A couple of Mondegreens can really screw it up
So I used to have this crazy love-hate relationship with the song "Jump Around" by house of pain.
After looking up the lyrics on the inimitable RapGenius, I've ditched the "hate" part of that.
Things that I misheard in Jump Around, by House of Pain:
In the first case, I thought it was just one of the dumbest lyrics ever. Like, stop the concert and ask the rapper what the hell that means: "No wait, just, just wait. How many Donut shops do you think a police officer has? Or maybe you mean how many they go to- so a regular beat cop maybe hits two or at most three Donut shops? So you've got four rhymes. Well that's fantastic."
In the second case, the lyric wasn't stupid, it was just boring. "Hey, want to rap! Sure, me too!" And that was way out of context in the ass-kicking bravado of earlier in the last couple of verses, where he's going on and on about what an awesome rapper he is*. With the correct lyrics (and okay, it isn't that they are unintelligible, I've typically heard this song in the background of other things going on), it makes a hell of a lot of sense, and is a clever play on words. As noted in the RapGenius note:
A gun spits bullets. When they “wet you”, you’re bleeding. His lyrics are like bullets.
Nice use of “spitting” with “wet ya”
Nice use, indeed!
Now that I officially like the song, I think it is frankly underutilized. Daredevil the movie used a different song off of the same album brilliantly in introducing the character of Bullseye- we get that he's Irish, he's more than a touch psychotic, and can back up his talk. Just! Freaking! Right! Oh, and of course- Collin Farrel killed it.
The next thing I need is Jump Around paired up with the Dwarves being bad house guests in Bilbo's hobbit hole from "An Unexpected Journey," but sadly, the best I can do is this fan trailer which focuses on all of the jumping in that movie... maybe I just want to ditch the "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates" song in favor of something more authentic.
*Duly noted for the "But rap sucks" crowd- the "I'm a kick ass rapper" song is no less traditional than the "I'm a great poet, so I've made you immortal by writing about you" poem. Just one has flowers and waterfalls, and one has knives and guns. Which one is an exercise for the reader. NOTE: on request, I can probably pepper this footnote with some links of both kinds.
After looking up the lyrics on the inimitable RapGenius, I've ditched the "hate" part of that.
Things that I misheard in Jump Around, by House of Pain:
Click to view- Heard: I've got more rhymes than a cop's got Dunkin Donut shops
- But Really: I've got more rhymes than there's cops in a Dunkin Donut shop
- Heard: Spittin' out lyrics homie I'm wit ya
- But Really: Spittin' out lyrics homie I'll wet ya
In the first case, I thought it was just one of the dumbest lyrics ever. Like, stop the concert and ask the rapper what the hell that means: "No wait, just, just wait. How many Donut shops do you think a police officer has? Or maybe you mean how many they go to- so a regular beat cop maybe hits two or at most three Donut shops? So you've got four rhymes. Well that's fantastic."
In the second case, the lyric wasn't stupid, it was just boring. "Hey, want to rap! Sure, me too!" And that was way out of context in the ass-kicking bravado of earlier in the last couple of verses, where he's going on and on about what an awesome rapper he is*. With the correct lyrics (and okay, it isn't that they are unintelligible, I've typically heard this song in the background of other things going on), it makes a hell of a lot of sense, and is a clever play on words. As noted in the RapGenius note:
A gun spits bullets. When they “wet you”, you’re bleeding. His lyrics are like bullets.
Nice use of “spitting” with “wet ya”
Nice use, indeed!
Now that I officially like the song, I think it is frankly underutilized. Daredevil the movie used a different song off of the same album brilliantly in introducing the character of Bullseye- we get that he's Irish, he's more than a touch psychotic, and can back up his talk. Just! Freaking! Right! Oh, and of course- Collin Farrel killed it.
The next thing I need is Jump Around paired up with the Dwarves being bad house guests in Bilbo's hobbit hole from "An Unexpected Journey," but sadly, the best I can do is this fan trailer which focuses on all of the jumping in that movie... maybe I just want to ditch the "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates" song in favor of something more authentic.
*Duly noted for the "But rap sucks" crowd- the "I'm a kick ass rapper" song is no less traditional than the "I'm a great poet, so I've made you immortal by writing about you" poem. Just one has flowers and waterfalls, and one has knives and guns. Which one is an exercise for the reader. NOTE: on request, I can probably pepper this footnote with some links of both kinds.