doing the Great American Songbook in supper clubs than songs about prisons and outlaws. But whatever, he's created his own Great American Songbook with all the songs he's written and appropriated, and to my mind his golden voice sounds best singing Western Swing, as popularized by his idol, Bob Wills.

Here's the pinnacle of Merle's slavish Wills obsession, from 1970:



That album makes me as happy as anything. It does NOT, however, contain "Cherokee Maiden," which hit in '76, from this album:



What else can I link you to? Here's Asleep at the Wheel--the New Jack Western Swing revivalists?--doing "Cherokee Maiden" for their second Wills tribute in '99. This unembeddable song got 'em a Grammy for Best Country Song by a Duo or Group. Also pretty good--I think it's impossible to ruin this song--but it doesn't have Merle's voice. Here you go; here's the second best thing I heard today:

Best Thing I Read Recently: "Surfacing" by Margaret Atwood (and 2009's Summer of Discontent) (BEWARE: SPOILERZ!)

"When they say Freedom they never quite mean it, what they mean is freedom from interference." --from Surfacing, 1972, p.56 or so



That line really resonated when I read it during August of 2009. Fondly recall with me the Freedom Fighters of '09's Summer of Discontent--yelling about government takeovers of healthcare; carrying guns to town hall meetings just to demonstrate that they could; divining a creeping fascism in everything from the President addressing schoolchildren, to the government channeling money toward road construction projects. All these protests meant to combat government "interference" in people's everyday lives, I suppose; all of them evinced a pretty shallow understanding of Freedom.

I'm convinced the Freedom quote could serve as an epigraph for this entire mysterious book, Ms. Atwood's second novel, but of course it doesn't--it appears on p.56 or so, and "they" are specific libertarian Canadian settlers of ages past, the precursors to Atwood's unnamed narrator and her parents: godless pacifist survivalists who have disappeared from their daughter's life. When we meet our narrator, she's returning to the remote cabin of her childhood, hidden way out in the Quebec bush, to search for her father who's gone missing. You might say she's feeling ambivalent about "their" legacy.

Atwood's narrator implies, on p.56 or so, that capital-F "Freedom" encompasses more than simply the Libertarian "freedom from interference" sought by the survivalists of yore. My implication, from August '09, is that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in small-government ideas of freedom. You could argue, of course, that freedom from interference is a necessary precursor to capital-F Freedom--the freedom to do--what?? (In fact, you should argue it!-- because if the government's interfering in our lives by putting senior citizens to death and, I dunno, declaring war on Christmas or whatever other nefarious ways they encroach on our rights, then how can we envision the Freedom to do anything more? Right? If Grandma can't celebrate Christmas because she's visiting the Death Panel for "the holidays"?) But the two freedoms are certainly not the same thing, and I betchya any number of historical mystics and artists would tell you that Freedom is possible even in the presence of interference.

The Freedom to do what? Here's something closer to Freedom: after a week's stay in the family cabin, Atwood's Narrator abandons the three city slicker friends who've accompanied her. While her friends return to town, Narrator declares, "There are no longer any rational points of view," and slips into an extended forest reverie that comprises the last eighth of the book. During this period she summons and speaks with her dead parents, digs a burrow near the woodpile and sleeps inside it naked, and basically reverts to an animal-or-Nell-like state. Ms. Atwood gives her thoughts like these:

"I stay on the bank, resting, licking the scratches; no fur yet on my skin, it's too early."

"From the lake a fish jumps.
An idea of a fish jumps."

"I'm ice-clear, transparent, my bones and the child inside me showing through the green webs of my flesh, the ribs are shadows, the muscles jelly, the trees are like this too, they shimmer, their cores glow through the wood and bark."

"I lean against a tree, I am a tree leaning."

"I am not an animal or a tree, I am the thing in which the trees and animals move and grow, I am a place."

What I get from stuff like this, beyond the gnarled perfection of its construction, is Atwood celebrating her Freedom as a writer. We live in a world full of unpaid Web writing, where people who can publish whatever they want nevertheless often sound like they're churning out ad copy or auditioning for Entertainment Weekly--I do not exempt myself! With Internet Freedom ours for the taking, why do we not all make observations like "I am the thing in which the trees and animals move and grow, I am a place"? The last eighth of this book is WEIRD, punctuated but WEIRD, and we should seek observations like these, that defy normal linear thought, on a daily basis. They further life and are the antidote to endless healthcare debates.

Or abortion debates; this book is also about abortion, partly. (As if you needed more incentive!)

By celebrating Freedom, I'm not saying I necessarily want to read your "creative" and deeply-felt free verse online, especially if the words are grouped into weird shapes. Atwood, who realizes she can write whatever she wants, gets away with these flights because she also crafts such compelling sentences and articulates such an unforgettable vision. Likewise, Atwood's Narrator doesn't just meld her body to the woods on a whim. She's the only one of her friends who knows how to fish, navigate the forest, forage for food, etc. Her skill set gets her through; her craft enables her Freedom.

