Waterfalls Analysis

The song waterfalls by TLC talks about the lives of 2 people. One is about a mother who's son is always getting into trouble and he sells drugs then just like his mother thought he gets killed. The other person is a guy who's dating a nymphomaniac and ends up dieing of AIDs. There are many metaphores in this song but the most important one is "dont go chasing waterfalls" which mean don't follow something that can lead you to something that can put you in danger.

waterfalls by TLC

A lonely mother gazing out of her window
Staring at her son that she just cant touch
If at any time hes in a jam
Shell be by his side
But he doesnt realize he hurts her so much
But all the praying just aint helpin
At all cause he cant seem to keep
His self out of trouble
So he goes out and he makes his money
The best way he knows how
Another body laying cold in the gutter
Listen to me

Chorus
Dont go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that
Youre used to
I know that youre gonna have it your way
Or nothing at all
But I think you re moving too fast

Little precious has a natural obsession
For temptation but he just cant see
She gives him loving that his body cant handle
But all he can say is baby is good to me
One day he goes and takes a glimpse
In the mirror
But he doesnt recognize his own face
His health is fading and he doesnt know why
3 letters took him to his final resting place
Yall dont hear me

Chorus

I seen a rainbow yesterday
But too many storms have come and gone
Leavin a trace of not one God given ray
You say because my life is ten shades of grey
I prey all ten fade away
Seldom praise him for the sunny days
And like his promise is true
Only my faith can undo
The many chances I blew
To bring my life to a new
Clear blue and unconditional skies
Have dried the tears from my eyes
No more lonely cries
My only bleedin hope
Is for the folk who cant cope
Wit such an endurin pain
That it keeps em in the puourin rain
Whos to blame
For tootin caine in your own vein
What a shame
You shoot and aim for someone elses brain
You claim the insane
And name this day and time
For fallin prey to crime
I say the system got you victim to your own mind
Dreams are hopeless aspirations
In hopes of comin true
Believe in yourself
The rest is up to me and you

Chorus

analysis of leaving the past by Immortal technique

The song Leaving the past by immortal technique is basically talking about problems in the world. He talks about things about racism, politics, immigration & war. There are many similes such as when immortal technique says "I guess its hard to stomach the truth like a bulimic" which means that many people today are lying about what we are going through and he cant take it. Another simile is when he says "Put your hands in the air like you got the heat to your back" he is referring to slavery and how they were treated."Shake your body like a baby born addicted to crack" immortal technique means that alot of people have drug problems and it sometimes travels to their children. Immortal technique uses another simile "life is a gamble like the crabstables at Vegas" this means that you can loose your life so easily and you take too many chances with it.

leaving the past by immortal technique

"Leaving The Past"

[Verse 1]
They told me I would never make it, I would never achieve it
Reality is nurishment, but people don't believe it
I guess its hard to stomach the truth like a bulimic
its a dirty game and nobody is willing to clean it
But this is for the paralygics, people dreamin' of runnin'
ladies married to men who don't please 'em, dreamin' of comin'
urbanly murderous like David Berkowitz when I'm gunnin'
Some cowards on the internet didn't think I would
to talk **** in person, cause they stuck in a shell
and couldn't understand the pain of being stuck in a cell
Hell is not a place you go, if you not a Christian
it's the failure of your life's greatest ambition
It's a bad decision to blindly follow any religion
I don't see the difference in between the raw and the wrong
Soldiers emptyin' the clips at little kids and they moms
I'm just like a desperate ************ strapped to a bomb
Humanity is gone, smoked up in a gravity ****
by a democrat republican Cheech and Chong
Immortal Technique, you never heard me preachin' a song
I'm not controversial, I'm just speakin' the facts
Put your hands in the air like you got the heat to your back
and shake your body like a baby born addicted to *****
And since life is a gamble like the craps tables at Vegas
I freestyle my destiny, it's not written in pages


