By Meghan Maldjian, Contributor

I used to think I didn't like poetry that rhymes until the glaring realization hit me that of course, I do, I love lyrics, I really love lyrics. I'd like to share this love with you, the person reading this, by discussing some lyrics that have provoked conversations with myself in my head. 

Starting with Frank Ocean’s “Self Control.” That song is full of subtle painful beauty in terms of its lyrics, the delivery, and the instrumentals. These elements combine to produce a song that feels like holding your breath before a deep sigh. The lyrics “‘cause I made you use your self-control/ and you made me lose my self-control,” seem simple, just switch “I” for “you” and “use” for “lose.” But if you read it again, what he means by that, what that statement means, it’s striking. Because that is real, it is just so real.

Moving on to my favorite liberation metaphor. It comes from Bob Marley & The Wailers’ “Small Axe,” which goes, “if you are the big tree/ we are the small axe/ ready to cut you down.” There is the David and Goliath cliche and then there is this small axe. The small axe was made to take down that tree; it is the perfect tool. This song, this image is for the entire Global South, it is for the entire global working class, the proletariat. 

“Small Axe” comes from a time in Jamaica, the 1970s, when nationalism was rising and the people were radicalizing. This spilled into the music scene, specifically in Kingston, where the scene was dominated by sound systems or parties where people gather to dance to DJs spinning reggae, dancehall, and dub. DJs and rivaling sound systems would often compete with each other leaving them with no choice but to listen to what the people demanded, which were songs about revolution and liberation from the colonizers. Reggae became so politically influential that it swayed elections. Politicians who caught onto this allied themselves with the politics of the most popping sound systems. Yet imperialism did what imperialism does and the movement was eventually squashed. But the impact of the sound had already become global by that time. In 1972, the Wailers released Catch a Fire, an album that the ears of the Global North could comprehend, consume, and appropriate. This movement was also fundamental to the formation of hip-hop. Read Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang (2005), I paraphrased him for this whole tangent. 

Then we have Noname’s “no name” off of Room 25 (2018). “What's an eye for an eye when ****** won't love you back?/ And medicine's overtaxed.” I revisited this song a bit ago and put it on a playlist. It came on as I was driving and that line made me cry. The song, the words, the somber tone in which Noname sings it, yet the hope in the background with the instrumentals and backing vocals to me just captures a certain frustration so well. That of someone who believes in the people, who believe another world is possible and has read so many books that formed their reasons why. But that at the same time cannot deny the isolation, the loneliness that comes from seeing the world this way, and the frustration with how unfathomably cold it is right now and how seemingly far we have to go. What's an eye for an eye when they won't love you back and medicine’s overtaxed? Keep going Noname.

One of my favorite albums is Some Rap Songs by Earl Sweatshirt (yes, I know what that says about me. Yes, I have spent a stretch of my time in a black hoodie with the hood up, every day, finding it nearly impossible to do anything but lay on the floor and listen to this album). My favorite song on the album remains “Ontheway!.” I think one of the reasons is the bar “I revisit the past/ port wine and pages of pads/ momma say don't play with them scabs.” An anxious, depressed mind with thoughts begging to be acknowledged that crawl out in the only way they can, in the urge they send you to pick at your skin, listen to me. But to someone who loves you, who is not in that head, it seems so clear, don’t play with those scabs, don’t do that to yourself. 

I was gonna leave you here but I don’t wanna leave with sadness. So a bonus for you. Another one of my favorites is the song “May This Be Love” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Now, what mainly draws me to this song is how warm the instrumentals make my head feel, yet there is something that has always caught my mind about this song. It is a love song. And he compares his love to a waterfall. A waterfall, could you imagine? I’ll leave you with, “waterfall/ don't ever change your ways/ fall with me for a million days/ oh, my waterfall.” 

References: 

Chang, Jeff. Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New York, New York: Picador, 2005.