But even though her anti-rational Freedom depends on years of childhood nature education, it also flies in the face of much of her parents' belief system. They were rational atheists; Narrator consults the gods and her own spiritual power. She destroys much of what they'd left in the cabin, and burns pages from her father's beloved books. Likewise, this Freedom doesn't just fly in the face of the shadowy American imperialists who keep boating around the lake throughout Surfacing. The most villainous character is Narrator's friend David, a left-wing avant-garde filmmaker who keeps decrying "capitalist pigs" and spouting meaningless nonsense, until we finally witness his casual emotional brutality. Narrator even considers them kindred spirits for a while, until she rejects him, as she must reject all rational points of view.

And so what's she left with? The trees, for one thing. Last sentence: "The lake is quiet, the trees surround me, asking and giving nothing." Open to almost any random page and you'll fall into a nature poem. I'll demonstrate:

p. 85--"We wavered around the stone point where the trail goes; then we were in the archipelago of islands, tips of sunken hills, once possibly a single ridge before the lake was flooded."

p. 141--"The shape of a heron flying above us the first evening we fished, legs and neck stretched, wings outspread, a blue-gray cross, and the other heron or was it the same one, hanging wrecked from the tree."

p. 29--"The lake jiggles against the shore, the waves subside, nothing remains but a faint iridescent film of gasoline, purple and pink and green."

I could keep going! But you get the idea. The entire book is suffused with the sights and smells of the woods, and it captures all the skanky itchiness, the death and decay and human stains on the water, along with the more typical pastoral beauty.

And finally, our Narrator is also left with a choice: return to civilization or stay with the trees? Hard to say what she'll choose, but she seems to realize that the Freedom she's tasted isn't an either-or proposition. As with God, it's easier to say what Freedom isn't than what it is. You could even make the case that, if you're able to pin it down with words, it's not the real thing. Rational points of view have their place, whether in political debate or scientific exploration or arts criticism. But if we confuse them with the ultimate, the thing itself, the capitalized words, we do so at our peril.

Best Thing I Heard Today: Glenn Gould playing Goldberg Variations 15-19

....ALTHOUGH, I don't care so much for this version of #15 (it lasts the first five minutes of the Youtube below)--too austere for my romantic softhead, plus it has some incongruous staccato phrasing at about 2:00. That said, I may play it for Good Friday next year, as Gould suggests in the very entertaining, and completely staged, interview found here:



If you're approaching this without liner notes, the austere #15 is a reverse canon at the fifth, #16 is the "French Overture," #17 is a goofy little virtuosic thing that makes you cross your hands, #18 is the amazing canon at the sixth (one of two that I have actually played for church), and #19 sounds doable, hmmm... If you're listening for the canons, they occur in the right hand while the left hand accompanies. I recommend you buy the score, it could keep you occupied for the rest of your life if you let it. Anyhow, listen away:



And here's part of the aforementioned "interview", completely scripted by Gould, with writer Tim Page, that explains how he linked and chopped up the rhythmic pulses that run through #16, 17, and 18. It's fascinating, the amount of thought that must go into performing this music! Not to mention writing it--J.S. Bach is, for me, the most humbling composer of all time.

The Flowtation Device Presentz: Mos Def's "Quiet Dog (Bite Hard)"

Mr. Def! I hate this game, sir--
This game makes my tongue quite lame, sir!



Mos Def's "Quiet Dog", from his latest LP The Ecstatic, is first and foremost the party-starter of the year--but SECOND and not quite to the fore, it's a total old-skool throwback. I say this not just because Mr. Def quotes two lines from the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," thow that's the obvious giveaway, but also because his entire rap springs from those lines like water from Moses's stones. Like a good old-skoolchild, he doesn't cuss. But the real fingerprints are rhythmic:



Mr. Def opens with a variation on the "up jumps the boogie" chant and closes with an extrapolation of the line "ya don't stop the rock." Their rhythmic characteristics are similar, so we'll focus on the first. (Incidentally, for some family fun, if you rap "Quiet Dog" over the Chic bassline from "Rapper's Delight," it fits.) Here's Sugarhill's "up jumps the boogie" line, flowtated:

BANG.BANG.BOOgieSAIDup / *jump*thaBOOgieTOthe / RHYthmOFtheBOOgieTHEbeat / -

And here's Mr. Def's virtually identical take on same:

BANG_TOtheBOOgieSAYup / *jump*theBOOgieTOthe / RHYthmOFtheBOOgieTObe / -

This line has a couple noteworthy characteristics, which Mr. Def will fully exploit during the course of his "boogie to be."