[Verse 2]
I hate it when they tell us how far we came to be
as if our peoples history started with slavery
Painfully I discovered the **** they kept us secret
this is the exodus like the black Jews out of Egypt
I keep it reality based wit the music I make
brought the truth to your face with the style I run wit
like the navy missile that shot down flight eighthundred
I'm like the Africans who came here before Colombus
and from the 15hundreds until after the model
I watch Latin America get raped in the sorrow
You see the Spaniards never left despues de Colon
and if you don't believe me, you can click on Univision
I never seen so much racism in all of my life
every program and newscast, all of them white
It's like Apartheid with 10 percent ruling the rest
that type of stress 'll make me put the fucking tool to your chest
Step in my way *****, I wouldn't wanna be ya
I burn slow like (a) ******* drunk with gonorrhea
I'll do a freak show in North Korea, burning the flag
while Jay Edgar Hoover politicians dress up in drag
Try to confuse you, makin' it hard to follow this:
capitalism en democracy are not synonymous
You swallow propaganda like a birth control pill
sellin' your soul to the eye on the back of the dollar bill
But that will never be me, cause I am leavin' the past
like an abused wife with the kids, leavin' your ***
Like a drug addict clean and sober, leavin' the stash
unbreakable Technique leavin' the plane crash
I'm out with the black box and I refuse to return
I spit reality, instead of what you usually learn
and I refuse to be concerned with condescending advice
cause I am the only ************ that could change my life


[Ending]
Some people think I won't make it
but I know that I will
Escape the emptiness
cause that **** is slow and it kills
the flow and the skill
I made y'all believe that it last
You can make the future
but it starts with LEAVING THE PAST

lyrics

[Verse 1]

I once knew a ***** whose real name was William

his primary concern, was making a million

being the illest hustler, that the world ever seen

he used to **** movie stars and sniff **** in his dreams

a corrupted young mind, at the age of thirteen

***** never had a father and his mom was a feens

he put the pipe down, but for every year she was sober

her sons heart simultaneously grew colder

he started hanging out selling **** in the projects

checking the young chicks, looking for hit and run prospects

he was fascinated by material objectsbut he understood money never bought respect

he build a reputation cause he could hustle and steal

but got locked once it didn't hesitate to squeal

so criminals he chilled with didn't think he was real

you see me and ***** like this have never been equal

I don’t project my insecurity’s at other people

he feeded for props like addicts with ***** and ********

so he felt he had to prove to everyone he was evil

a fever minded young man with infinite potential

the product of a ghetto breed capitalistic mental

coincidentally dropped out of school to sell ****

dancing with the devil, smoked until his eyes would bleed

but he was sick of selling ***** and gave in to his greed

[Hook]

Everyone trying to be trife never face the consequences

you probably only did a month for minor offences

ask a ***** doing life if he had another chance

but then again there's always the wicked at new and advanced

dance forever with the devil on a cold cell block

but that’s what happens when you rape, murder and sell ****

devils used to be gods, angels that fell from the top

there's no diversity because we're burning in the melting pot

[Verse 2]

So Billy started robbing ******, anything he could do

he'd get his respect back, in the eyes of his crew

starting fights over little ****, up on the block

stepped up to selling mothers and brothers the crack ****

working overtime for making money for the crack spot

hit the jackpot and wanted to move up to *******

for filling the Scarface fantasy stuck in his brain

tired of the block ****** treating him the same

he wanted to be major like the cut throats and the thugs

but when he tried to step to 'em, ****** showed him no love

they told him any ************* coward can sell drugs

any ***** ***** with a gun, can bust slugs

any ***** with a red shirt can front like a blood

even Puffy smoked the ************ up in a club

but only a real thug can stab someone till they die

standing in front of them, starring straight into their eyes

Billy realized that these men were well guarded

and they wanted to test him, before business started

suggested raping a ***** to prove he was cold hearted

so now he had a choice between going back to his life

or making money with made men, up in the cife

his dreams about cars and ice, made him agree

a hardcore ***** is all he ever wanted to be

and so he met them Friday night at a quarter to three

[Hook]

