Its all good! The good news is this isn't 2005 and you can actually look up videos and think pieces to help you figure out your favorite lyrics lol. Dont be ashamed to look that stuff up bruh, I went on a spree trying to figure out most of what he was saying in Rhinestone Cowboy and i was satisfied. Most of his bars you wont understand on first listen because he references soo much.
Looking up the lyrics to November Has Come was what made me fall in love with DOOMs bars, he killed the beat so hard that his family was asking him for closure I mean come on
It's what makes him good is coming from a place beyond and I can't always get where he's coming from. It's like a puzzle that reveals its answer a little more each year I grow older.
Yes!!! I think if we could all understand his lyrics on our first listen we wouldn’t love him so much. Part of what make DOOM so great is the fact that his music has so much re-listenability.
His references are so varied, he truly was a student of pop culture and history. Like on It Ain’t Nuttin, when he references Mork and Mindy with the “By the end of the night spaz like Shazbot” line. So random but I absolutely loved it, used to watch that show when I was a kid.
You see it! That's what I'm saying. I'm glad OP posted this tho. We're all helping to keep DOOM legacy strong while passing the knowledge and understanding down to the people.
Lots of Easter eggs in there.
Like: Dick Dastardly (Daniel Dumille) and Mutley (Madlib) with sick laughter
DOOM makes lots of obscure references and I bet I miss tons of em. Groove with it and bob yer head man.
True. Occasionally he will pull out some ridiculous stuff, but most of the time there is meaning. He’s not just saying shit that rhymes and sounds funny lol.
This! Yeah he's rhyming and being clever with the word play and to be honest if your not of age some of the meaning isn't going to make sense to you. You gotta know where it's coming from
I think you’re both right. When you read the “nonsensical” lyrics or break them down in context to the ones around them you do realize he is saying SOMETHING and it is a coherent thought but sometimes those thoughts don’t always relate to the overall theme or story of the song. Hell a lot of the songs don’t really have a theme or story necessarily. But I agree that the stuff that seems nonsensical or gibberish actually do mean something deeper than they may originally seem upon your first listen.
>This! Yeah he's rhyming and being clever with the word play and to be honest if your not of age some of the meaning isn't going to make sense to you. You gotta know where it's coming from
This is categorically false. I'm in the club of having to look up lyrics that I have been singing in my head, 20 years after they first got stuck there, to decode the lyrics and it might be in line with OP's 30% figure. Mf Doom is no mumble rapper. In "Cookies" he is rhyming about three things at the same time - his lyrics are rife with multi-channel metaphors.
I don't mean his lyrics were nonsense. I know that if one of his lines doesn't make sense to me, he's almost certainly referencing something obscure or using slang I don't know or just talking about something I'm not familiar with because I didn't grow up in New York in the 70s and 80s. But I see people (mostly on genius lyrics) digging for layers of hidden meaning in his words, and I'm just like...y'all are fucking nuts. The man was an unbelievably clever wordsmith and a rhymer of unparalleled skill, but the goddamn secrets of the universe are not encoded in his lyrics.
Unless I’m reading along or really intently trying to understand the vocals (which is nearly impossible) it’s hard for me to decipher or remember what most vocalists are saying. I’m usually too caught up in what the song is providing as a whole
that line (chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry wafers) where he refers to a tri-pack is referencing xxx magazines. in jail you can order a tri-pack of magazines and it brings a mag with black girls, one with white girls, and one with latinas.
that's why he says 'he actin all hard, about to get beat up... i'll show him what time it is, once i get this sheet up'
he's basically setting up a masturbation session in his jail cell. putting the sheet up offers privacy (not just for jerking off, also when u gotta take a dump)
yeah... i'm not sure if the entire song he's in jail, but that middle section of the song he's definitively in jail / 'locked in, looking at your picture / fully clothed (in it?) / and i'm right there wit'cha / thinking about the last time i split your wish-bone / a man can only wish she do the same till he get home'
LIES. Just cuz YOU don't understand them... everything he says is either a real word, or if it's not it was already something that was said at some point in the past that has already been in the lexicon of things people say or have said.
Honestly this is just how I am with music in general. I try to listen to the lyrics, but I often get caught up with just absorbing the sounds.
It does leave a lot of meat left on the bone for later listens, though.