First! Notice in the first two measures how we contrast strong unsyncopated syllables occurring ON THE BEAT with strong syncopated syllables occurring off the beat. That is, Sugarhill's "BANG.BANG.BOOgie" and Def's "BANG_TOtheBOOgie" contrast with the second bar's "up / *jump*thaBOOgie". This contrast forms the basis of Def's first flow pattern, which he uses for all of verse 1 and for a couple lines near the beginning of verse 2, only transposed to the second halves of the bars:

SIM_PLEthePLAIN_NESS_ / PROmiNENTbas-ic-zu /
-lu-arRANGE_MENT_ / ROCKin'Amaze-ment-fly /

So "PLAIN_NESS_" and "RANGE_MENT_" are on the beat ("BANG.BANG."), while their rhymes "bas-ic-" and "maze-ment-" are off the beat ("up*jump*"). I should note that the horizontal lines (_ and -) in Def's rap simply indicate that he's flowing more legato than the staccato Sugarhills, whose breaks are indicated by dots (. and *). I should also note that, for purposes of comparison, if you offset Mr. Def's barlines half a measure, you'll see that his unsyncopated/syncopated flow pattern corresponds neatly to the germinal "up jump the boogie" line:

PLAIN_NESS_PROmiNENTbas / -ic-zu
RANGE_MENT_ROCKin'Amaze / -ment-fly
corresponds to
BANG_TOtheBOOgieSAYup / *jump*the

Second! The characteristic syncopation of Sugarhill's "tha / BOOgieTOtheRHYthmOFthe / BOOgieTHEbeat-" is caused by a run of syllables ending on an offbeat, which imbues the final offbeat with an unusual implicit stress. See, for example, "Quiet Dog"'s first verse, the first four lines, second half of each line:

PROmiNENTbas-
ROCKin'Amaze-
HEAvenTOpave-
NOthin'TOplay-

As Mr. Def proceeds, we get longer syllabic runs, most of which end on offbeats, culminating at the end of verse 1 with my favorite (I keep reciting it around Zack, he keeps yelling at me):

*laDIESandGENTleMEN_ / MIStasANDmisTRESes-. /
COUSinsOTHerANToANDsyn / Onyms-

This passage combines the two key rhythmic characteristics. "GENTleMEN_ / MIStasANDmisTRESes-" is our "BANG.BANG.BOOgie" line, contrasting rhyming ONBEAT and offbeat syllables. "COUSinsOTHerANToANDsyn / Onyms-" is our "RHYthmOFtheBOOgieTObe" line, ending a run of syllables on an offbeat. Whoa, now! That's just Mos Def testing your equilibrium!

In verse 2, Mr. Def introduces a new four-bar flow pattern with the lines:

DUDES_AIN'T_THROWin'THEYyawn / -in'*theyNEEDtoGEToff
-it-soWACK.RAPis / ALLyouCANcall-it*there /

He rhymes "yawnin'" (end of beat 4 in bar 1) and "off it" (end of beat 4 in bar 2), and then postpones the next rhyme, "call it," by two beats, so it's at the end of beat 2 in the fourth bar. Since all three rhymes occur on offbeats, we're into different flow territory than before, when he was contrasting rhyming ONBEATS and offbeats.

He's still playing with ONBEATS and offbeats, though, just unrhymed ones. Dig the configuration. You could theoretically replace the above two lines ("dudes ain't throwin'" etc...) with this:

BANG_TOtheBOOgieSAYup / *jump*theBOOgieSAYup /
*jump*theBANG_TOthe / BOOgieSAYup*jump*. /

So the rhymes, in the position of "up*jump", fall after four beats, after three beats, and after five beats--and you can feel the extra length in each ultimate rhymed line. This allows Mr. Def to play with longer syllabic runs as he closes out his four-bar patterns (ENgineLIKEi / ROLLoutTHEsta-tion). I don't know my poetics, but there's probably some technical term for this kind of tension-building rhythmic pattern.

I situate this song in the old-skool because of Def's "sung" flow. Sung style, according to rap theorist Adam Krims, exhibits "rhythmic repetition, on-beat accents, regular on-beat pauses, and strict couplet groupings." Krims's book, Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity, is likely to be useful to The Flowtation Device at some point. His other flow types are "speech-effusive," typified by Wu-Tang, and "percussion-effusive," typified by Outkast--but all we need to know here is that the "sung" stuff is old-skool. Of course, the fact that Def is quoting and building on Sugarhill rhymes kind of makes that point painfully obvious. It'll be interesting to see what a percussion-effusive (I think) rapper like Busta Rhymes does when HE interpolates a Sugarhill song, as in "Woo-Hah!! Got You All In Check".

Until then, dig this song like there's no tomorrow, because it is beautiful!

