Daily Archives: July 25, 2014

My iPod #338: Kanye West ft. DJ Premiere – Everything I Am

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“Everything I Am” was a song that was made for Common that was passed on, something Kanye West mentions early in the song.

It was composed using only a Rhodes piano, a vocal sample, and some scratching, this song stands as the album’s most stripped down production. West marries a down-tempo beat to gentle piano chords that are accentuated by soulful cooing sampled from “If We Can’t Be Lovers” by Prince Phillip Mitchell.

This is soulful and mellow beat is complemented with Kanye’s very introspective lyrics about topics such as self-examination, personal troubles, his own flaws and made up gangsters.

The track features a scratched hook by DJ Premier on the vocal sample: “here we go again,” from Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise”. After West had played an early version of this record for Premier and asked him his thoughts on it. DJ Premier answered he liked the lyrics and the beat and offered to put scratches on it.

……. OK, that was a definite cop out. That’s all from RapGenius, I’m sorry.

I couldn’t put a description of the song in better words myself. Mostly because I didn’t know most of the information that is there.

“Everything I Am” is chill, man. I like it just because of its modesty and humour (something you probably wouldn’t say about him today) and because of the cool, laid back beat which you only have to nod your head to and really focus on what the man has to say.

I miss old Kanye maaaaaaan, bring him back, this is what I waaaaant.

Seriously.

My iPod #337: The Beatles – Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

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Hey what’s up how’s it going?

Today’s first song is from disc two (or side four for all you vinyl people) of The Beatles self-titled album from 1968. Or “The White Album” as almost everyone refers to it. That year was when John, Paul, George and Ringo started to dislike each other a bit. Why? Well there’s one word that the latter three, and a lot of fans would answer that question with. Yoko. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were hardly ever apart, even during recording sessions, and this aggravated George, Paul, and Ringo quite a bit. How did John answer this? Possibly by many ways which would have gone on behind closed doors, but for us he wrote “Me and My Monkey”.

“Monkey” should be played very loudly out of speakers. It gets me in the mood to party. It sounds like the band had a very fun time recording it, what with the random howls and screams which appear after almost every “Come on” that John yells, that incessant bell that never seems to end and when John also appears to start becoming a sheep right when the song begins to fade out.

It may be about heroin use and there may be some sexual connotations thrown in too, but those are just interpretations.

Dunno about you, but has anyone else noticed during the breakdown near when only the guitars and bass are playing that the bass plays a sharper note than the guitar chords? Just irks me a bit. But still, it’s cool. Very good hard rock song.