"I Say Fever" Ramona Falls, "I'm That Type of Guy" LL Cool J

"You're the type of guy to call me a punk, not knowin your main girl is bitin my chunk."


I Say Fever
by Ramona Falls, Intuit, 2009.
I'm That Type of Guy
by LL Cool J, Walking With a Panther, 1989.

I am completely addicted to "I Say Fever" right now.

It's amazing to me how loaded those opening hard guitar strums and piano tinkles are. The opening lyrics all about waiting five years make no sense whatsoever to me, nor does the response, "I say fever," but Brent Knopf seems pretty fucking thrilled to be saying it. The heights that he stretches that moment to are astounding. It's nonsensical catharsis.

Brent Knopf is a member of Menomena, a band I don't particularly care for (even though I love their name), but I love Intuit and it will end up on my year-end lists (if you like this song but aren't completely sold, listen to "Clover" as well).

As far as I can tell, the song is about a guy who's trying to figure out when to either marry or have sex with a lady. His contention is, there's no time like the present. You know, drop it like it's hot, or as he sings at some point, "Hold my heart like a hot potato."

About three and a half minutes in it goes into that very weird Wizard of Oz Emerald City Guard chanting, which is different from the militaristic chanting of R.E.M's "Orange Crush" or Kayne's "Jesus Walks" (which I think is a sample of the R.E.M. maybe?) but it did remind me an awful lot of a song I loved twenty years ago, Mr. James Smith's "I'm That Type of Guy," which couldn't be any more clear what it's about: LL Cool J will do your girlfriend, love her pudding (I'm not sure if that's a metaphor or not, I hope not because pudding IS delicious), go down on her (seems like if that's what he meant by pudding he wouldn't repeat himself, right?), takes her to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast (okay, maybe he would repeat himself).


Delicious sexual metaphor, Cool James!





Later LL Cool J seems to run out of metaphors, and this is where the song gets hilarious. "I'm the type of guy/ That lets you keep believin it/ Go ahead and work/ While I defrost it and season it." Uh, yep. Unless her boyfriend is Jeffrey Dahmer, this seems like it's stretching a bit. Why is he putting on a pamper? (yes, I understand he might be talking about pampering in the other sense, but it doesn't sound like it, "put on a pamper"? It sounds more like fetishistic acts, which, hey, cool, I guess.) Why is leaving his drawers in their hamper a good thing? So the dude's girlfriend has to do the laundry? How does that appeal to the ladies? Get ready to wash my filthy underpants! I don't know if we find the type of guy he is appealing any longer. Also, he threatens an excellent ring and run or whatever you called it when you were six. When you start threatening to ring someone's doorbell and leave, you've truly run out of gas. Of course, I shouldn't question the workings of one LL Cool J.

But "I'm That Type of Guy" separates itself from some of what was going on in hip-hop at the time with this slinky production (courtesy of L.A. Posse, which included DJ Pooh and Muffla). That opening machine-gun beat sets the tone. Reversing notes, flipping bass lines, dropping in heavy pianos, and then, of course, bringing in a chorus to chant the piece from Wizard of Oz is the coup de grace. I would give my life savings (admittedly a negative number) to be in the studio while they were explaining to a bunch of dudes what they were there to do.

The absolute best part of this song, and maybe any rap track by an established artist, comes around 3 minutes in, when LL just sits out for half a bar for no reason. He kind of matches it on the other half of the verse, but not really. Just awkward silence and the track runs on without him. So, uh