YOU WILL DANCE NOW: Taylor Dayne and the Art of the Imperative

On her first album, Tell It To My Heart, Taylor Dayne was blunt and demanding. She titled three of her four top 10 hits imperative sentences. The popularity of "Prove Your Love":



"Don't Rush Me":



and the title song:



--may demonstrate that, in the year of wimpy Bush vs. soft Dukakis, there was a hunger for direct imperative stuff--especially since 1988 also saw Chicago's "Look Away," Steve Winwood's "Roll With It," and Billy Ocean's lascivious "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car." Either that, or the Imperative was simply Taylor's strongest mode.

As Imperative Hits go, hers are unequivocal. Really, the list of artists who've hit so early in their careers with three Imperatives is shorter than Gillette's ex-boyfriend. Consider Taylor Dayne's Imperative Peers:

The Beatles demand, unequivocally, that we (or "baby") "Twist and Shout," but only after they've politely requested "Love Me, Do," and "Please Please Me." Such nice boys!

Sad-eyed Bobby Vee begs "Take Good Care of My Baby," "Run To Him," and most pathetically, "Please Don't Ask About Barbara," who's no doubt being "taken care of" by someone else. Even the promising "Punish Her," which initially conjures images of Barbara being subjected to some creepy S&M scenarios in the Vee dungeon, cops out by encouraging only that we "kill her with kindness" and "punish her with so much affection that she will cry for the love she threw away." I'd surmise that even a small amount of Vee's affection would resemble punishment.

Dionne Warwick resides a little closer to Taylor's territory. "Don't Make Me Over" is a "Tell It To My Heart" for the early '60s, sung by a woman confidently arguing with the lover who'd change her identity. Sure it's wispy and she's at his command, but she likes who she is. "Walk On By" is heartbroken but resolute. "Reach Out For Me," though, regresses to nursemaidery.

So it's our melancholy Dayne who pulls off the unprecedented feat of three Imperative Hits, early in her career, that do not mince words. Which isn't to say that they're consistent with one another, because "Don't Rush Me" works a wary counterpoint with the other two. Imagine a courtroom trial, albeit one that completely disregards normal legal procedure. Taylor opens her case--True Love vs. Wary Cad--with "Tell It To My Heart," only to have her lover counter-argue "Don't Rush Me" two songs later. But two songs after that, Taylor rebuts with "Prove Your Love," with which she presumably wins the argument, because all of a sudden we're off to side 2 for some top-notch filler.

Taylor Dayne had little to do with the Latin freestyle scene, but freestyle's sonic fingerprints are all over these three songs. The three Imperatives, especially "Tell" and "Prove," boast jagged synths that swirl around the melodies, bright synths that outline the melodic contours, and tinkly synths that highlight the melodic highlights. The beats drive and the keys are minor. None of this would sound out of place on an album by Expose or Pajama Party, and though Taylor doesn't touch Hispanic rhythmic elements in any of her songs, there are plenty of complex polyrhythms. If further evidence is needed, she still gets love on freestyle message boards.

This album was the first high-profile production job for Ric Wake, who also didn't have anything to do with freestyle but knew that its sound would sell Taylor's commanding persona. Taylor and Ric would jettison many of the freestyle elements on Taylor's big-league Diane-Warren-laced followup album, Can't Fight Fate. Indeed, '87 to '90 were freestyle's peak in the mainstream spotlight before it descended again to its vibrant underground, with the guys from Linear in hot pursuit. Ric would go on to immense mainstream success with Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, and the Chicago soundtrack, not to mention Kathy Troccoli (whose "Everything Changes" sounds a lot like Taylor). None of them have anything to do with freestyle.

Neither does most Tell It To My Heart's side 2, on which Taylor's powerful voice tackles a cover of Honey Cone's "Want Ads," the girl-groupy "Where Does That Boy Hang Out," and something approaching a Celtic folk ballad, "Upon the Journey's End." There's also an ethereal Kate Bush-sounding thing called "Carry Your Heart," which is lyrically your typical "I'll be there for you" song, but musically pretty spacey for a dance album. This isn't the stuff you pay to hear, but as far as filler goes, it's fun and varied. And it all beats the non-Imperative ballad off side 1, "I'll Always Love You":



--which was somehow the second biggest hit from the album.

Taylor Dayne's voice is, of course, a volcanic force, reminiscent of Tina Turner's, with a hard edge and some weirdly-shaped vowels that she enjoys exploiting. Wise move, then, to pair it with some searing freestyle songs. Tell It To My Heart is the album that introduces Taylor as a singer who knows exactly what she wants, at least during the span of a song, and will settle for nothing less. As we'll see if I'm not lazy, her followup album is both more resigned and more powerful, as she settles into the role of divine diva-goddess and marshals her power accordingly.

