I’m challenging myself to get through a whole shuffle of my music collection on my iPod without skipping. Then I write about what I heard each week.
The title of the post this week comes from “Mama Said Knock You Out” by Mr. Smith or Ladies Love Cool James, better known as LL Cool J. This song was a staple of my senior year in high school. I love this song beyond all reason. There are so many fabulous lines in it that it’s hard to pick a favorite.
- “Cause you know I have beef wit” (what?)
- “I’m not your average man, when I got a jammy in my hand, DAMN!”
- “Farmers! What? Farmers! What?”
- “Don’t you never ever pull my lever, cause I explode and my nine is easy to load” (the best part of that line is how it is immediately followed by “I gotta thank God”)
I got the Mama Said Knock You Out CD for free, because I basically stole it from my friend Erin’s sister. This CD was a large part of the soundtrack for a graduation trip to Niagara Falls Erin and I took with another friend. We met a group of hockey players staying at the motel next door and one of them was into me, which was a life changing event. I wrote the following in my diary:
“Well, for the first time in my entire life a male person told me that he loved me. I have absolutely no idea who he is, but I have his hat.” July 16, 1991
So I totally could have gotten laid that night had I wanted my first time to be with someone who professed to love me at first sight but who didn’t think it was important to tell me his name. He also was probably very drunk. But as I walked away, he screamed out my name. I liked that.
“Mama Said Knock You Out” covers the “random memory” category, obviously, but it also covers the “most embarrassing confession about a song” category, which I haven’t used in awhile.
A few months ago, a Facebook friend posted a link to a cover of the song. I admitted the following tidbit on Facebook, which I will now share here as well. When I first heard the line “Old English filled my mind and I came up with a funky rhyme,” I thought LL was talking about this Old English. Um, yeah. Everyone knows he was really talking about this Old English (blatantly stole that joke from my Facebook friend, thanks Don!). Presumably, LL meant this Olde English. Actually I prefer to believe that LL meant it as a double entendre.
I was so amazed by the Unplugged version that it totally changed my view of rap music for at least 5 minutes and 9 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzsV4pfBWy4
Here is the weekly playlist summary:
* Songs listened to this week: 120
* Completed: 51%
* Number of double shots: 4 (The Police, The Beatles, Genesis, The Innocence Mission)
* Number of triple shots: 1 (The Police, all live bootleg songs)
* Percentage of songs that came up during running that were so totally not helpful in motivating my running: I have no idea. I only ran indoors once this week and I used a treadmill in the disgustingly hot and crowded room so I could watch the NCAA tournament. So I wasn’t focused on my music. I was also distracted by the douche next to me who insisted on fist pumping after every good UConn play while running on a treadmill in public.
* Song o’ the fuck mix: Wire Train “Open Sky“
If not for LL, the title of this week’s post would have been either “On the Menu for Today is Redemption,” or “I Don’t Fuck with No Buddha.” It is indeed a very open sky. This is probably my favorite Wire Train song, so I was bummed it’s not on You Tube. Probably because they say fuck…and diss religion. Yeah, I guess that wasn’t going to be a hit single, eh?
* Fun song that everyone should know about: King Missile “Take Stuff from Work”
I love this song. It makes me feel better about my low pay and appalling working conditions. Ha-ha…just kidding, I love my job (please don’t fire me). I love the suggestion to “take a case of White Out.” Dude, I am old. When I first started at my job, we still used White Out. Because we were still typing up important documents on typewriters using carbon paper. Mother of God, it was the stone age and I was there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIXz_vzROrw
* Song I’ll be saddest not to hear again until this is over: Delays “Wanderlust”
A lot of the time, I like to listen to music to forget where I am and what I’m doing. This song works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40TCKLJJ4jA
Speaking of the stone age, I think you probably taped a copy rather than burning a CD from my sister – I don’t think we quite had that technology yet, or a CD player in the car for that matter – but then I don’t know how it would have made it to iTunes. That Unplugged is awesome – just like the studio version and in one take.
I am partial to Willing It To Be and Impossible by Wire Train.
That must have been right before I went to California with the Girl Scouts. I still have that BK Update tape you made – or maybe that was from when I went to harp camp. I have to listen to it sometime for some good teen angst.
I definitely have the CD and I don’t think I bought it. My recollection is that Molly joined one of those clubs where you got a bunch of free CDs in exchange for being bound to the club for the rest of your life. I don’t think she was really into that particular CD and I convinced her to let me have it. At least that’s what my old person brain remembers. We definitely had a tape for the road trip–I think LL was on it, along with Madonna’s “Justify My Love” and some Steppenwolf songs. Oh my, that BK nonsense! I was so ready to go to college after that and be a grown up. I’m kind of still ready to be a grown up…