[Verse 3]

They drove around the projects slow while it was raining

smoking ******, drinking and joking for entertainment

until they saw a woman on the street walking alone

three in the morning, coming back from work, on her way home

and so they quietly got out the car and followed her

walking through the projects, the darkness swallowed her

they wrapped her shirt around her head and knocked her onto the floor

this is it kid now you got your chance to be raw

so Billy oaked her up and grapped the chick by the hair

and dragged her into a lobby that had nobody there

she struggled hard but they forced her to go up the stairs

they got to the roof and then held her down on the ground

screaming shut the **** up and stop moving around

the shirt covered her face, but she screamed the clouts

so Billy stomped on the *****, until he broken her jaw

the dirty ******** knew exactly what they were doing

they kicked her until they cracked her ribs and she stopped moving

blood leaking through the cloth, she cried silently

and then they all proceeded to rape her violently

Billy was meant to go first, but each of them took a turn

ripping her up, and choking her until her throat burned

a broken jaw mumbled for god but they weren't concerned

when they were done and she was lying bloody, broken and broos

one of them ****** pulled out a brand new twenty-two

they told him that she was a witness of what she'd gone through

and if he killed her he was guaranteed a spot in the crew

he thought about it for a minute, she was practically dead

and so he leaned over and put the gun right to her head

(Sample from "Survival of the Fittest" by Mobb Deep)

I'm falling and I can't turn backI'm falling and I can't turn back

[Verse 4]

Right before he pulled the trigger, and ended her life

he thought about the cold pain with the platinum and ice and he felt strong standing along with his new brothers

