Hellgrammite
Dip Side:

A1: Dobson Fly (2:05)
(What’s the matter with you? Don’t you read the papers?
No, I prefer to get my information from more reliable sources, like rumor and small children. I don’t watch the news. I make it.)
Stay away silly little dobson fly, they won’t play with a little dobson fly/So fly away silly little dobson fly, nothing to say to a little dobson fly/I won’t pay for a little dobson fly, stay away silly little dobson fly
We can’t be numb/We feel the bite/The diagnosis/Can’t be right/Quarantined outside/Upstairs tonite/The spook’s alive and frightened of our fears of heights/Wax builds drips in reverse/We just hear of candelite/Fire the fireflies
(Vespa…papapapa…)
The torch! Here comes the torch!
Fire the fireflies/Pay day today/Silly little dobson fly/Keep them at bay/All those little dobson flies/Back to larvae/Sickening hellgrammite/Follow the fireflies/Fire the fireflies

A2: St. Zita (0:21)
A3: Steal Yr Song (1:10)
I know just how you must feel/You had to beg, borrow cheat ‘n’ steal for yr song/But it won’t belong to the men who made the rekkerds/Yer the one who wrecked it/You’ll make yr own ones my friend/It’s yr song
(Stop the music! Don’t stop…)

A4: Hummingbird (0:57)
I got a bird whistle ‘n’ some ringy thing
A5: Ocelli (0:30)
A6: Hang on These Words (3:16)
(Which is why, I’ll tell you right now, the reason I can talk this way, and the reason why you can listen this way, and the reason this thing works is because it’s all based on one word, I could say it. I’ll send you home right now. We’re all done. & that one word that gives the whole mood of the evening. Everything develops on that, and this, believe me, is the Open Sesame. This is thee magic key. & I can dare you, if you don’t believe me, try it. & that magic key is the one word…YOU PUT IT ON A PEDESTAL!)
How many times must you hang on these words?
The MATH/The Master At The Helm/The Maniac’s Approach To Hiphop/I Must Act To Help/Well skip acrostic/I go across it and t’s get crossed/I burn my office cos no matter what material I set aflame at least I start it/& I starred in the ending while backs go bending I’m sick of trending which merely shows clothes expose nothing/Throw pose for bluffing/Which you gonna be the turkey or the stuffing? Lucky me, I tweak ‘n’ seek a new technique to reach into the souls in need of lobotomy/Oh gee! Oh my stars! Cover nose, block yr mouth, don’t catch SARS/Stay locked up but don’t stop the disease cos I’m breathing it in ‘n’ building immunities cos I’m living in the sickness/It spurs me on/Flick off the tick find a fiend to feed on/Beyond that, there’s just one prescription/I scrawl it out quick but I got clear diction/Slick, listen
(Our lives changed punk rock)
Listen don’t be sold on the product/Our CD-R’s are the raw antibiotic/Exotic? Not really but the form is symbolic/From solid to gas the medium can’t be charted/Or alacarted the whole structure has been flipped/Like a bang-diddy-bang in ‘75 that’s why NSFTM does this dip/With the impermanence it comes alive/Not sterilized, yes it will die/The cassette wear out/The CD skip/The paper packaging will rip/But that’s precisely why it is/Why it even does exist/Cos the language sticks/Sticks/Sticks/Sticks
How many times must you hang on these words?
(Every time that you say these words/We don’t think that you have heard)
Math: Kick a verse, snatching up the purse, I pass the mic to her
J-Bandana: Shake the money maker/Take yr piggy bank or/Take it from the banker/Give it to yr neighbor/How many times must you hang on these words?
(Our band could be punk rock. Our band could be hip hop/You don’t stop the punk rock/First you punk rock the hip/Then you punk rock the hop/Then you hip rock the hop it don’t stop)

A7: Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1:07)
Try to save Barry Bonds for last cos I think he’s pretty much the most talked about as far as African American athletes, matter of fact as far as athletes go. Now, due to the new circumstances…
I wanna hear some Boogie Down Productions.
Yeah, but look, check it out, you got, Clemens, now involved in this. He’s like America’s hero. But they caved it back for him immediately ‘n’ now all of a sudden in the affidavits his statement is not included in that.
Well Roger Clemens is one of the most talked about African American athletes in the nation today.
But he’s not African American, yeah…thank you, anyhow…
(Think like the boss)