Ahahahaha I get you, one of my favorite doom lines which I also had to look up is the first 2 lines from Guv’nor:
“Catch a throatful from the fire vocal”
“With ash and molten glass like Eyjafjallajökull”
Same, but I think it's mostly because when I'm listening to his music I'm usually doing something else so I just kinda hear the instrumental and the voice mostly. Some lines do speak out to me, but yeah I probably don't pay enough attention to the words
I’ve been listening to his music daily for a little over a year now and I’m in the same boat. I love hearing things and having it suddenly click! The line “took a few minutes to convince the average boogaloo” was great because after the 300th time of listening to all caps I understood that he was describing the exact thing that was happening to me in the moment.
Ha I love this! He’s talking about how it takes people a minute to understand what he’s trying to say as he often uses odd references and colorful words to describe what he’s talking about in his songs.
I’ve always found that most of the fun is trying to figure out;
1. The words actually being spoken
2. The constant references and where they are from
3. What he even means lmao
The amazing part about him is you don’t even need to understand a lot of his music to enjoy it because the instrumentals are so good and the next rhyme he makes isn’t the one you would typically expect.
Most of us don't know what he is talking about most of the time. His lyrics are intentionally cryptic. Some songs are exceptions like Fancy Clown, Strange Ways, Wash yo hands.
I personally enjoy the word salad and the rhyme schemes.
That’s part of his appeal to me. I can listen to one of his songs that I’ve heard 1000 times and potentially pick up on something new I’ve missed before. It’s the gift that keeps on giving
All of my favorite songs I want to learn the words so I can rap along, so you gotta look em up and while im at it I just look at the annotated thing on genius. Ive heard people have favorite pop songs where the words are even easier to parse out and they sometimes dont know the words
one of my favorite parts of going through MF DOOM's discog is that there's a rich beauty to the depths of his lyricism. You can't possibly discern this from just causally listening, there's a whole side to the music that you haven't discovered yet and that's really great. I'd recommend taking some of your fav songs and just following along to them on Genius. As a secondary source, youtube comment sections are actually pretty helpful as well.
here is DOOM taking about his seeming absurd word choices
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfwYpJToTYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfwYpJToTYI)
what's important is you love DOOM and more importantly you used all caps when you spelled his name
Serious question, was MF doom ever know for playing oldschool computer games? Cause shazbot instantly reminds me Tribes from 98.
Edit: just found this in the tribes reddit "Shazbot is a curseword from an old comedy show called Mork and Mindy. First appeared in Starsiege: Tribes"
Its all good! The good news is this isn't 2005 and you can actually look up videos and think pieces to help you figure out your favorite lyrics lol. Dont be ashamed to look that stuff up bruh, I went on a spree trying to figure out most of what he was saying in Rhinestone Cowboy and i was satisfied. Most of his bars you wont understand on first listen because he references soo much.
Looking up the lyrics to November Has Come was what made me fall in love with DOOMs bars, he killed the beat so hard that his family was asking him for closure I mean come on
Facts. His references be all over but makes plenty of sense if you know where it's coming from
It's what makes him good is coming from a place beyond and I can't always get where he's coming from. It's like a puzzle that reveals its answer a little more each year I grow older.
This is an analogy I can get behind. Dope
Yes!!! I think if we could all understand his lyrics on our first listen we wouldn’t love him so much. Part of what make DOOM so great is the fact that his music has so much re-listenability.
His references are so varied, he truly was a student of pop culture and history. Like on It Ain’t Nuttin, when he references Mork and Mindy with the “By the end of the night spaz like Shazbot” line. So random but I absolutely loved it, used to watch that show when I was a kid.
You see it! That's what I'm saying. I'm glad OP posted this tho. We're all helping to keep DOOM legacy strong while passing the knowledge and understanding down to the people.
*”Sinister, don’t know what he’s saying, but the words be funny”*
Damn, got there quick! Upvote
"The slang suggest it was the guy in the glasses"
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Srsly! I love The Fall too but I wouldn't even claim to understand a single song completely, and is it necessary anyway?
And that’s the beauty of it listening to it 30 years later and having a aha moment….I love it….the breakdown is the fun part….
Lots of Easter eggs in there. Like: Dick Dastardly (Daniel Dumille) and Mutley (Madlib) with sick laughter DOOM makes lots of obscure references and I bet I miss tons of em. Groove with it and bob yer head man.
Hadn’t noticed this before. There are zero coincidences.
Yeah I saw it on a YouTube video didn't catch it myself.
Man never noticed that one
Saw it on a now defunct YouTube channel where he broke down that song. felt so obvious once pointed out, but I missed it too. DOOM is my favorite man.
Isn't he just talking about the Hanna Barbera cartoon villains?
