Remarks:
This came out in 2016 but did not chart. Its sample of “Want Ads” (1971) is better than “Want Ads”, but the song as a whole is not. Somewhere between the two there is a great song yet to be sung.
The strange thing about the music video is that when I first saw it I thought the group was British, even though everything in it that I can point to and clearly identify is American:
- the location: a New York City subway station in the Bronx
- the accents of the boy and the woman
- the sample of “Why Can’t I Get It Too” (1959) by Six Boys In Trouble
- the sample of “Want Ads” (1971) by Honey Cone
- the rap by Sonny Cheeba of Camp Lo
Even stranger still, I was not far off: the Avalanches, as it turns out, are Australian:
It is like one of those episodes of “Star Trek” where something is not quite right and it turns out to be a computer simulation created by an alien mind.
See also:
Lyrics:
[Hook]
If she don’t love me, what can I do?
Just put on my best pair of shoes
Because I’m me
Because she said, “He’s the one that drill the charms
Honey let’s go wrong”
I just want to know
What’s wrong with me?
Being in love with you
[Verse 1: Sonny Cheeba]
Yeah
9th grade had the jingles of the swinging rainbow jacket
Lost lingo, Bronx’s only Django
Snap, he’d got less tougher
That’s where my props go
That’s where my pops went
See my percentage is a pennant to the planet
Knock it out the ball park, Frankie
I should not tire this tire
To a better love, let the wings spread
It’ll always come back, baby
Come back, shellac black, baby
A come back, flat black paint on a Chevy
[Hook]
If she don’t love me, what can I do?
Just put on my best pair of shoes
Because, I’m, I’m me
Because I’m me
Because I’m me
Because I’m me, I’m me
[Verse 2: Sonny Cheeba]
Never mind my tone when I told Pretty Tony
Listen to my tone, you ain’t catchin’ you a Tony
Award-winning walk when you running with a shottie
Why you running from us?
Why you messing with us?
We ain’t got no guns, we just let the bears witness
The Grizzly, maybe Polar
You ain’t ready, you ain’t ready ‘ready rolled up
Pulling a machete, cut the bamboo paper
And let’s roll out baby
[Hook]
I just want to know
What’s wrong with me?
[Instrumental]
Source: Genius Lyrics.
This song has been on my playlist all Spring and Summer, and that video is just the cutest thing.
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The Avalanches is one of my favorite groups. I really love “Since I left you” (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpqm-05R2Jk ) and “Subways” (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPIMfOIuEe4 ; this is also one of my five-year-old daughter’s favorite clips).
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