Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, personal news, self-promotion, and so on.
For myself, let me put a random question here. Best rhyme you have heard, in a song lyric or poetry. Give me the pair of lines of whatever.
My entry: Biggie Smalls has a song where he is listing off all the fancy things he can get with his money, all the fancy food he can eat. The list ends with "escargot" and then he continues with "my car go swiftly, hundred and fifty." Also Jay-Z has a song where he rhymes "audience" with "nonchalance," which should not be possible, but is, apparently. I thought of this last night listening to a song by the Weakerthans with the lines "thank you for the flowers and the book by Derrida, but I have to be getting back to dear Antarctica." (my menory of that line might not be exact).
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In "Business," Eminem found a sneaky away around the impossible: rhyming with orange
-Set to blow doors off the hinges
-Oranges
-Peaches, pears, plums, syringes
-Yeah here I come I'm inches
-Away from you...
(and so on and so on)
Of course the entire song "Lose Yourself" could be used as a great example, but that's almost too easy, and the oranges thing amused the heck out of me when I first heard it.
I don't think Fiona Apple gets enough credit for wordplay and rhyming. I especially like the first verse of "Not About Love":
-The early cars
-Already are
-Drawing deep breaths past my door
-And last night's phrases
-Sick with lack of basis
-Are still writhing on my floor
Over two different verses (with a chorus between) in the song "Medication" by Garbage, it takes a structure that struck me as unique: A, B, A, B, C, D -- then chorus -- then E, F, E, F, C, D -- could this win a record for most distance between rhyming lyrics in a pop song?
-I don't need an education
-I learned all I need from you
-They've got me on some medication
-My point of balance was askew
-It keeps my temperature from rising
-My blood is pumping through my veins
>insert chorus<
-I wear myself out in the morning
-You're asleep when I get home
-Please don't call me self defending
-You know it cuts me to the bone
-And it's really not surprising
-I hold a force I can't contain
All right, I've taken up enough space... all of the above from memory so forgive any snags...
I think the most rymes in one sentence aword would have to go to Elvis Costello for a line in All This Useless Beauty.
Now he wants her to dress as if you couldnt guess
He desires to impress his associates
The Dyslexicon
When I was in college, a friend of mine once cracked me up by coming up to me incredibly excited and saying, "Today in class I learned what the vaginal counterpart is to the word phallic!" I just loved that he was so thrilled at having learned the word (which, for those who don't know, is yonic).
Years later, I came across an online parody by a guy named Kevin Wald of Xena the Warrior Princess. He had produced an absolutely stunning set of lyrics in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. I know everyone and their mother has done a "Modern Major General" parody, but Wald's version, "I am the very model of a heroine barbarian," is absolutely inspired. And, thinking of my friend, I cracked up completely at this particular couplet:
"My armory is brazen, but my weapons are ironical;
My sword is rather phallic, but my chakram's rather yonical"
I am big fan of the Wu-Tang Clan, so it amuses me to read this blog. If there was one group of guys that rhymed words that shouldn't it was them. For instance:
And if you want beef then bring the ruckus
Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' ta f**k wit
Straight from the motherf**king slum that's busted
Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' ta f**k wit
But of all the members in the group and all of the songs the master was ODB. Here is some of his best work:
I don't have no trouble with you f**kin me
But I have a little problem with you not f**kin me
If you can pull that off... pure brilliance.
And on a side note, if you can find the MTV segment on a day with Dirty you will not be disappointed. Some of the funniest TV ever.
Goodness, ask me to name my favorite arm or something, it'd be easier! I don't know that I could do the best, but I can do a handful off the top of my head.
Aesop Rock's "The Greatest Pac-Man Victory in History" is, in the end, a song about growing up. However, once the second verse hits, he delivers up a full 19 (or 20, depending on your scansion) bars of words beginning solely of L, S, and D in that order. The lyrics here http://www.ohhla.com/anonymous/aesoprck/bazooka/pac_man.rck.txt (copy/paste, I think they're have a no-hotlink script going) show it, though they aren't quite perfect. It's delivered in a rapid-fire pace and it's one of the most clever ideas for a verse I've heard.