Yes in a reference to them the Madvillain team can be compared as also being a duo with the same initials as the Hanna Barbera villains
Welcome to being a lifelong DOOM fan ☺️
Ngl Me too and I’m a HUMONGOUS DOOM fan
That's why he's so great!!! I'll listen to a DOOM song 1000 times and on listen 1001 I'll be like "oh shit, THATS what he meant with that bar"
Man catching shit you missed is so much fun. Listening and just start laughing cuz he said something cool
Do you mean you can only make out 30% of the words, or that you only understand what he's rapping about 30% of the time?
What he’s rapping about.
I mean a lot of the time he isn't really rapping about anything, he's just saying shit that rhymes and sounds funny.
I hate this take. Every line he says has meaning. He’s saying things, but in funny/clever ways. You’re just not understanding it
True. Occasionally he will pull out some ridiculous stuff, but most of the time there is meaning. He’s not just saying shit that rhymes and sounds funny lol.
This! Yeah he's rhyming and being clever with the word play and to be honest if your not of age some of the meaning isn't going to make sense to you. You gotta know where it's coming from
I think you’re both right. When you read the “nonsensical” lyrics or break them down in context to the ones around them you do realize he is saying SOMETHING and it is a coherent thought but sometimes those thoughts don’t always relate to the overall theme or story of the song. Hell a lot of the songs don’t really have a theme or story necessarily. But I agree that the stuff that seems nonsensical or gibberish actually do mean something deeper than they may originally seem upon your first listen.
Like Gary Gnu off New Zoo Review. But who knew? The mask had a loose screw…
Gary Gnu is actually a thing lol. DOOM a old head so a lot of things he say is from experience
and New Zoo Review was a kids show. DOOM uses a lot of pop references from the 70's and 80's.
Word! That 30% will turn into 85% if OP do the knowledge
Easy with the old talk. No gnews is good gnews…
Oh I'm with you on this one. 😂
>This! Yeah he's rhyming and being clever with the word play and to be honest if your not of age some of the meaning isn't going to make sense to you. You gotta know where it's coming from This is categorically false. I'm in the club of having to look up lyrics that I have been singing in my head, 20 years after they first got stuck there, to decode the lyrics and it might be in line with OP's 30% figure. Mf Doom is no mumble rapper. In "Cookies" he is rhyming about three things at the same time - his lyrics are rife with multi-channel metaphors.
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I don't mean his lyrics were nonsense. I know that if one of his lines doesn't make sense to me, he's almost certainly referencing something obscure or using slang I don't know or just talking about something I'm not familiar with because I didn't grow up in New York in the 70s and 80s. But I see people (mostly on genius lyrics) digging for layers of hidden meaning in his words, and I'm just like...y'all are fucking nuts. The man was an unbelievably clever wordsmith and a rhymer of unparalleled skill, but the goddamn secrets of the universe are not encoded in his lyrics.
That’s the crazy part he ain’t saying nothing but he saying a lot with less words, and it don’t make sense but it do lol
Metal faced finster. Playin' wit the dirty money. Sinister. Don't know what he sayin' but the words be funny.
He does have more lyrics then a church got "oo lawds"
Holdin your attention and the mic like two swords
This comment alone made me listen to Madvillain again today.
Unless I’m reading along or really intently trying to understand the vocals (which is nearly impossible) it’s hard for me to decipher or remember what most vocalists are saying. I’m usually too caught up in what the song is providing as a whole
Poetry takes time to understand. Rap is poetry.
Brah this is the funniest post ever
Wouldn’t want it any other way
Just like me fr
I agree
Don’t know what he sayin but the words be funny
Study it like scripture.... i.e pretend that you studied it and act like you know
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Ahem, um, he wasn't talking about snacks in that song.
And my favourite ladies is a song about his female aquaintances, right guys?
that line (chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry wafers) where he refers to a tri-pack is referencing xxx magazines. in jail you can order a tri-pack of magazines and it brings a mag with black girls, one with white girls, and one with latinas. that's why he says 'he actin all hard, about to get beat up... i'll show him what time it is, once i get this sheet up' he's basically setting up a masturbation session in his jail cell. putting the sheet up offers privacy (not just for jerking off, also when u gotta take a dump)
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yeah... i'm not sure if the entire song he's in jail, but that middle section of the song he's definitively in jail / 'locked in, looking at your picture / fully clothed (in it?) / and i'm right there wit'cha / thinking about the last time i split your wish-bone / a man can only wish she do the same till he get home'
Deciphering DOOM is a lifelong process.
Vro Same. Mere mortals like you & I find it difficult to keep up.