cocked the gat to her head, and pulled back the shirt cover

but what he saw made him start the cringing stutter

cuz he was starring into the eyes of his own mother

she looked back at him and cried, cause he had forsaken her

she cried more painfully, than when they were raping her

his whole world stopped, he couldn't even contemplate

his corruption had successfully changed his fate

and he remembered how his mom used to come home late

working hard for nothing, cause now what was he worth

he turned away from the woman that had once given him birth

and crying out to the sky cause he was lonely and scared

but only the devil responded, cause god wasn't there

and right then he knew what it was to be empty and cold

and so he jumped off the roof and died with no soul

they say death take you to a better place but I doubt it

after that they killed his mother, and never spoke about it

and listen cause the story that I'm telling is true

cuz I was there with Billy Jacobs and I raped his mom to

and now the devil follows me everywhere that I go

in fact I'm sure he's standing among one of you at my shows

and every street cipher listening to little thugs flow

he could be standing right next to you, and you wouldn't know

the devil grows inside the hearts of the selfish and wicked

white, brown, yellow and black colored is not restricted

you have a self destructive destiny when your inflicted

and you'll be one of gods children and fell from the top

there's no diversity because we're burning in the melting pot

so when the devil wants to dance with you, you better say never

because the dance with the devil might last you forever

analysis

Dancing With the Devil by Immortal Technique
The song “Dancing with the Devil” by Immortal Technique shows the outlook people in the ghetto have on life. It shows how people think that selling drugs or killing and raping people will make them have power and it will improve their ego. Felipe Coronel, a.k.a, Immortal Technique grew up on the rough streets of Harlem, NY. He went from being arrested multiple times to doing underground rapping. Most of his songs were about political issues, poverty, religion, & racism. The song “Dancing with the Devil” exemplifies the theme of poverty and violence in hip hop because Immortal Technique talks about the difficult life of the main subject, Billy Jacobs, and how he grew up to be in gangs and hurt people just to make his life seem better to him.In the song, Immortal technique tells the life story of a kid named Billy Jacobs who lives in the ghetto. Growing up his mother was a crack addict and he became a drug dealer at the young age of 13. As his mom became sober he became a cold person he acted as if he had no soul. He stayed in the drug business because he thought it would lead him down the road of fortune and fame. His only goal in life was to move up to selling cocaine and fulfilling the “Scarface fantasy”. He has been arrested many times and he thinks for him that it makes him look hard and that you shouldn’t mess with him but in reality it just makes him look like a coward because he ratted out other people to get out of jail faster. He really wants to join this gang but they refuse to let him because they feel he isn’t real and he has too much of a heart to kill someone. The people in the gang said that in order for Billy to join their gang he had to rape a girl and kill her. One day Billy and two members of the gang he wishes to join were sitting out on the block and an old woman walks by them. They tell him that if he raped the woman he would be guaranteed a spot in their “crew”. They all followed the woman until their was no one around, they began to attack her and they took her up to a roof of an abandoned building. They proceeded to rape her and break her ribs and jaw until she stopped moving after they were finished one of the guys handed Billy a gun and told him that she was a witness and they would get in trouble if he didn’t kill her. So thinking that she was practically dead anyways Billy took the shirt from over the woman’s face and he was looking into the eyes of his mother. He began too cry out to god but only the devil responded, he was sick of his life after what he has done so he jumped off the building and the gang members killed his mother after he jumped.

The most used poetic device in “Dancing with the Devil” is imagery. Immortal Technique states in stanza 3, he talks about the things Billy Jacobs thought he had to do to earn respect from the gang he wanted to join. For example on lines 1 and 2 it says “so Billy started robbing ******, anything he could do to get the respect back, in the eyes of his crew”. This is also an example of rhyme. The last stanza is an example of satire. Immortal Technique say

“they say death take you to a better place but I doubt it after that they killed his mother, and never spoke about it and listen cause the story that I'm telling is true cuz I was there with Billy Jacobs and I raped his mom too and now the devil follows me everywhere that I go in fact I'm sure he's standing among one of you at my shows and every street cipher listening to little thugs flow he could be standing right next to you, and you wouldn't know the devil grows inside the hearts of the selfish and wicked white, brown, yellow and black colored is not restricted you have a self destructive destiny when your inflicted and you'll be one of gods children and fell from the top there's no diversity because we're burning in the melting pot so when the devil wants to dance with you, you better say never because the dance with the devil might last you forever”
This teaches young listeners not to do bad things like get involved with gangs and sell drugs. This also gives listeners a sense of imagery. In this song there are uses of figurative language also. In the last stanza, line 25 it says “There’s no diversity because we’re burning in the melting pot” he doesn’t literally mean we are burning he uses that line to say that with the ways society is going all of us are considered to be evil in some way. On line 22 the artist says “the devil grows inside the hearts of the selfish and wicked” he doesn’t mean that the devil is growing inside them he means that evil is taking over many people today. Another use of figurative language is in stanza 1, line 7 it says “she put the pipe down and for every year she was sober her sons heart simultaneously grew colder” his heart doesn’t really get colder, this means that he loses respect for his own mother and acts like he has no soul. There is use of repetition in the song also, Immortal technique repeats the lines “dancing with the devil” and “There’s no diversity because we’re burning in the melting pot.”

In conclusion, the song “Dancing with the Devil” by Immortal Technique fits the theme of poverty and violence in hip hop. It fits this theme because of the subjects the artist talks about like gang violence, drug dealing, and violence in the ghetto. The song also talks a lot about religion and evil in the world.

