Lyrics and Life

By Caitlin Ward

He Got Game
Public Enemy ft. Stephen Stills

Chuck D:
If man is the father, the son is the centre of the earth
In the middle of the universe
Then why is this verse comin’ six times rehearsed
Don’t freestyle much but I write ‘em like such (Word)
Amongst the fiends, controlled by the screens
What does it all mean all this shit I’m seein’
Human beings screaming vocal javelins
Signs of a local nigga unravelin’

My wandering, got my ass wondering
Where Christ is in all this crisis
Hatin’ Satan never knew what nice is
Check the papers while I bet on Isis
More than your eye can see and ears can hear
Year by year, all the sense disappears
Nonsense perseveres prayers laced with fear
Beware 2 triple O is near

CHORUS
It might feel good, it might sound a lil’ somethin’
But damn the game if it don’t mean nothin’
What is game, who got game, where’s the game in life?
Behind the game, behind the game
I got game, she’s got game
We got game, they got game, he got game
It might feel good, it might sound a lil’ somethin’
But f— the game if it ain’t sayin’ nothin’

Chuck D:
Damn was it somethin’ I said?
Pretend you don’t see so you turn your head
Race scared of its shadow, does it matter?
Thought of reparations got ‘em playin’ with the population
Nothing to lose, everything’s approved
People used, even murders excused
White men in suits don’t have to jump
Still a thousand and one ways to lose with the shoes
God takes care of ol’ folks and fools
While the Devil takes care of makin’ all the rules
Folks don’t even own themselves
Payin’ mental rent to corporate presidents
One out of one million residents
Being dissident, who ain’t kissin’ it
The politics of chains and whips
Got the sick missin’ chips and all the championships
What’s love got to do with what you got
Don’t let a win get to your head or a loss to your heart
Nonsense perseveres prayers laced with fear
Beware 2 triple O is near

CHORUS

Stephen Stills:
There’s something happenin’ here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there (Yeah that’s right)
Telling me I got to beware

It’s time we stopped children
What’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down (x3)

Flavor Flav:
These are some serious times that we livin’ in, G
And our new world order is about to begin
You know what I’m sayin,’ now the question is
Are you ready for the real revolution
Which is the evolution of the mind
If you seek than you shall find that we all come from the Divine
You dig what I’m sayin,’ now if you take heed to the words of wisdom
That are written on the walls of life then universally we will stand
And divided we will fall ‘cause love conquers all
You understand what I’m sayin’
This is a call to all you sleepin’ souls
Wake up and take control of your own cycle
And be on the lookout for those spirit snipers trying to steal your light
You know what I’m sayin,’ look what’s inside yourself for
Peace, give thanks, live life and release, you dig me, you got me

Choir:
Everybody knows what’s going down
Stop, look what’s that sound
Everybody knows what’s going down

There are two things I remember from my childhood better than anything else: first, I’m pretty sure it was always summer and, second, I watched a lot of the original Muppets show. I was too young to recognize how incredibly 1970s the series was, from the music to the costumes to the fact that Steve Martin had brown hair when he was the guest star.
I did recognize they were reruns, though, and I remember always getting very excited when it was the Bob Hope episode, though I had no idea who Bob Hope was at the time.

I got excited, you see, because it had this song I loved on it: the scene was an idyllic wood, with what in retrospect I think was an opossum taking lead vocals. The woodland creatures are singing the best song ever before they’re rudely interrupted by a bunch of hunters shooting like drunken . . . well, like drunken people with guns, really. Also, for some reason, a brass section gets in there. But hey, it was the 1970s, right?

It was many years later that I learned that this song was an actual song by an actual band, as opposed to a plaintive cry against hunting from a load of woodland Muppets. In fact, the song is For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield — a 1967 single that characterized the turbulent reality of protest, counter-protest and police violence at the time. Many band members went on to write and perform many well-known songs in other bands (notably Neil Young and Stephen Stills, though also Jim Messina and Richie Furay), but it’s probably the only Buffalo Springfield song you know. It’s certainly the only one I know. You might not recognize the name, but you’d recognize the iconic guitar hook, the harmonics at the top of the neck, and you’d know the chorus: “stop, children, what’s that sound? / Everybody look what’s going down.”

For What It’s Worth has shown up in various incarnations throughout the years — covered by everyone from Cher to Led Zeppelin, soundtracking fictitious treks through Vietnam throughout the 1990s, and perhaps my favourite, sampled by Public Enemy for their song He Got Game.

He Got Game was the lead single off the soundtrack for the Spike Lee film (or Joint, as he would say) of the same name. In many ways, the Public Enemy song bears little resemblance to either of the versions I’ve already spoken of, but strangely, I feel as if this 1999 version has a peculiar affinity with both the 1967 Buffalo Springfield original and the woodland creature version of 1977.

You see, regardless of the fact that each of these versions is aimed at a different audience, perhaps for different reasons, they all have a similar underlying motivation. The original For What It’s Worth spoke to a latent unrest in the States that was about to become very public, and as a result it became the anthem of a movement. The Muppet version, though on first listen more adorable than anything else, somehow manages to be an indictment of hunting for sport: “the forest echoes silent woes / a million years of bucks and does.”

And the Public Enemy version, though it bears the least resemblance to the original, in many ways carries a similar spirit. It’s much more specific than the Buffalo Springfield version — I’d say that’s the luxury of a genre as verbose as rap — but there’s the same sense of suspense, of underlying discontent, of apprehension. Thematically, I don’t think there’s much difference between, “there’s battle lines being drawn / and nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong,” and “Year by year, all the sense disappears / Nonsense perseveres, prayers laced with fear.”

The real difference, I think, is that the Public Enemy version takes a step back farther than the original. The Buffalo Springfield version asks the superficial question of what is happening in an immediate sense, with protests and police, but the Public Enemy song wants to know what’s happening on a much larger scale. It’s asking questions about society, about justice, about the difference between a sound bite (“it might feel good / it might sound lil’ somethin’”) and reality (“Damn the game if it don’t mean nothin’”). And in some ways it’s a harder song to take because of that; it implicates the privileges of being white and middle class in the United States in a way the original does not address. He Got Game is rather humbling; when I listen to it, I feel as if it calls me out of the emotional and intellectual comfort that I find it easy to sink into.
Now certainly, I’ve always liked the guitar hook at the beginning, but I hope that the feeling of discomfort each version brings was also part of what made me love each incarnation of the song. The best things are not usually comfortable.

Ward is a freelance writer and aspiring documentary filmmaker based in Saskatoon. You can find her short bursts of insight and frustration at http://www.twitter.com/newsetofstrings