The Flowtation Device presents: Eminem's "Lose Yourself" verse 3 (EXPLICIT LYRIX)

In case you haven't been sufficiently encouraged to lose yourself, here's the final clarion call, the piece de resistance, the part that demonstrates not just Eminem's facility with the words, but his ability to shape those words into forms and structures. There are four distinct areas in this verse, each with its own rhythm and rhyme scheme. I've colored them differently, and I hope to high heaven they show up when I post this.

A couple random items. In his review of the Marshall Mathers LP (which does NOT contain "Lose Yourself"), Toure said Eminem "is, simply, better than any other MC in hip-hop except for Jay-Z." (What makes Jay-Z better I'm not sure--listening with Zeegy in the car today (WHICH I REALLY NEED TO STOP DOING), I determined that Jay's flow is not as anally structured as Em's, which may be why I've never liked him as much. However, Jay seems to rap around the beat more, which I would theoretically prefer. I really can't wait to analyze "99 Problems," among others.) Toure also liked that Eminem "rarely uses the same rhyme pattern twice." My analysis is not yet extensive enough to corroborate this claim, but four different patterns in one verse is pretty good, I'd say. (But then, listening to Jay-Z, I'm not sure how long he sticks with a pattern. Sometimes it seems like he changes every couple lines, which I'm not sure is a good or a bad thing.)

Also, in the purple stretch, note how the line about "goddam food stamps" offsets the "NINEto"/"TYPEof"/"DIApers" scheme by a bar. Nice! Also, in the penultimate bar check how "THEonLYopPORtuNIty" flip-flops the stresses, so that weak syllables land on the beat and strong syllables off the beat. Very Alanisian, and makes my head spin. (Adds to the urgency of the sentiment? Sure.) (He may have done that in verse one, too.) And--you can smack me if you want--at roughly the Golden Mean we encounter the longest run of uninterrupted eighth-note syllables: "aFAther / ANDaPRIMaDONnaBAby / MOMmaDRAmaSCREAmin'ONher / TOOmuch". Not sure that's the climax message-wise, but formally? Nice!

As a reminder, THE KEY:

CAPS = syllable on beat

small = syllable on offbeat

* = beat without syllable

. = offbeat without syllable

/ = barline separating groupings of (usually) four beats

-- = beat bearing second half of "carryover" syllable (syllable with duration of more than one half beat)

_ = offbeat bearing second half of "carryover" syllable (I'm finding this hard to put into words) (just look at the example)

STRESS or stress = syllable with unusual vocal stress (I still haven't gotten the hang of deploying these consistently)

(parenthetical) = syllable with duration of less than one-half beat; pickup syllable

To experience the system in all its glory, you should play the third verse of Eminem's "Lose Yourself"--starting at 3:08--while reading the lyrics as notated below.

* . * . * . NOmore / --games--i'm(a)CHANGE_ * what / YOUcall--rage-- . TEARthis /

MOTHerFUCKin'ROOFoff--like / TWOdogs--caged-- . Iwas /

PLAYin'INtheBEginNING_(the) / MOODall--changed-- . I'VEbeen /

CHEWEDup--andSPITout--and / BOOEDoff--stage-- . BUTi /

KEPT--RHYmin'ANDstepped--right / --in(the)NEXT_CYpher * . /

BESTbeLIEVE_SOMEboDY'Spay / IN'thePIED_PIper * . /

ALLthePAIN_INside--amp / --liFIED_BYthe * . /

FACTthatI_CAN'Tget--by / --withMY_NINEto * five /

--andI_CAN'Tpro--vide / --theRIGHT_TYPEof-- . /

LIFEforMY_FAM'lyCAUSEman / --theseGOD_DAM_FOODstamps /

--don'tBUY_DIApers--and / --there'sNO_MOVieTHERE'Sno /

--mekHI_PHIfer-- . / THISisMY_LIFEandTHESEtimes /

--areSO_HARD_ * and(it's) / GETtin'EVenHARDerTRY'N'to /

FEEDandWAterMYseed--plus / * . TEEterTOTterCAUGHTup /

BEtween--bein'--aFAther / ANDaPRIMaDONnaBAby /

MOMmaDRAmaSCREAmin'ONher / TOOmuch * forMEtoWANna /

STAYinONEspot * anOTHer / DAYofMONot * on(y's)GOTten /

ME . TOthePOINTi'mLIKEa / SNAilI'VEgot * toFORmu /

LATEaPLOT_ORendUPin / JAilORshot * sucCESS_ /

ISmyONlyMOTHerFUCKin' / OP_TION_FAilURE'Snot /

* . MOMiLOVEyouBUTthis / TRAI_LER'Sgot * toGO_ /

IcanNOT_GROWold--in / SA_LEM'Slot * soHEREi /

GOit'sMYshot * . FEET_ / FAIL_MEnot * thisMAYbe /

THEonLYopPORtuNIty / --that(i)GOT

Surfing with the Transplants

I have no idea what "California Babylon" has to do with the movie Domino, but I love how the opening drumroll sounds like a Motown song, and how the piano in the background sounds like "Rock the Casbah":