Ghostface Killah has used supercalifragilisticexpalidocious in a line, and then immediately said it backwards (dociousaliexpifragalisticalisuper) and then finished with "Cancun, catch me in the room, eatin' grouper." That was on Buck 50. I could probably pick half a dozen lines from Ghostface's free association style alone. His song "Shakey Dog" (http://www.ohhla.com/anonymous/ghfkilla/fishscal/shakedog.ghf.txt) was about two guys planning to rob another crew, but it was off-kilter storytelling. He fills you in on the secret history of the old lady in the stairwell (she killed her brother and flew to venezuela), what the guys inside the apartment are eating ("my stomach growlin', yo I want some"), and tons of other things. When the hit finally gets started, he details the gunfight ("I'm on the floor like holy shit!") and ends it with "To be continued.
The RZA has to get a nod for his verse on 4th Chamber.
Aiyyo, camouflage chameleon, ninjas scalin' your buildin'
No time to grab the gun,
They already got your wife and children
A hit was sent from the President
To raid your residence
Because you had secret evidence
And documents on how they raped the continents
And then he ends the verse with "Protons Electrons Always Cause Explosions."
And, because it's fresh in my mind, a Kanye West rhyme from Crack Music:
How we stop the Black Panthers?
Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer
You hear that?
When Gil Scott was "Heron"
When our heroes or heroines got hooked on heroin
Crack! raised the murder rate in D.C. and Maryland
We! invested in that, it's like we got Merrill Lynched
And we been hangin from the same tree, ever since
Sometimes I feel the music is the only medicine
So we, cook it, cut it, measure it, bag it
Sell it, the fiends, cop it
Nowadays they can't tell if
That's that good shit
We ain't sure man
Put the CD on your tongue, yeah that's pure man
First, a rhyme. . .
RAKIM
My Melody
Verse One:
Turn up the bass, check out my melody, hand out a cigar
I'm lettin knowledge be born, and my name's the R
A-k-i-m not like the rest of them, I'm not on a list
That's what I'm sayin, I drop science like a scientist
My melody's in a code, the very next episode
Has the mic often distortin, ready to explode
I keep the mic in Fahrenheit, freeze MC's and make em colder
The listener's system is kickin like solar
As I memorize, advertise, like a poet
Keep you goin when I'm flowin, smooth enough, you know it
But rough that's why the middle of my story I tell E.B.
Nobody beats the "R", check out my melody...
Now on to free form comments!
Since I live in North Carolina - I was able to attend the annual Heroes Convention over the weekend. If anyone is interested - you can pop over to my Live Journal and see pictures of me pestering Matt Fraction. I also posted one of my on-line comics created via 3D rendering by an artist in Brazil. I usually write and draw my own stories - but I had the opportunity to work with this artist if I could produce a script - so I did. I'm sure none of you have enough sites to look through during the day - but when you're bored - pop over and give me a look.
Lastly, a recommendation. At the convention - Fraction recommended a new Image book to me - Nightly News. He called it a "paranoid schizophrenic's view of Network". The creator called it Reservoir Dogs meets Network. (Paddy Chayefsky's Network for those that may not be familiar with it) I think the artwork is pretty daring. The characters are similar to Tony Harris photorealism - with slightly frayed Bill Sienkiewicz edges and it eschews typical backgrounds and settings for a more schizophrenic assembly of information more akin to a PC browser. Apparently the last issue is coming out within the month - so no doubt a TPB will follow soon after. Nightly News is well worth checking out.
Filthy shilling ensues for my Live Journal
Did I hear Geoff say something about his next superhero book? *drools* O.0
The rhymes don't give me chills, but I love hearing them:
Princess Superstar's "Bad Babysitter"
a sample:
Chorus:
I'm a bad babysitter/go your boyfriend in the shower/woo!/I'm makin' six bucks an hour
Babysitting suck/ but whatever/they've got junk food, kung fu, egg fu, did dug a dog to and hot jew/Mr.Weintraube/I mean he's old but not dimed out
...
and then:
I assume your folks are gonna be out late/go make me a kool aid/I'ma sit onna couch and masturbate then call my boyfriend Gabe and see if he ate/spit out my Bubbalicious/and get to one of them big fridges that could fit 10 midgets/damn they rich/hey, she left me like 50 dishes/bitch
then the Chorus repeats. Beautful.
"Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses."
--Dorothy Parker
"There's never been a greater since the burial of Jesus
F**k around and catch all the venereal diseases"
- Eminem "Infinite"
Rhyming "Burial of Jesus" with "Venereal diseases" always kills me.
