matt’s music blog

Apparently there’s no written lyrics available online for this song, or at least none that I could find - but it’s worth listening to. It’s featured on a compliation tribute album to Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars, one of the best RPGs (one of the best games period) for the SNES. Download it from gamemusic4all.com: http://gamemusic4all.com/heavytroopa.html

Basicly, there’s a bunch of drug references, and it stars a bunch of mario characters. The lyrics are clever, and the chopped up mario rpg bgm in the background is fairly genius. Mario has to save the princess, who is super high, and has of course been kidnapped by bowser, who he beats by having a weed-smoking contest. “That’s the last time I go to a Mario Party, man…”

Anyway, sorry for the lack of info, but I think that in this case, the track speaks for itself. Enjoy - and if you like the album, maybe throw a bit of money their way.

The gated synths that lead into the song help set things up, and when the first line of the chorus, “I got the bass for your face,” comes up, it’s a perfect fit.

I got the bass for your face
Yes I can hold it down
These kids are such a disgrace
I need an older crowd

Mental stimulation
Voter Registration
Patches on my elbows
Match the colors of my cords

The vocorder effect, especially on “colors of my cords” (which sounds like an autotune) is like the perfect little cherry on top of the sunday - it’s so sweet. Then we get to the rap - MC Chris’ voice can be hard for some people to take, and it seems like either people love or hate him. But the rapping is solid - I’m not wild about the first verse, but the second and third and damn clever:

Are you joking? It’s too smoky
There’s a cover, we should leave
Let’s not panic, let’s beat traffic
And get home in time for tea

Kids have access nostalgia waxes
Can’t relax if I can’t breathe
Let’s just exit, we’re not sexy
I feel fat and elderly

Let’s play Scrabble, let’s play Boggle
Discovery channel with Ted Kopple
Kids are awful, they’re all moshing
So obnoxious sneezing, coughing

Spilling beer and breaking glasses
They’re no fun, these trust fund fascists
No more head tricks, we’ve got Netflix
Let’s grow beehives and mustaches

“Are you joking? It’s too smoky,” is a keeper, as is “Let’s just exit, we’re not sexy, I feel fat and elderly.”

There is vomit on the toilet
And no soap I can dispense
Girl named Wendy grabbed my testes
Now I have no confidence

Can’t believe it, I smell reefer
We might get a contact high
I feel loopy I see snoopies
I need pizza with these doobies

I feel mellow, legs are jello
Hold me up or I might nap
Someone dosed my Diet Coke
It’s not a joke so please don’t laugh

Freaky Friday might go my way
I feel like a different person
Now I’m tripping, ceiling’s dripping
Wait a minute, no crowd surfing

Once again, “Girl named Wendy grabbed my testes, now I have no confidence,” “Can’t believe it, I smell reefer, we might get a contact high,” and “It’s not a joke so please don’t laugh,” are great lines.

It’s tough for me to be as verbose explaining some songs that I like - especially ones like this that aren’t much more then rapping, a chorus, and some catchy synth accompniment - but it’s all about the gated synth in the intro, the little autotuned fx on “colours of my chords,” and the pacing in those lines I called out above.

This was one of the best albums to come out in 2008, and it was totally unexpected for me - I wasn’t really (and I’m still not I guess) a big Kanye fan, considering he’s acted like a jerk on several occasions, but this album knows exactly how to get to me - auto-tuned vocals, the 808 drum machine, hop-hop that swings more towards funk/soul and electronic music then rap… so tasty.

It starts out strong - just listen to that gut-rumbling kick, and Kanye’s slightly FX’d vocals:

In the night, I hear ‘em talk, 
the coldest story ever told 
Somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul to a woman so heartless…
How could you be so heartless? 

So the intro is the chorus, and all it takes is a clap and a caliope-sounding staccato chord line to moves us into the verse:

How could you be so, cold as the winter wind when it breeze, yo 
Just remember that you talkin’ to me though 
You need to watch the way you talkin’ to me, yo 
I mean after all the things that we’ve been through 
I mean after all the things we got into 
Hey yo, I know of some things that you ain’t told me 
Hey yo, I did some things but that’s the old me 

I’m not sure why the ’street’ vocabulary doesn’t annoy me - normally a lot of that sort of slang turns me off, but in this context, “afta’ all da tings dat we been do, afta all da tings we got into” sounds… I don’t know, it sounds refined, almost cultured, like the narrator is trying to be reasonable with his girl, which I’m sure is exactly what it’s supposed to sound like. It works. The perky yet minimal hits that hit towards the end of the verse, into the chorus, keep with the ‘less is more’ approach that a lot of the tracks on this album take.

There’s more good lyrical candy in the second verse:

How could you be so Dr. Evil, you bringin’ out a side of me that I dont know… 
I decided we weren’t gon’ speak so 
Why we up 3 A.M. on the phone 
Why does she be so mad at me fo’ 
Homie I dont know, she’s hot and cold 

“How could you be so Doctor Evil?” Good stuff - and the short conversational “Why do she be so made at me fo? Homie I don’t know, she’s hot and cold,” line is so appealing, as far as the rythem and meaning goes.

And then there’s the bridge, where things get super grunged out for a second on the line, “and we jus’ gon’ be enemies.” It’s a nice quick break, before we get back to the chorus. That’s basicly all there is - no additional instrumentation, just some auto-tuned vocalizing.

I think a lot of my attraction to this song comes from its minimalism, and the fact that it’s telling a story. This is established in the first chorus right up front: “In the night, I hear ‘em talk, the coldest story ever told, somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul - to a woman so heartless…” It’s almost like a ghost story. This is good stuff.

Okay, some people don’t like Linkin Park at all, and to be fair, looking at their other music, I can understand why - but how could you not like Hybrid Theory? It managed to be completely different from what the genre expected, and ‘With You’ is an excellent example.

‘wicky wicky wah’ synth scratches, a brooding bass line, and some guitar effects lead into the main groove at :14, resolving at :22 into the high screamy synth, rhythm electric guitars, and rock percussion. So far, pretty average (apart from that bendy synth), and then you get the lyrics, presented in a sort of quiet rap:

I woke up in a dream today,
To the cold of the static
and put my cold feet on the floor 
Forgot all about yesterday 
Remembering I’m pretending to be where I’m not anymore 
A little taste of hypocrisy 
And I’m left in the wake of the mistake, I’m slow to react 
Even though you’re so close to me 
You’re still so distant and I can’t bring you back

Nearly all these lines are gold: “woke up in a dream today”, “a little taste of hypocrisy”, “left in the wake of the mistake, slow to react”… and the repeated word in “the cold of the static and put my cold feet on the floor” doesn’t even bother me, for some reason. The melodic sceamo chorus is so-so, but is a lot more stomachable and harmonic then other stuff I’ve heard. And then the rapping comes back:

I hit you and you hit me back 
We fall to the floor the rest of the day stands still 
Fine line between this and that 
When things go wrong I pretend the past isn’t real 

That whole phrase is fantastic - four lines, and he’s created the setting for an entire story. Among all this, the guitars manage to be distorted and still in-tune, the percussion (which is consistently spot-on throughout Link Park’s tracks) frames everything else, and the trade-off between rapping and melodic screaming works to communicate the sort of ‘intelligent passion’ feel of the lyrics.

The break at 2:18 showcases some more mixing trickery before sliding into the optimistic bridge:

No, no matter how far we’ve come 
I can’t wait to see tomorrow

And then it’s over - the ‘bad radio reception’-effected percussion fades out and takes the bubbly synth with it.