- Where Will You Be
Foreshadows the events and raises the big question for all the characters. Especially Deacon the Villain (protagonist)
- Since When
Deacon and Natti represent the South, but are tired of being slept on. This is kind of their anthem where they brag, but also show a little frustration that they are not being heard.
Lyrics:
“Take you through church in a verse til you view fact”- It seems like what they have been doing with their music is right (they have some light), but it doesn’t sell. That’s where the frustration comes in. Should they change? Decisions Decisions InterludeSample in the end of Since When: “See what ya’ll did to rappers. They scared to be themselves”- Will Deacon change because of the public sleeping on him and what the public demands?
Sample voice in outro “When you appeared, my future came true to me” Foreshadows Mary Jane?
(there are many other important lines that relate)
- Nothing to Give
After Deacon’s frustration, he goes out at night and this is what he sees. This song shows what the characters will go through. What goes down at night. The sin theme for all the characters.
Lyrics
“While rapists take the darkness and make alleys they mattress”
“slugs travel through gun barrels from hands that”s had practice”
“in the abyss is children that get lost in the mix” Relates to the mixed race baby who is abandoned by Tonedeff.
“We no longer seek life to give us power”
(Song basically about sinning at night)
- Caved In
After Deacon witnessing all the stuff he saw at night, he just wants something/someone to make him happy. He can’t “hold on”
Lyrics:
“I’m seeing impatient parents blaming unsuspected children”- Foreshadowing. You should figure out who it foreshadows
“Stretch out a fat meal on the table from something slim now we starving, faith on the back of a carton to find it, follows tracks down arms.” Hungry
“Life’s an unfed beast that eats bread and meat. That’s either your cash or your corpse, yo I just pray that the Lord helps me last through these wars, ya know?”- Well, Deacon doesn’t have money. So that must be his life.
- Hourglass
This is the light at the end of the tunnel. Looking for something or someone to make him happy, Deacon just wants a girl. It seems like Deacon is just asking for a girl/weed (double meaning is possible). Hourglass is the beginning of the rest of the album. The hourglass is symbolic to something that runs over time kind of like him being “high” and the mother in the story.
Lyrics:
“Behind my eyes to take something unfortunate and show them they’re a fortune in my life”- Asking to see this bright light which is found in the end. “Clock something that’ll learn who I am”
End of Hourglass- “Stay strong and fight life, like Sudan Kings/ pray to make cents for giving/ and make sense outta living/ lord give me patience to gain wisdom”- What Deacon is asking for.
- Beautiful Girl
Story: If you haven’t figured it out, hit yourself and stop listening to hip-hop. This song is about weed. The weed can have a double meaning for the “hourglass lady”.
Lyrics:
“can make a blind man see and forget his doctor’s appointment”
I won’t change you, just tame who’s within the Villain”
- Inhale (interlude)
He is getting high/ Fucking her. Remember, Jane can have two meanings.
End of song: “Entering a whole new world. I think I’m seeing things” He is high. This is the beginning of the rest of the album.
- Brain Cell
This song describes the baby that comes into this world “from the darkness pigment seen” Open your ears and listen to this fuckin song. It’s about being trapped in life since you’re born till you die. Look out for all the “square” words.
Uncertain Idea:
Verse 1: You are born: Trapped from start.
Verse 2: A little older. School. Trapped again in cell like objects in state of mind and physically eventually go to jail.
Verse 3: Life in prison
(could be about life daughter can go through)’Now I know this is weird, but for some reason I thought this was Technique’s character. I’ll explain later.
Even though you can be trapped, you can also escape these cells.
Lyrics:
“put behind bars and you ain’t even lived yet.”
“the same loving hands that absorb pain, kill” The mother when the baby is inside?
- From Kno:
Brain Cell represents a person allowing themselves to be mentally imprisoned and in turn, physically…it is about what COULD happen, not what actually happens. Natti’s last 4 bars resolve this.
More specifically to the story, it is the realiztion of his own fate/possible outcome through an “imagined” future for his child who has been introduced into the story. The protagonist is obviously grown here, why would Brain Cell be about him in a literal sense?
- America Loves Gangsters
Read the title. This shows the return of the dark side that is alluded in Brain Cell. Systematic killings because, “it’s fun to watch cannons bust”. Needless death. When you can no longer find religion, people find violence instead.
Lyrics:
Just listen to Tim Means’s spoken word in the end.
- Never Know Why
This song lyrically introduces the characters in the world that we’ve come to known through the previous songs.
Deacon’s verse is about Tonedeff’s character which he can become.
Immortal Technique’s character is the other person he can become.
A grand daughter (of an hourglass lady..YEAH OH SHIT! It’s coming together!) is in need of help. She is put in front of Tone’s/Immortal’s doorstep. Tone, being a racist, old-fashioned bitch was a bitch about it. Now he’s dead and lost the chance to know her. Nice job dick.
“put her out in the cold, didn’t want her close to he. Cause his grand daughters are diff than she’s supposed to be.”- think about it
“but just before I vanish as I think I’m right at the end
The sun becomes the light of my birth and I live again”- Immortal went the other road than Tone.
“I live vicariously through my kids”- This is the big line that lets you realize that Immortal is the dual character.
- The Gates
Tone’s character is a white firefighter and he takes pride in that. He has just died and is at the Gates making his confession. (trying to go to heaven) He doesn’t care about anyone so he’s “sent to fight fires for eternity.” Of course he has his reasons. His wife, from another race, died and he thinks life would be easier if he stuck to his race. So he’s pissed his “seed repeated his mistake.”
- Damnation
The sound of Tone falling in hell.
“The devil takes many colors and shapes walking through hell” RACE DOESN’T MATTER!
- Hellfire
Don’t need to explain. Tone is burning.
- Remember Me
The beautiful transition track to the whole CD. The hourglass has finished. Deacon has sobered up. Mary Jane has done what she came to do. Deacon’s character understanding to not forget what Mary showed him throughout all the songs in the “hourglass era”.
The voice sample in the end is so nice.
“Easy, for us to forget”- Letting deacon know to remember. Don’t forget this shit.
Sample voice: “Remember Me.” Mary Jane telling Deacon not to forget what she showed him. Beautiful.
- What’ll You Do
Answers the question to Since When. What will Deacon do? After the vision he was just given will he continue his path or try to fix his life.
Lyrics
Sample in the end (my personal favorite): “Lay it down. Lay it down again.” Deacon, it’s time to get back to the mic you got this!“Two from The Dirt met with mismatched skin, acknowledged first that one day this track may end. When there’s no more steam in that engine.” Kno and Deacon.
“For the love is a hard reason to keep my life in suspension. Kno, for the love is a hard reason to keep our lives in suspension, yeah”
This song gives me the chills.
- The Light
This is outro is like a similar outro feel that ATLiens has. This song basically sums up the whole album. In this world of ugliness we need to remember to look at ourselves for warming our soul and to lay it down) Set your eyes on the sun. IDENTITY HAS BEEN FOUND.
“Cause she’s a teenage love like beepers and reefer ain’t nobody on this earth been perfect since birth sinning and doing the erk and jerk in Church”
THE END