The Transplants are Tim from Rancid, Travis from Blink, and a punk rapper, Ron Aston, who's not bad. (Tim may be the worst singer in the world, and any increased Tim-focus on a Rancid album, as opposed to gang shouts or wicked bass playing or a cavalcade of great songs, really bums me out. But you should definitely listen to Out Come the Wolves and the 2000 Rancid before you die, cos they've got all that good stuff.) Here they sort of bridge the gap between Babylon-as-corrupt-system, as expounded by the Rastas who show up in Verse 1, and Babylon-as-decadent-civilization, represented by the violence in Verse 2 and the drug-addicted transplant girl in Verse 3.

Since these guys are punks, they know something about reggae, so they identify the origins of their "California Babylon" with the rastas:

"Union boy standing next to the rastas
There's gonna be a strike and you ain't gonna stop us."

In verse 1, Babylon is the system that supports oppressive employers and low wages and necessitates unions. But in verse 2, which is probably sheer reportage and not advocacy, Ron observes the thinness of the line between violent thugs and those who resist the powers of Babylon. And then in verse 3, "California Babylon" turns into a cautionary tale, in the tradition of MC Hammer's "Crime Story" and Marky Mark's "Wildside." Let's call it a "Little Tiffany, Only 13" song. In this one little Tiffany, only 17, moves to the city, the place of big dreams, and does a lot of drugs. Three different verses, a different situation in each verse, but all somehow representative of "Babylon."

The Transplants seem to imply a link between the system that keeps the workers down, the system that encourages street violence, and the system that makes impressionable girls think they can become stars by engaging in the most decadent trappings of the star life. No doubt they're on to something, but they leave it to us to connect the dots.

Very well. The union boys and the Rastas, the coalition of organized labor, are striking against their unjust employer, whoever that may be--Borders? the Congress Hotel? You name it. Maybe Dennis Kucinich shows up to throw in his support. We dunno. But because of their already sub-living-wages, and because now they're striking and not making any money and there's "no sign of hope", AND because it's a freakin' Rastafarian sacrament, the union boys and the Rastas start to sling dope (verse 2). But they do not achieve a mellow high. Rather, they hit police with crowbars.

Apparently the police are unable to detain these unionized faithful, who strike by day and establish an entrepreneurial drug biz by night. The drug slangers incorporate the "glamor" of "Hollywood" into their sales pitch, and successfully hook a nubile midwestern transplant (like Donna Summer or Axl Rose in the "On the Run" chapter of Chuck Eddy's Accidental Evolution of Rock 'n' Roll--look it up!). But it was the substandard wages of Babylon System that forced our organized trapstars into the seedy underbelly of society. It was Babylon System's false promise of glamor that hooked our nubile midwestern transplant, made her want to be a star, and led her into the underbelly. AND it's the Babylon System that hypocritically moralizes against and prosecutes those ensnared in the underbelly. Babylon's all, "Accept our substandard wages and conform to our image of what's beautiful and successful, or we'll arrest your ass--if you're lucky!"

The Transplants are unmoved and unsurprised. "Don't say that you don't understand. Don't say that you can't comprehend. This is California Babylon, my man." This is simply how it works.



Waitress out dressed like nurses in bondage
Brought me the check, said I want you to sign this
Union boy standing next to the rastas
Theres gonna be a strike and you aint gonna stop us
Three men standing and they love what they do
You wont see it coming, cause they wanna surprise you
Consider it done, theyre gonna stand right by you
American punks dont care about you
Hollywood what you gonna do? [x2]

Dont say that you dont understand
Dont say that you cant comprehend
Dont say that you dont understand, this is california babylon, my man

You can take away the nights with sights with bright lights
Seeks still ride, engage in street fights
Two to the head, pull around, hes dead
Suspect fled, caught up with bloodshed
No sign of hope, we fight and sling dope
Junkies to our left, no fix, they cant cope
Violence wont cease, hand me the crow piece
No peace or sleep, we fight with police

This is the city thatll make all your dreams come true
So pay attention

[chorus]

At last she had arrived, we turned in exhausted
Cocaine in her pocket, she can get busted
Once again she passes, now shes gone
Now shes with her friend, her beautiful young
She showed up on the scene, she was 17
Now shes 21, she does some more coke, she does some more coke
She drinks some whiskey and she smokes some dope
She thinks shes a star [x4]
Do you know who you are? [x4]

lyrics copyright 2002 by Armstrong/Aston, posted for educational purposes only

Surfing with Aphrodite's Child

OH MAN, if you thought January Tyme were hip...



