Song-A-Day: February 10

It’s been widely reported today that this is the 10th anniversary of The College Dropout being released, but did you know that today is also the 18th anniversary of In The Aeroplane Over the Sea? The latter is my favorite album of all-time, but a 10th anniversary is a special event and with Kanye coming to Albany soon it seems right to toss him the Song-A-Day for today. There’s so many good songs to pick here to represent The College Dropout, an album which showed the genuine and honest side of Kanye alongside the egotistical lyrical wordsmith who I believe is one of the best artists of our generation. Our Song-A-Day for today is a bit of an under-appreciated track Kanye track in my book, featuring GLC and Consequence, here’s “Spaceship”.

I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky
I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky

Man, man, man
If my manager insults me again I will be assaulting him
After I f*** the manager up then I’m gonna shorten the register up
Let’s go back, back to the Gap
Look at my check, wasn’t no scratch
So if I stole, wasn’t my fault
Yeah I stole, never got caught
They take me to the back and pat me
Askin’ me about some khakis
But let some black people walk in
I bet they show off their token blackie
Oh now they love Kanye, let’s put him all in the front of the store
Saw him on break next to the ‘No Smoking’ sign with a blunt and a Mall’
Takin’ my hits, writin’ my hits
Writin’ my rhymes, playin’ my mind
This f***in’ job can’t help him
So I quit, y’all welcome
Y’all don’t know my struggle
Y’all can’t match my hustle
You can’t catch my hustle
You can’t fathom my love dude
Lock yourself in a room doin’ five beats a day for three summers
That’s a different world like Kree Summers
I deserve to do these numbers
The kid that made that deserves that Maybach
So many records in my basement
I’m just waitin’ on my spaceship

I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky
I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky

Man, I’m talkin’ way past the sky
Let’s go, yeah
And I didn’t even try to work a job
Represent the mob
At the same time thirsty on the grind
Chi state of mind
Lost my momma, lost my mind
My life, my love, that’s not mine
Why you ain’t signed?
Wasn’t my time
Leave me alone, work for y’all
Half of it’s yours, half of it’s mine
Only one to ball
Never one to fall
Gotta get mine
Gotta take mine
Got a tech nine
Reach my prime
Gotta make these haters respect mine
In the mall ’til 12 when my schedule said nine
Puttin’ them pants on shelves
Waitin’ paitently I ask myself
Where I wanna go, where I wanna be
Life is much more than runnin’ in the streets
Holla at ‘ye, hit me with the beat
Put me on my feet
Sound so sweet
Yes I’m the same ol’ G, same goatee
Stayin’ low key, nope
Holler at God “Man why’d you had to take my folks?”
Hope to see Freddy G., Yusef G
Love my G, Rolly G
Police watch me smoke my weed, count my G’s
Got a lot of people countin’ on me
And I’m just tryin’ to find my peace
Should of finished school like my niece
Then I wouldn’t finally wouldn’t use my piece
Aw man, all this pressure

I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky
I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky

I remember havin’ to take the dollar cab
Comin’ home real late at night
Standin’ on my feet all damn day
Tryin’ to make this thing right
And havin’ one of my co-workers say “Yo you look just like
This kid I seen in the old Busta Rhymes video the other night”
Well easy come, easy go
How that sayin’ goes
No more broad service, cars, and them TV shows
I all had that snatched from me
And all the faculties all turn their back on me
And didn’t wanna hear a rap from me
So naturally actually had to face things factually
Had to be a catastrophe with the fridgest starin’ back at me
Cuz nothing’s there, nothing’s fair
I don’t wanna ever go back there
So I won’t be takin’ no days off ’til my spaceship takes off

I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky
I’ve been workin’ this graveshift and I ain’t made s***
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky

I wanna fly, I wanna fly
I said I want my chariot to pick me up
And take me brother for a ride

 

Kyle’s Favorite 100 songs: Honorable Mentions

I’d like to state before anyone tries to declare anything wrong in these posts that I’m not trying to tell you what the 100 best songs of all time are. I’m not qualified to do that despite being familiar with a lot of music, I’m just trying to come up with a list of my 100 favorite songs and share that. This needs to be mentioned so that you understand that any time I talk about a song’s meaning or an artist’s intention, it could be completely against what is commonly thought of as what the artist intended to do. I don’t expect this situation to arise to often, but understand that all the writings are about how I’ve chosen to interpret the song and what it means to me (which is truly the only sensical way to approach the task).

With that being said, I do welcome conversation if you disagree with my interpretations, placement, inclusion or omission. I actually really hope that people provide continuous feedback, so that the process is a worthwhile endeavor, just don’t take any of my choices personally.

There will be updates every Monday featuring the next batch of songs, but for now I’m glad to start off with the Honorable Mentions, or the songs that I considered but didn’t land in the top 100.

Avi Buffalo- Summer Cum

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The Beatles- Norwegian Wood (The Bird Has Flown)
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The Beatles- With A Little Help From My Friends
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Daniel Johnston- Funeral Home
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Death Cab for Cutie- The Employment Pages
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The Decemberists- Raincoat Song
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The Decemberists- The Rake’s Song
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The Flaming Lips- Waitin’ For A Superman
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Fleet Foxes- Blue Spotted Tail
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Frightened Rabbit- The Modern Leper
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The Hold Steady- How A Resurrection Really Feels
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The Hold Steady- You Can Make Him Like You
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The Long Winters- Cinnamon
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Los Campesinos!- The Sea Is a Good Place To Think About the Future
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The Mountain Goats- The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton
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The National- Green Gloves
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Neutral Milk Hotel- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
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Portugal. The Man- Do You
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The Postal Service- Such Great Heights
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Ryan Adams- To Be Young
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Spoon- You Got Yr Cherry Bomb
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The Strokes- Someday
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The Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Modern Romance

The Return of Neutral Milk Hotel

Yesterday, a little bit after noon, news started to spread that Neutral Milk Hotel had reformed and announced a tour. Neutral Milk Hotel is a band based out of the Athens, Georgia music scene that have released two albums: On Avery Island in 1996 and an album which is viewed as the best of all time by a few of us including myself at CDB, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea in 1998. This album has a huge place in the alternative music scene as it both influenced the sound of some of the most successful alternative bands today and defined the genre from that point on for some of its listeners. Unfortunately Jeff Mangum, the vocalist for Neutral Milk Hotel, wasn’t quite ready for this to happen. He had to leave and break up the band, a situation that gets well described in this article by Slate Magazine from 2008.