Went to the car show today. I saw a lot of very nice cars, but there was only one thing in the building that almost made me wet my pants: this 1970 Boss 302.
Coming close was this 1969 Mach One. Only thing about the Mach One was that it didn’t have on good shoes. Some mag wheels and fat tires on that car would’ve knocked me out cold. Cold, I tell you.
*****
Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out whether I believe that LL Cool J wrote those early rhymes. Knowing what the standard was at the time, it’s hard to believe that he would’ve had a ghost writer, but the fact that he hasn’t written any seriously literate lyrics in a long time makes me wonder. I mean, yeah, the market has changed, but you’re telling me that a 16, 17 year-old boy is writing lyrics like, “You’re a FREAK! You think you’re Lady Godiva/ some girls are live but Yvette is liver…” Okay…Lady Godiva? Now, my guess is that LL, who didn’t graduate high school, probably didn’t read Lady Godiva. He may have, but I wouldn’t bet on it. So the question is, was Lady Godiva commonly known back then? Like, if you asked the average above-average knucklehead, would he have a clue who Lady Godiva was, let alone be able to include her in a rhyme? But the Lady Godiva stuff is easy to swallow. Let’s look at these lyrics from the original Rock The Bells.
The bells make your energy escalate
A sort of musical fury L.L. might detonate
Subject matter entitled “The Bells”
The lyrical arrangement is by L.L.
My program strains the tympanic membrane
I’ve been ordained the BLZ I’ll flame
Paragraphs I concoct, Cut Creator’s like an organist
Cool J exists as a journalist
I illuminate over any number on the Richter
My throat contracts like a boa constrictor
You’re totally engulfed by the structure and the format
It’s not dormant, it goes to the core, man
As you repent, you’ll say I went
To torture individuals for exitement
Ambassador, the fiend of Cordor
Dialect so def, it’ll rip up the floor
Ignite and excite with verbal extensions
What I’ll mention will put you on pension
Makin’ you tremble, nothin’ resemble
The bells and if it don’t
I disassemble
hit if you bit
I go have a fit
The master impresario of lyrical wit
A hip-hop creature, concert feature
Amateur teacher, my rhymes reach ya
When I commence with excellence
It eradicates levels of pestilence
Upon a plateau
No mortal can go
Mythological characters stand below
Rock the bells
I could do a vocabulary lesson out of that verse. And I appreciate that about it, but it just doesn’t seem consistent. You would think that he would have been able to rip a verse like that at SOME point in the intervening 20 years. Like I said, maybe I’m off base. I just wanna know.
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UPDATE (1/29) I just ran across this stuff today, but it doesn’t really warrant a new post
Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t hate animals, but suffice it to say that I’m not the least bit bothered that Barbaro got put down. In truth, I’m not glad that the horse is dead, but I am glad that the coverage will stop. That was more annoying to me than all the Terrell Owens stories that could ever have been written.
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