666 is the most notable album by Aphrodite's Child, and it's a concept album based on the book of Revelation, not unlike the album W.A.S.P. will unveil this fall:



Oh that's right! They're a WHOLE other story.

Aphrodite's Child were an early-'70s Greek prog band, notable for showcasing some early work by Vangelis, who'd later secure his retirement with the Chariots of Fire and other soundtrax. But here he's just rocking like a mother. The St. Louis Real Rock station, KSHE, still plays "Loud Loud Loud" into "Four Horsemen" off this album, and not always during designated deep cutz hours, so you KNOW it drops bombs.

Here, lead singer Demis Roussos is singing like an angel. Specifically, he's embodying the angel in Revelation 18, who utters the famous and mighty shout, "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!" The rest of AC's lyrics, pasted at bottom, take some fairly large liberties with the rest of the Biblical text. That is to say, the wander rather far afield from John the Revelator's original words. Which is to say, they're pretty much totally made up. But that's OK. For our purposes, made-up Babylon words are more interesting.

That leaves us with a couple things to consider. First, where'z Babylon? Biblical scholars take different views, big surprise, but the consensus mainly boils down to a two-step interpretation:

1. Babylon is a symbol of civilization opposed to God's people; and
2. At the time of John's revelation, the biggest enemy to God's people was Rome, i.e. the Roman Empire.

Note that point 2 is a corollary of point 1. Which means that it's a mistake to characterize Babylon as Rome in every time and place. Since the fall of the Roman Empire in the 400s, the people who define John's Babylon as Rome typically mean the Roman Catholic Church, and thus denigrate Catholics with the book of Revelation as their scriptural "evidence." No no no. Point 1 is the key--John's Babylon the Great is a more general symbol, of those forces which oppose God's people and, in true apocalyptic fashion, will be obliterated by the Kingdom of God.

Equally problematic are those scriptural interpreters who wayyyy over-literalize John's Babylon as, you know, BABYLON, or Iraq. This leads to the problematic interpretations that our invasion of Iraq is either hastening the Kingdom of God, by leading to Babylon's fall; or postponing the Kingdom of God, by securing Babylon so it doesn't fall; or exempting Americans from the Kingdom of God, because we're occupying and thus identifying ourselves with Babylon. No no no. Our invasion of Iraq has to do with our oil interests and some misplaced naivete about democracy. It only relates to Babylon inasmuch as "Babylon" can be seen to symbolize "Empire," and inasmuch as our invasion of Iraq was an imperial move. The second inasmuch is debatable, the first not so much, but John's Babylon the Great is not modern-day Iraq and has nothing to do with specific Gulf Wars.

Of course, even if you only accept point 1, that John's Babylon is a general symbol of opposition to God's people, you could still create plenty more problems for yourself and the world, because God's people can be whoever you want them to be, and thus their opponents can be whoever you're pissed off at. I wrote elsewhere that John's "Whore of Babylon" symbol has been variously decoded as Islam, Satanism, Jerusalem, the Soviet Union, the United States, the Statue of Liberty, anyone who's not a Jehovah's Witness, and both Barack Obama and John McCain. No no no. Well, maybe. As much as I hate the concepts of "paying your dues" and "earning the right" to do something--because such concepts would probably prevent me from writing about any of this stuff--you've got to pay your dues to Biblical scholarship before you can earn the right to just go around calling people "Babylon." Otherwise you're not a prophet, you just have bad manners.

For instance, the book of Revelation didn't just fall out of God's brain (or whatever God thinks with) into John's pen (or whatever John wrote with). John's Revelation is the culmination of the turn-of-millennium apocalyptic genre, the other most well-known example of which is the Old Testament book of Daniel, which also traffics in Babylon symbolism. Apocalyptic was a genre just like the Western is a genre. In each Apocalyptic work, there are certain things you can count on, and certain unique details that set the work apart and emphasize the expected elements. The Apocalyptic version of the Western's "high noon showdown" might be the Kingdom of God's complete obliteration of God's enemies, which tend to be oppressive regimes characterized as whores or beasts or other monstrosities. The unique element in John's apocalypse, and the element that makes it the culmination of the genre, is Jesus. This is what makes it so meaningful to Christians, and what makes it a book of hope, despite all the nasty stuff that goes down. But that doesn't change the fact that John was essentially writing genre fiction.

Why should any of this concern our study of Babylon songs? Excellent question! I think I'm basically saying that Babylon the Biblical symbol has the same generally applied meaning as Babylon the pop music symbol, and that you literalize the symbol, or even narrow its meaning--"Babylon = Rome"-- at your peril. On the other hand, we go to religious literature for truth. We go to pop music for truth sometimes, but sometimes we go for other things--laughs, titillation, a break from boredom. And what could be less boring than, say, a man named Dirt guest-rapping on a POD song and literalizing Babylon to demonstrate that America invaded Iraq by divine mandate? The peril is not the same for musicians, because the job description isn't the same. Nobody with political clout is going to Dirt for military advice, but I fear they sometimes consult John's Revelation, without knowing how to read it.

