50 Songs [Crunk Edition]: Drowning (New Rap Version)
Part of my 50 Songs this year challenge.
I love hip hop. I love rap.
This week’s song is me doing what I love. When I was younger I did this for hours. Made beats. Slung rhymes. The works.
Influences:
Influences for this song are many and made themselves manifest as I worked through the song. Though I purposely never “sample” or rip songs to build other songs, there’s definitely a buffet of influences mashing-up into a whole new song. Some of them I might not even know. See if you can hear some of these influences:
- Early boy band/bubble gum pop
- Mozart
- Tupac
- The Truman Show
- TobyMac
- Weird Al
- Hustle & Flow
- Madagascar & Madagascar 2 (the movies)
- My days studying Music Comp/Theory at Georgia Southern
I’m sure there’s more. Now before you assume I went and consumed all of this entertainment and then attempted to make a song out of all of them, I didn’t. I got about halfway through the song when I started hearing a lot of this stuff.
Anyways, get your Dirty South Crunk Boy Band on and bounce with me. This song will make you wanna nod your head in time. It’s about being in a tough spot and crying out for help. Hence the name “Drowning” —lyrical inspiration comes loosely from an old Blind Men See (my old band) song of the same name.
And yes, that’s me, rapping.
Lyrics:
It always seems like I’m having the time of my life
And I feel like I am walking in the prime of my life
And the sun is shining down on my shoulders
And I’m feeling good, though I’m getting older
But just as the sun rays are kissing my face
Thunder starts rolling in and invading my space
And the clouds keep on getting darker
And the days keep on getting darker
The rain starts falling on my face, washing away
the sunny days, and I gotta pray
For a break in this stormy weather
I feel I’m caught in this flood forever
Can you hear me
Can you see me
I’m drowning
How did I end up, not being able to man up
My feet are far from the bottom, I can’t stand up
The flood waters keep rising
And my head is going under, I keep sliding
Deeper and deeper, I’m going under
Flashes of lightning rolls of thunder
And the clouds keep on getting darker
And the days keep on getting darker
The rain starts falling on my face, washing away
the sunny days, and I gotta pray
For a break in this stormy weather
I feel I’m caught in this flood forever
Can you hear me
Can you see me
I’m drowning
Can you hear me
Can you see me
I’m drowning
And the clouds keep on getting darker
And the days keep on getting darker
The rain starts falling on my face, washing away
the sunny days, and I gotta pray
Nice!
My kids just listened to it and now my daughter headed to her room and is jamming ont he guitar. Nice inspiration!
Brent: haha that’s great!
I wouldn’t have picked you as a rapper Russ. Full of surprises, and I love that. It definitely had my head nodding in time :)
Though my favourite bit (perversely) is the wonky keyboard outro.
There are so many things I like about this song. The downbeat of the elec.
The nice drive in the beat.
The Chorus with the swirly melody is GREAT. Oh gosh that might be my best part.
The outtro is smooth. Keep the instrumental hook going, but I like the music box sound at the end.
This is good stuff, Russ. I knew you had all that white boy rap in you – that’s the Russ Hutto I thought you were way back when!! :) Thanks for sharing this one. I’m totally completely impressed.
@David: not many people peg me at first, second, or even third glance. When I was younger I I surprised people all the time. The keyboard outro is actually a modified waltz that I wrote as a theme and variation back when I was in school.
@mandy: thanks for your kind words. The chorus was an accident, that I liked and kept. You know how that goes. Isn’t it funny when those mistakes end up being the catchy hooks of the songs?
LOVE it. Hahahaha. :) Niceee. The swirly chorus is my favorite part too!
Thanks Kayln!