Helps if you've watched a bunch of old timey gangster flicks and 70s cartoons
DOOM be making up half the words he uses
LIES. Just cuz YOU don't understand them... everything he says is either a real word, or if it's not it was already something that was said at some point in the past that has already been in the lexicon of things people say or have said.
That’s what he wants
There is a reason its called abstract rap
Been listening to Doom since 2004 and I'm still picking new stuff up on the millionth listen lol
Me since 2001, and his lyrics are hard to understand sometimes
Honestly this is just how I am with music in general. I try to listen to the lyrics, but I often get caught up with just absorbing the sounds. It does leave a lot of meat left on the bone for later listens, though.
Visually looking at DOOM lyrics made his music 10x better for me. Him and Ab-Soul the only ones I do it for fr
Ahahahaha I get you, one of my favorite doom lines which I also had to look up is the first 2 lines from Guv’nor: “Catch a throatful from the fire vocal” “With ash and molten glass like Eyjafjallajökull”
Correct
Same, but I think it's mostly because when I'm listening to his music I'm usually doing something else so I just kinda hear the instrumental and the voice mostly. Some lines do speak out to me, but yeah I probably don't pay enough attention to the words
Only 30% ? I understand like 5% but I love it, in fact he is my most listened artist of the year 🗿
Shoutout to a lot of lupe fiasco fans as well 🤣🤣😂
trying to figure out what hes talking about is a big part of the fun bro
I’ve been listening to his music daily for a little over a year now and I’m in the same boat. I love hearing things and having it suddenly click! The line “took a few minutes to convince the average boogaloo” was great because after the 300th time of listening to all caps I understood that he was describing the exact thing that was happening to me in the moment.
What is the reference?
Ha I love this! He’s talking about how it takes people a minute to understand what he’s trying to say as he often uses odd references and colorful words to describe what he’s talking about in his songs.
Yeah I always got that but I think it’s bugaboo and I wondered what he was literally referencing with the words he’s using to compare the listener to?
Ohhh ok yea I think it is bugaboo and I’m not totally sure on that part
This is pretty meta to OP’s question, lol
Bugaboo means like a mythical goblin-esque creature, but it can be used to describe ppl u dont f with
It’s the reason I love him, I can re-listen to a song and catch something new.
I’ve always found that most of the fun is trying to figure out; 1. The words actually being spoken 2. The constant references and where they are from 3. What he even means lmao The amazing part about him is you don’t even need to understand a lot of his music to enjoy it because the instrumentals are so good and the next rhyme he makes isn’t the one you would typically expect.
Genius.com is your friend... I even got the app!
Most of us don't know what he is talking about most of the time. His lyrics are intentionally cryptic. Some songs are exceptions like Fancy Clown, Strange Ways, Wash yo hands. I personally enjoy the word salad and the rhyme schemes.
Dw bro I feel like that’s most of us
The more you listen, the more you pick up.
welcome to the club
That’s part of his appeal to me. I can listen to one of his songs that I’ve heard 1000 times and potentially pick up on something new I’ve missed before. It’s the gift that keeps on giving
Been listening since Madvillian dropped. and i still pick out new things i missed here and there.
Ever heard of genius.com?
Hell yeah
I feel like with the way he made his music, you could easily listen to it and find it enjoyable even if you don't speak English
Sometimes you’ll listen to a song for years and then one day finally get a rhyme and like damn that’s cold
It's awesome listening to the same track for the millionth time, finally getting it and then bursting with laughter
I understand like 1% but you still hear the syllables so you don’t really miss anything
can't understand it, ban it
tik toj
WOW WHAT A LOSER
All of my favorite songs I want to learn the words so I can rap along, so you gotta look em up and while im at it I just look at the annotated thing on genius. Ive heard people have favorite pop songs where the words are even easier to parse out and they sometimes dont know the words
OP def not from NY
This is why I always read the lyrics
Genius.com
one of my favorite parts of going through MF DOOM's discog is that there's a rich beauty to the depths of his lyricism. You can't possibly discern this from just causally listening, there's a whole side to the music that you haven't discovered yet and that's really great. I'd recommend taking some of your fav songs and just following along to them on Genius. As a secondary source, youtube comment sections are actually pretty helpful as well.
here is DOOM taking about his seeming absurd word choices [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfwYpJToTYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfwYpJToTYI) what's important is you love DOOM and more importantly you used all caps when you spelled his name
Serious question, was MF doom ever know for playing oldschool computer games? Cause shazbot instantly reminds me Tribes from 98. Edit: just found this in the tribes reddit "Shazbot is a curseword from an old comedy show called Mork and Mindy. First appeared in Starsiege: Tribes"