Lord, I was born a rambling man. The OTHER thing to consider, besides "where'z Babylon", is what Aphrodite's Child do with it. They basically turn it into a sex anthem. (Bear in mind I read EVERYTHING as a sex anthem.) "We don't know the reason [the world's ending], but I need you madly [and I don't want to die a virgin] and you need me too and we need each other..." Hold up there, hairy Greek man! You ever consider that there's no place for fornicators in the Kingdom? Oh, you have? Just wanted to make sure, scumbag!

No no no, I'm sure they need each other because they're part of the church and we're all the body of Christ and they recognize their inter(co?)dependency in this time of earthly apocalyptic turmoil. That's my generous out-of-context reading. I so need to get this album. And the forthcoming W.A.S.P. (So nice we got to show it twice!)



Fallen fallen fallen
is Babylon the great!
Space is getting bounded,
time is getting late!

Masters fall and wonder,
people rise and wait
Fallen fallen fallen
is Babylon the great!

You don't need a coin,
I don't have to shine
We don't know the reason

But I need you madly
and you need me too
and we need each other...
and we need each other...
and we need each other..

Surfing With David Gray

I trust you've heard this one. What I DON'T trust is you telling me, "Oh yeah, dude, I know exactly what this song's about," because you don't. No one does. It belongs to the world of myth, and we can't fully understand, at least not in ways expressible in words that are not the words of the song. Probably not even Mr. Gray, if asked on an edition of VH1 Storytellers to explain his song, could explain his song, but that's what he gets for grappling with myth.

If it weren't played on Hot AC radio formats, or if I weren't so prejudiced against same, I'd call it "visionary" or something. I do love Mr. Gray's visions of changing colors and the chemicals rushing through his bloodstream. Often when I get up in the morning, I feel that chemicals are rushing through my bloodstream and the ghosts of electricity are howling in the bones of my face. This is before I drink my coffee, so I don't think the chemicals in Davey's blood have anything to do with "drugs" or "meth" or anything seedy like that.

Though maybe... in verse 1 he's watching late night TV and thinking of HER; verse 2 he's "running wild" on "reds" (not unlike Faster Pussycat--hmmm...) and thinking of HER; verse 3 he's finally detoxed, strolling through nature, and he gets home and SHE appears ("I turn around to see you smiling there in front of me").

But is it really HER? I don't think so. He's just hallucinating HER, because the pleading refrain is the same both times, before SHE appears and after "SHE" appears, and it doesn't seem recontextualized at all, the way final refrains are often recontextualized in country songs--so if the smiling person in front of Mr. Gray really is HER, it's not that great a final refrain.

Maybe what's preventing her from loving him is some excess of caution, and he wants her to let go, to embrace her inner Babylon by just ignoring all the superego crap that gets in the way of their love. "Let go your heart! Let go your head! And FEEL it now!" Because really--he's a doled-out British singer-songwriter recording albums in his bedroom, probably got bad teeth--what's she doing with him? And he doesn't give himself much credit for his behavior in the relationship. He's a fool, he made bad mistakes, he's afraid to own up, but why can't she just LOVE HIM? Get rid of your puritanical Judeo-Christian hangups and get all Babylon with me, baby!

At least, that's how I hear it. I don't think he lives in Babylon, either literally or figuratively. Babylon isn't the place where the lights change colors. Even in the hustle of verse 2, with its running, changing, pushing, rushing, there's a kind of stasis--we're seeing the activity from within the stillness of his head. It's like one of those time-lapse photos where the car headlights and taillights are smeared into blurry lines.

Rather, Babylon is where he wants to be, and where he wants HER to want to be, and he holds out Babylon as an incantation--"Look, this is where you could be. Let go." Babylon is the culmination of every verse and refrain, and should be the culmination of his life with HER. Is it the antithesis of his everyday "correct, better, or Right civilization" (our working definition of Babylon)? He certainly offers no other explanation for his use of the word. It's more like he's trying in vain to explain to HER why they should get back together, and in desperation he reaches into the pop/rock canon and pulls out the word that most closely resembles his feelings about what's gone wrong and why, and about how the situation could turn around--and he throws the word at her and us. It's lyrical shorthand borne of helplessness. He can think of no rational reason, or even emotional reason ("let go your heart"), for them to be together, but nonetheless their togetherness must be--and so, in a flash, Faster Pussycat and the Dolls and Boney M and Garveyism and hopefully-not-Steely-Dan-but-maybe-even-they flash through his mind and he spits out the only word that will stand a chance of making her appear on the stairs:

"Babylon!"

And he hopes she understands.