Lyric of the week (week 1)

Lyric of the week.

Before I went for my walk today, I was feeling like inspiration wasn’t coming. And with the school year about a week away, I figured I’d need to cut down on my blogging frequency. So one idea I had was to take one day’s post and dedicate to a song lyric that had been on my mind that week. Anyone who knows me knows that I can think of a song for almost any situation. But before today’s gentrification topic came along, I was struggling to find a proper lyric to begin with. Didn’t want to make it too personal (i.e. “Song Cry,” or the Manhattan’s “Let’s just kiss and say goodbye.”) And didn’t want to be too detached from my reality either. So after my blog was finished and my homie cereb’s was too, we were IM’ing (chatting sounds gay, sorry Kanye) and the perfect lyric for today came up. It’s so prophetic.

(Side bar, when they used Mos’ song “UMi” in the Michael Jordan commercial, why’d they change the lyric from “Want black people to be free,” to “I want people to be free?” Now they got Mos in commercials hustling Lincoln navigators. I guess Paul Mooney was right, “they will take you.”)

Mos Def
New World Water

From his 1999 solo debut “Black on both sides.”

There's nothing more refreshing (that cool refreshing drink)
Than a cool, crisp, clean glass of water
On a warm summer's day (That cool refreshing drink)
Try it with your friends

New World Water make the tide rise high
Come in and it'll make your house go "Bye" (My house!)
Fools done upset the Old Man River
Made him carry slave ships and fed him dead niggas
Now his belly full and he about to flood somethin
So I'ma throw a rope that ain't tied to nothin
tell your crew use the H2 in wise amounts since
it's the New World Water; and every drop counts
You can laugh and take it as a joke if you wanna
But it don't rain for four weeks some summers
And it's about to get real wild in the half
You be buying Evian just to take a f__in bath
Heads is acting wild, sippin poor, puffin dank
Competin with the next man, but how your playa rank?
See I ain't got time try to be Big Hank,
F__ a bank; I need a twenty-year water tank
Cause while these knuckleheads is out here sweatin they goods
The sun is sitting in the treetops burnin the woods
And as the flames from the blaze get higher and higher
They say, "Don't drink the water! We need it for the fire!"
New York is drinkin it (New World Water)
Now all of California is drinkin it (New World Water)
Way up north and down south is drinkin it (New World Water)
Used to have minerals and zinc in it (New World Water)
Now they say it got lead and stink in it (New World Water)
Four carbons and monoxide
Push the water table lopside
Used to be free now it cost you a fee
Cause all things fully loaded they roam cross the sea
Man, you gotta cook with it, bathe and clean with it (That's right)
When it's hot, summertime you fiend for it (Let em know)
You gotta put it in the iron you steamin with (That's right)
It's what they dress wounds and treat diseases with (Shout it out)
The rich and poor, black and white got need for it (That's right)
And everybody in the world can agree with this (Let em know)
Consumption promotes health and easiness (That's right)
Go too long without it on this earth and you leavin it (Shout it out)
Americans wastin it on some leisure sh!t (Say word?)
And other nations be desperately seekin it (Let em know)
Bacteria washing up on they beaches (Say word?)
Don't drink the water, son they can't wash they feet with it (Let em know)
Young babies and professional neediness (Say word?)
Epidemics hopppin up off the petri dish (Let em know)
Control centers try to play it all secretive (Say word?)
To avoid public panic and freakiness (Let em know)
There are places where TB is common as TV
Cause foreign-based companies go and get greedy
The type of cats who pollute the whole shore line
Have it purified, sell it for a dollar twenty-five
Now the world is drinkin it
Your moms, wife, and baby girl is drinkin it
Up north and down south is drinkin it
You just have to go to your sink for it
The cash registers is goin to chink for it
Four carbons and monoxide
Got the fish lookin cockeyed
Used to be free now it cost you a fee
Cause it's all about gettin that cash (Money)

Said it's all about gettin that cash (Money) (x9)
Johny cash (Money)
Roseanne cash (Money)
Give me cash (Money)
Cold cash (Money)
(Repeat to fade)

Cash rules everything around me,
Move!