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The whole song analysis thing ended up being pretty tough and tedious to keep up with, so we've decided to change it to being meaningful quotes from songs, and why we find them meaningful. This should be much less of a hassle, and hence actually manage to be updated on occasion. But to all of our avid followers, I apologize for the lonnnnggggggggggg absence of blog-ings.

K'naan - "People Like Me"

Song with Lyrics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xVwBP4WfQU

Analysis:

K'naan's "People Like Me" is a deeply critical song that discusses the way that organized religion falls short, and looks into different options for faith. The conclusion the song arrives at seems to be that faith in God is an illusion, and that one must have faith in oneself and in humanity in order to live a completely full life. The structure of the argument is going to be an analysis of each of the three verses, in order.

The first verse comes from the point of view of a young man who joins the military straight out of high school and finds himself in Iraq. He discusses the traditional fears of men in the armed forces, yet there is a lot more to the words that he is saying. This verse illustrates a man who has faith in himself, but, in the quest for faith in humanity, loses all of his faith and is lost in the world. The fact that he has faith in himself is seen through his decision to join the military instead of going to "a good state college". He has "good grades" and a sure foot in to a couple colleges, but instead decides to join the military. He argues that "the power of significance" overrides earning money or getting a good education. This is where he first seems to lose faith in humanity, as his counselor and peers clearly value earning money over finding significance in their lives. He poses the typical question to himself: "would I repeat it? Would I fight in a war I don't believe in?"; this is the question that everyone asks, and his answer is somewhat unsatisfactory, as he doesn't simply answer yes or no, but rather says "its not me where the cancer is". The undertone of the internal questions seems to be that he is a bad person for fighting and killing when he doesn't even believe in the cause, but his response seems to say that its not a personal thing; that he isn't a bad person, but rather that he is trying to find his place in an accepted part of humanity ("they've been doing this before Jesus of Nazareth"). Once again, this shows his loss of faith in humanity, as he is ridiculed by the people that he has been fighting for. In the closing part of the verse, he talks about his relationship with his "woman". Being so far away from her he finds it hard to retain faith, as he has lost control. This, finally, culminates his loss of faith in humanity, as it has gotten to the point that he can't even believe in the bond between him and the closest person to him. In this way he falls apart and is lost.

The second verse is a story about a young woman from Ashland. She leads a relatively full life, graduating from a good college, having a family and good job, yet still lacks faith in herself. She ends up getting fired from her job and getting put on welfare, and, in a lot more literal sense, loses herself. The clear issue from the beginning is that she doesn't have faith in herself. This becomes clear in the fourth line of the second verse, as she cries out "would my life be important if I suddenly died?" This links back to the first verse, as the soldier seeks to find significance in his life rather than simply attending college for an education and eventually money. This young woman did the latter, and now finds herself completely at a loss for what is significant in her life. The lack of faith in herself is startling, as she gets fired from her job because she refuses to put out to her boss. Her boss finds her sexually attractive ("her boss...had his eyes on her thighs and got a rise from her rising off the desk"), yet she turns down his advances. She then says that it is surprising to have been fired, yet she blames it on the fact that the company was downsizing anyway, and says that she is "too educated to blame the corporate world". This last statement shows her lack of faith, as it is clearly the corporate world that screwed her over, but she doesn't have enough confidence in herself to think that she could have been that important. It is at this point that she literally drops in the world and becomes lost, as she gets put on welfare and truly becomes dependent on anyone except herself to survive.

The final verse is from K'naan's point of view. For those of you who don't know anything about K'naan, he is proudly from Somolia, and discusses his origins in many of his songs. This last verse shows him as a kid with a lot of faith in himself, but unable to garner any faith in humanity. Although he doesn't end up losing his own faith in himself, the fact that that is all he has doesn't do anymore good for him than the previous two verses, where both speakers ended up with nothing. It is clear that he has faith in himself just from the syntax used. Early in the verse there is a generic statement about hunger, which is certainly linked to Africa, if not more specifically Somolia, as he says "everybody gotta eat, but everybody doesn't". Saying "everybody gotta eat" seems like a shot at the people who say that, as those who talk about eating healthy/consistently are invariably those who can afford to do it. This is a tremendous lack of faith in humanity. He moves on to talk more specifically about his home as the place "where the sun shines", yet immediately admits to "[partaking] in the gun crimes". His extreme lack of faith in humanity is outlined later in the verse where he says "when the country became frantic", implying that normalcy in Somolia was having "a close call with a grenade" and partaking in "gun crimes". He later tells the anecdote of how his mom had to choose between him and his cousin in who to send to America, and that alone further demonstrates his lack of faith, as it shouldn't be necessary to have to choose which child to save from having to fight in a war. Therefore he concludes the verse in an inconclusive manner as he has yet to find faith in humanity, and as such can't quite find happiness in life.

The final aspect of this song to touch on is how organized religion is a corporate and illusory thing. Throughout the song K'naan takes shots at God, starting with the opening line, where he asks "Heaven, is there a chance that you could come down and open doors to hurting people like me?". This seems to say that God always promises salvation, but its never there when you actually need it. In the middle of the first verse he says that "[the military has] been doing this before Jesus of Nazareth". This implies that nothing has changed since the coming of Jesus. He goes on to imply that organized religion is a corporate thing by referencing many popular culture icons/symbols. He talks about "magic from David Blaine"; "Morgan Freeman to narrate this shame"; talks about "finding God in the phone book"; and finally that God's word and advice to the people "sounded something like a song hook".

This song is a brilliant take on the disparity between religion and faith. Where traditionally religion and faith go hand in hand, K'naan turns it, saying that faith in oneself and in humanity are what are important, while faith in God/religion is corporate and doesn't translate to happiness in life.

Mothafuckas Need to Know

The point of this blog is to bring awareness to the actual depth that exists in many rap songs. Rap/hip-hop has largely been regarded as being the "fluff" of the music world, lacking any lyrical substance. We are here to show you that this is not always the case. Sure, Soulja Boy and Three Six Mafia limit the content of their songs to a variety of racial slurs, sexist attitudes and egotistical bullshit, but others in the rap game are professing truth through their lyrics.

That being said, Get Yo Shit and lets get started.