Like anything, I could never decide on a favorite rhyme, but one that I currently like is from Death Cab For Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark":
If heaven and hell decide/
That they both are satisfied/
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
I don't know why, but I love that lyric. There's another one I don't know that I heard when I was watching The White Stripes on Conan O'Brien the other night. It was an acoustic song that had some rhymes I loved, but I don't remember it at all. I haven't bought their new album yet, so maybe I'll come back and post them when I do.
And while I'm not as well-versed in rap as some, I'll share some of my favorite lyrics from an album I love, Danger Doom's "The Mouse and the Mask":
Chew a MC like El Chupa Nibre/
Digest a group and sell the poop on eBay
----
And watch out for Catman my brothers/
He keep his strand slicked back like Scatman Caruthers
----
And we'll be right back after these messages/
Fellas grab your nutsacs, chicks squeeze your breastesses
----
Howdy Danger, much obliged for the beat God/
Even though you still eat lard, by the Meatwad/
Mesquite charred, speakin of which or who/
Voice all squeaky like they tuned it up a pitch or two/
----
Switch your view to the brother with the fried dreads/
Not to be confused with the incense selling thai heads/
His name rhymes with Mike-Cock/
You could call him livewire, eye sockets, Frylock/
-----
What's up with your boy? He's not a soft or hot drink/
Whoever don't like it could suck his straw, it's hot pink/
On some junk like Gucci on a classy ho/
Might splash you in the face with nuclear pistachio/
Make a fast break, or that'll be the last mistake/
that ass'll make is what you get for messin with Master Shake
-----
Look out, don't block the screen son, lunge across/
Tryin; to watch Adult Swim, Aqua Teen Hunger Force!
-----
Okay, that's enough of that; I think I've established that I'm a huge nerd.
Fave rhyme ever?
"Parsley is gharsley"
--Ogden Nash, in "Further Reflections on Parsley."
Worst rhyme ever?
Europe in the most un-metal song of all time, "the Final Countdown:"
We're heading for VENUS and still we stand tall
Cause maybe they've SEEN US and welcome us all
Those Sweedish meatballs rhymed "Venus" with "Seen us."
DIE.
Busdriver: Unemployed Black Astronaut:
http://media.putfile.com/EMusicBusdriverFear-of-a-Black-Tangent03-Unemployed-Black-Astronautmp3
as long as I'm at it... the next track is my fave on the record, but I think the aforementioned has better rhymes.
Busdriver: Happiness (A Unit of Measure): http://media.putfile.com/unit-of-measure
"You gentlemen who think you have a mission/
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position/
Then start your preaching, that’s where it begins!"
Brecht, baby.
I'm gonna have to go with Art Brut's
"I hope this song/finds you fame
I want schoolkids on buses singing your name!"
from the song "Emily Kane". Because I'm a softy.
Two from Squeeze:
At my bedside empty pocket
A foot without a sock
Your body gets much closer
I fumble for the clock
Alarmed by the seduction
I wish that it would stop
- Tempted
and
If I didnt love you I'd hate you
I'm playing your stereogram
Singles remind me of kisses
Albums remind me of plans
- If I didn't love you
the 1st because it kills me everytime and the 2nd because the last two lines are my summation of music/love.
Also, from General Public's "Tenderness":
"Words are so cheap but they can turn out expensive
Words, like conviction, can turn into a sentence."
The best.
From Mitch:
Not a rhyme, but great a great use of language the Shins' song "Girl Sailor":
"You've won one too many fights, but you won't win here tonight."
Great because of the number sounds: You've 1 1 2 many fights...
There's another good rhyme/image with the same sound on the same album in the song "Red Rabbits":
"We've pissed on far too many sprites and they're all standing up for their rights."
Speaking of free form comments/self-promotion:
On my blog right now (click my name to get to the profile) is a post analyzing the song lyrics to my new favorite song: "1234" by Feist. Might be fun to those who like to overthink song lyrics.
marc wins points from me cos he picked Squeeze
whooo!
And just cos I think it's worth a mention, Queen's "Killer Queen" has some fun and fairly tricky rhyming:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/4361/Queen/Killer_Queen
ps: I apologize for butchering my lyrics selection above. rushed typing.
Hey, speaking of The Shins, here's a lyric of theirs that I really like:
But I learned fast how to keep my head up 'cause I/
Know there is this side of me that/
Wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just/
Fly the whole mess into the sea
And this one from later in the same song:
This rather simple epitaph can save your hide your falling mind/
Fate isn't what we're up against there's no design no flaws to find
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