LYRICAL LOITERINGS OF A LISTENER Series
Thoughts, ideas and reactions provoked by song lyrics. The series is also featured on Clink Music Magazine.
Korn: love ‘em, hate ‘em, they’re in your face either way. The lyrics to “Ya’ll Want A Single” are pretty straight forward: “fuck you” and “fuck that”. More specifically, fuck the record labels that demand the mass production of top selling singles. The song is Korn’s rant against commercialism. However hypocritical one may find the song, everyone enjoys a vent every now and then and I am no exception. Any Korn song would have fuelled the rant upon which I am about to embark but “Ya’ll Want A Single” epitomises the “fuck you” that I would like to deliver to the metal jocks of the world who Korn have been pulling out of the woodwork since 1994.
Ya’ll Want A Single
Y’all want a single say fuck that
Fuck that, fuck that
Y’all want a single say fuck that
Fuck that, fuck that
Y’all want a single say fuck that
Fuck that, fuck that
Y’all want a single say fuck that
Boom boom boom boom
What’s going on today? (today)
We gotta break away (away)
We got a problem and
I think it’s going to make us go down
They think we’re all the same (the same)
And always here to blame (to blame)
For shit I think is lame (is lame)
It’s time to stop the game (the game)
I think it’s time to pay for everything you made me say
Y’all want a single say fuck that (fuck that)
Fuck that, fuck that (fuck that)
What’s going on today? (today)
Why must it be this way? (this way)
We’re going nowhere and
We’re still knocking the need to bow down
They think we’re all the same (the same)
And always here to blame (to blame)
For shit I think is lame (is lame)
It’s time to stop the game (the game)
I think it’s time to pay for everything you made me say
Y’all want a single say fuck that (fuck that)
Fuck that, fuck that (fuck that)
We are the ones breaking you down
We are the hose to drown out your sounds
All Across the world you’ve fed what you found
All Across the world you’re breaking you down
Y’all want a single say fuck that
Fuck that, fuck that shit!
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKK!
Y’all want a single say fuck that
Fuck that, fuck that
Wanna single say fuck that
Fuck that, fuck that
Y’all want a single say fuck that (fuck that)
Fuck that, fuck that (fuck that)
Before you, reader, roll your eyes in boredom because you think that I am about to deliver a ‘why nu-metal is awesome’ speech – I’m not, so keep those eyeballs steady. What I do want to mention, and what Korn’s song reminds me of, is that metal is no stranger to the word “jock”. ‘Metal jock’ may seem like an oxymoron… but sadly, no, it is not. ‘Jock’, although often synonymous with ‘athlete’, has taken on the urban context of an attitude or mentality. The Urban Dictionary proposes some apt definitions for the term ‘jock’. Read and weep:
1. A person, who, contributes little or nothing to society.
2. Dumbass athletes who get all the chicks in high school. They end up bagging our groceries, cleaning public toilets and flipping burgers at McDonald’s after high school. They usually like group showers with other jocks after doing their dumbass sports.
3. Jock. Slang for the thick-but-amiable types that always do well socially. No idea how, for most of them are arrogant bastards who think that the world would blow itself up in mourning if they were to die. Also, they tend to lie for each other to keep their noses clean.
4. Stupid athletes who happen to be assholes and go absolutely nowhere in life.
5. Someone who gets preferential treatment just because they play sports.
The point is made. The ‘jock’ attitude is one of unwarranted exclusivity based on grandiose egotism. It is an elitist attitude that the metal movement reacts in complete opposition to. However, in reaction to the elitism of the jock clique, metal has established its own clique with a set of rules and regulations that must be subscribed to if you are to ‘fit in’. Irony? Hypocrisy? Bullshit? Take your pick. Metal often attracts the outsiders and misfits who have been rejected and sometimes tormented by the jocks of the world. Metalheads are often social rejects and metal gives its members a place to be cool and accepted – just like any other clique. I am, of course, generalising – so if you do not fall into this category don’t get all mad… the point I am making will more than likely apply to you anyway, Mr Metalhead. I am not ranting against the dynamic of ‘the clique’, I am ranting against the fact that the metal fraternity boasts the same elitist attitude as the jock clique but pretends not to. Metalheads like to think that their attitude is different to the jock mentality, when, in fact, it very often is not.
Metal is an extreme movement and opinions will be extreme. “Defenders of the faith” is the metal motto, and that is one of the reasons I love metal music. Here’s what is irritating; metalheads love to over-intellectualise music in a competitive bid to try and ‘know all’, and in so doing the essential emotive element that drives metal is undermined. So, if you like Korn, you become the ridicule of ‘true’ metalheads who consider nu-metal entirely redundant. And of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion – I have picked on Korn to expose a point. If over-intellectualising is your thing – sweet, keep at it, but don’t think that you are superior in any way to those who feel music rather than think it. It is one thing to be opinionated but it is another to express those opinions in a manner synonymous with one’s enemy – it is an unforgivable irony. The metal jock is a bully who considers his opinions more important and significant than those of anyone else whilst simultaneously failing to recognise the possession of an attitude that is, in fact, the same as anyone else’s – more specifically, the same as a jock’s.
So, to metal jocks and all of their arrogant pontifications: “Fuck that shit”!
