The Isley Brothers - Footsteps in the Dark

This is a 2 part post.

Songs often focus on dramatic upswings or downturns; leaving someone, getting left, meeting a new lover, falling in love, getting married, so on and so on. Very rarely are songs (hits, at least) about mundane or everyday actions or emotions that drive us between the moments of falling in love and falling out of it.

Two of my favorite songs deal with a topic rarely discussed on the hit parade: the reevaluation of a relationship. The two songs I’m discussing in particular are Footsteps in the Dark by the Isley Brothers and Heart to Heart by Kenny Loggins.

The old guys from the R. Kelly videos and that yacht rocker from the 80’s, you ask? These people are who you’ve decided to give kudos to for dealing with tough emotional issues in a pop song?

Yes.

As I get older and understand more of the idiosyncratic nature of humans, I ironically have felt drawn to “adult contemporary” artists. This is probably because many of them are GOOD. Yep. It’s the shit your dad listens to in his study when he’s alone. You know why? Because your dad needs a goddamn break from taking care of your dumb, spoiled ass and listening to your mother bitch about the assholes on city council. 

Footsteps in the Dark is, to my generation at least, known as the song Ice Cube sampled for his hit “It Was a Good Day”. This is shameful, because Ice Cube can eat dicks compared to the brilliance of the Isley Brothers, and they’re not even in my top 10 favorite musicians list. This song is often touted as a song about infidelity, and while I can understand this interpretation, I see a much softer, vague, blurry meaning: the voice wonders about infidelity both on his part and his lover’s, but it is implied as looking down other corridors and hallways, as a confession we have all gone through if you’ve been with someone long enough. The voice wonders if he loves his partner enough to keep going with this relationship; what other options there are, and whether they’re worth taking. In the end, much like in real life, the voice settles on (for the moment at least) staying with the lover that has been around for so long and gone though so much. The voice, after all, still loves this person and feels it’s worth it to continue the affair with the subtle recommendation they both stay aware of their feelings and appreciate each other. Sage advice.

Footsteps in the Dark

coopsplace: Mos Def - New World Water

Sterner here.

People often forget how prolific Mos Def is. Granted, he did it to himself with all of his corny MTV appearances and trying to be an “actor” and whatnot, but that shouldn’t erase the great work the man has done alone as well as with Talib Kwali in Black Star. New World Water is the last track on a great album from ‘99, Black on Both Sides. It does what good hip hop is supposed to do: give you something to bob your head to while making you think. The lyrics are simplistic but riddled with truth. As the world continues to degrade itself the name of greed, this song stands as an ironic testament to the late 90’s, the last decade of the century Before the Fall.

NEW WORLD WATER

New World Water make the tide rise high
Come inland and make your house go “bye”
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 H-2 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 fuckin’ bath
Heads is acting wild, sippin poor, puffin dank
Competin’ with the next man for higher playin rank
See I ain’t got time try to be Big Hank, 
Fuck 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)
Fluorocarbons and monoxide
Push the water table lopside 
Used to be free now it cost you a fee 
Cause oil tankers spill they load as 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 shit (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 in perpetual neediness (Say word?)
Epidemics hoppin’ 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 should just have to go to your sink for it
The cash registers is goin “cha-chink!” for it
Fluorocarbons 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

andisen:

Frank Sinatra - That’s Life

That’s life!
That’s what all the people say
You’re ridin’ high in April
Shot down in May
But I know I’m gonna change that tune
When I’m back on top, back on top in June

I said that’s life
And, as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks stompin’ on a dream
But I don’t let it, let it get me down
‘Cause this fine, old world, it keeps spinnin’ around

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out and I know one thing
Each time I find myself flat on my face
I pick myself up and get back in the race

That’s life!
I tell ya, I can’t deny it
I thought of quittin’, baby
But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it
And if I didn’t think it was worth one, single try
I’d jump right on a big bird
And then I’d fly

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out and I know one thing
Each time I find myself layin’ flat on my face
I just pick myself up and get back in the race

That’s life!
That’s life and I can’t deny it
Many time I thought of cuttin’ out but my heart won’t buy it
But if there’s nothin’ shakin’ come this here July
I’m gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die
My, my

I sing this to my goddamn self every motherfucking day.

megaul: Johnny Cash - God’s Gonna Cut You Down

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down

Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news
My head’s been wet with the midnight dew
I’ve been down on bended knee talkin’ to the man from Galilee
He spoke to me in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the angel’s feet
He called my name and my heart stood still
When he said, “John go do My will!”

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut ‘em down

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down
Sooner or later God’ll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut you down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut you down
Tell ‘em that God’s gonna cut you down