Runaway Love by Ludacris analysis

The song Runaway Love by Ludacris featuring Mary J. Blige focuses on the theme of children being abused & living terrible lifestyles. In verse one the speaker is Ludacris talking about the life of a little girl named Lisa who is 9 years old. She is going through things a 9 year old girl shouldn't have to go through. She lives in a broken home with her drug addict mother who brings home strangers who molest her. Her own mother wont believe her which is terrible. She is breaking down and its getting so bad to the point where she wants to runaway. In verse 2 Ludacris tells the life story of a 10 year old named Nicole. She lives with her step dad who is an alcoholic. He physically abuses her and she is too afraid to tell anyone. She meets a girl named Stacy who becomes her best friend, unfortunately Stacy gets killed in a drive by having to deal with all of these problems she feels like running away forever. In verse 3 the speaker talks about a girl named erica who is 11 years old. She feels that there is allot of stress on her so she takes Ecstasy to "get rid of all the pain". She is also having sex with a 16 year old who she thinks shes in love with. He is not wearing protection so she of course gets pregnant. The boy is not ready to be a father & she is too poor to get an abortion. She is afraid of her mothers reaction so she runs away from her. I believe the song is trying to show how people are being treated in these harsh environments & how girls shouldn't behave.

Runaway Love by Ludacris feat. Mary J. Blige

"Runaway Love"(feat. Mary J. Blige)

[Hook - Mary J. Blige]

Runaway love
Runaway love
Runaway love
Runaway love
Runaway love
Runaway love
Runaway love
Runaway love

[Verse 1 - Ludacris]

Now little Lisa is only 9 years old
She's trying to figure out why the world is so cold
Why she's all alone and ain't never met her family
Mama's always gone and she never met her daddy
Part of her is missing and nobody will listen
Mama is on drugs getting high up in the kitchen
Bringing home men at different hours of the night
Starting with some laughs -- usually ending in a fight
Sneaking in her room while her mama's knocked out
Trying to have his way and little Lisa says 'ouch'
She tries to resist but then all he does is beat her
Tries to tell her mom but her mama don't believe her
Lisa is stuck up in the world on her own
Forced to think that hell is a place called home
Nothing else to do but get some clothes and pack
She says she's 'bout to run away and never come back.

[Hook - Mary J. Blige]
Runaway love [x8]

[Verse 2 - Ludacris]

Little Nicole is only 10 years old
She's steady trying to figure why the world is so cold
Why she's not pretty and nobody seems to like her
Alcoholic step-dad always wanna strike her
Yells and abuses, leaves her with some bruises
Teachers ask questions she making up excuses
Bleeding on the inside, crying on the out
It's only one girl really knows what she about
Her name is little Stacy and they become friends
Promise that they always be tight 'til the end
Until one day little Stacy gets shot
A drive by bullet went stray up on her block
Now Nicole stuck up in the world on her own
Forced to think that hell is a place called home
Nothing else to do but get her clothes and pack
She says she's 'bout to run away and never come back.

[Hook - Mary J. Blige]
Runaway love [x8]

[Verse 3 - Ludacris]

Little Erica is eleven years old
She's steady trying to figure why the world is so cold
So she pops pills to get rid of all the pain
Plus she's having sex with a boy who's sixteen
Emotions run deep and she thinks she's in love
So there's no protection he's using no glove
Never thinking 'bout the consequences of her actions
Living for today and not tomorrow's satisfaction
The days go by and her belly gets big
The father bails out he ain't ready for a kid
Knowing her mama will blow it all outta proportion
Plus she lives poor so no money for abortion
Erica is stuck up in the world on her own
Forced to think that hell is a place called home
Nothing else to do but get her clothes and pack
She say she's about to run away and never come back.

[Hook - Mary J. Blige]
Runaway love
Don't keep on runnin'Runnin' [4x]
Don't keep on running [x]
I know how you feel,
I've been thereI was runnin' away too
I will run away with you [2x]
Runaway Runaway Love
Don't keep running away
I'll run away with you, if you want me too


[Outro - Ludacris:]

Yea, I can only image what you're going through ladies,
Sometimes I feel like running away myself,
So do me a favor right now and close your eyes,
And picture us running away together,when we come back everything is gonna be okay,
Open your eyes.......