Hip hop as a musical style provides an excellent template for delivering lyrics that would be far too wordy if they were riding on a melody. This track was so fun to make, and I'm extremely proud of the clarity of its message.
lyrics
Troubadour Shawn on the hip-hop tip again
It's been a long time comin since I don't know when
This is for the lovers and it won't be top ten
But it'll do for the crew whose ears are open
Troubadour Shawn here, with another little ditty
with a fat greasy beat that might make you dizzy
You mighta maybe thought I was kidding
but 2013 is here? that was practice hitting
like bangin balls at the batting cages
Stepping up to the plate for what is true through the ages
has always been reserved for only the most courageous
but I'm out to make it mainstream, funky and contagious
I'm walkin around town with a sound all my own
loving life and working hard to get specific and hone
the urgent message in my heart, simple and joyous in tone
standing tall and loose and always honoring my backbone
There's an invitation here so while I've got your ear
first of all thank you for opening to hear
in the clear beyond fear, heart in gear
as your peer I salute you and I'm glad you're near
Troubadour Shawn on the hip-hop tip again
It's been a long time comin since I don't know when
This is for the lovers and it won't be top ten
But it'll do for the crew whose ears are open
When I hear people say that they don't like rap
All I hear them saying is they don't wanna understand black people
Maybe they're afraid, I don't blame them for that
They've been trained by tv dark skin, watch your back
But I'm inspired by this medium, borne in the ghetto
of a primal directive to be heard above the bedlam
Poverty, drugs, guns, and youth spittin at babylon
the rhythm and the story of the sinkholes in our common lawn
In a way I can relate, though I come from greener origins,
striving to be heard above the din can lead better men to sin
and nowadays I hear the clear call to be all-in
lovers and fighters it's always win-win
What does that mean? Well, fighters will fight
and lovers will love and it'll go back and forth all night
and eventually love trumps the need to be right
so the lovers are the ones with the call to unite
Time to get trippin on the hip-hop tip again
(Come together)
It's been a long time comin since I don't know when
(Come together)
This is for the lovers and it won't be top ten
(Come together)
But it'll do for the crew whose ears are open
(Come, come together, right now)
This is a call to the lovers on planet earth
come on come on come on get up
everybody come together right now
it's time
it's time
it's time
I told you at the start I've got an urgent message
We're all in the middle of a great rite of passage
Waking and quaking from within, the shift is massive
learning to create in ways that sometimes look passive
but we're completely engaged, turned on and present
Opening to every moment's gifts, giving life our consent
to enter and open and raise the bar by being content
grateful and honoring, loving and resting when spent
And all the props that we've bought that make it feel like we're bound
Begin to fall away and disappear as we discover the true sound
Of the deep knowing that true stability can only be found
when we're living in our center nice and close to the ground
Allowing all illusions of what was and what shall be
to fall away into a space of possibility
where we create a future that we see
which honors every living being, every rock and every tree
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