A8: Busting Up Bad Rap Tapes (1:30)
(Look out!)
Busting up bad rap tapes/Flipping hip hop pancakes/Take a taste, goodness sakes/Not fake, it won’t go to waste
Pop open the case to the hard shell plastic/A backspin dismantle this cassette tape faster/Ain’t got a screwdriver I’ll use wrist twist action/Pull out the brown spools unattract the magnet/In fact it’s more useful to seal this package/Made less music then than it does as a wrapping/Brown paper envelopes tied up with tape/This is a way I don’t let whack rap go to waste/Cos take an honest look, does that album got power? Does it have shelf life? No that dip’s gone sour/Now yer realizing we’re all not cowards/Not bullied to buy dropping beats not pound notes/How dope? My album has found them unfounded/Astounded the sound is lo-fi but louder/Yrs sounds good but good sounds increasingly clouded/I’m grabbing a handful to bring to the counter/The store’s got no need for them 10 for a quarter/So now I’ll commence to dissemble reorder/Re cut up, remake a new mix from this batter/Putting new life into hip hop’s cadaver (that is to say, hip hop isn’t a cadaver, but it has dead tapes that need to be sliced ‘n’ diced to be revived in a new creation)

A9: Cadaver 1 (0:15)
(Face the fact, this is reality)/(Here comes the test)
A10: Deflate (1:14)
(As a child a ball was good so long as it bounced ‘n’ a kitten so long as it lived. Anything in fact you held in yr hands would die or deflate)
(& I’m the type to break it down)
(I got gray hairs ‘n’ can’t sleep)
(Now, full grown, you must die with yr fingers lacing yr back)
(Scrathin’, scratchin’)
(& I, held in nobody’s hands must quietly deflate in the dark)
(& every time you listen to this recording, you can say with sincerity, this is another important day in my life. For you listening to the system that never fails, and as you understand and apply its principles, you too will have improved physical, mental, ‘n’ moral health, happiness, wealth, ‘n’ success)
(Aw yeah!)

A11: Corydalidae (1:09)
A12: Humble Thyself (0:58)
Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord/& He shall lift you up
A13: The F is Free (1:59)
(To be free is easy)
Please sir, me first, free verse but perfectly metered/But grr it surges the hunger it stirs the soul to wander/My nerve must’ve burst cos I’m twitching so much/These cuffs ‘n’ these gloves can only just about halfway shut/Five fifths of the time I rap more raw than 10 tenths of these commercialized historicized MC’s who attempt to appear victimized/While 50 percent of my rhymes release twice as fast as 100 percent of yrs
While the other half is still being conceived but I insure it’s at least an additional one third more preferred to anything you’ve yet heard me spit on fools hung on a word/Necks broken looking skyward like it’s not superman or a bird/But an airplane crashed ‘n’ burned so you better hole up/Cos they aren’t looking for yr body when the authorities roll up/They’re stealing evidence, circumstances dictate that yer stuck/You gonna report to the ones who extort you? They’ll laugh when say the jig is up/While these banking interests are making you dance like they pulling the strings/Brings you to reality, the fountain of youth is their own private springs/They ain’t gonna share it with us, but I don’t really care for it much/It’s just a sickness, a gash that’s not getting stitched up/Rebelling in the spirit tho the flesh is melted to a tree, that’s release/But I still mean it, we can easily be mentally free/Pile up the idols and we’ll set them on fire/Cos I could care less about them what they meant to the past to me it’s just broken vinyl/Sidle past the silo, solo mission to disarm them/Or just graffiti on the missile “with love from nsftm”/It won’t burn a hole in a retina, actually on the whole I bet you/It will net you dollars but also hollers while those who disrespect you will Boo you like Radley for rapping so badly/& sadly you cant see what’s hiding behind me/An army? No, indeed, just a shadow of what I used to be/& that’s enough to keep pumping the beats from inside these dungeons, number crunching, all coming zeros no ones/It’s getting hairy binary merry go round ‘n’ round them/It’s simple mathematics, integrated equally/It’s easy to let them catch you, but if you want it free, the free is free

A14: There’s No Such Thing as a Herd of Bees (2:33)
not gonna scream knock on screen/bust it down bussed into town/driven there drip in their hair/hear mesh mashed bees buzz round/throw the stones on thru yr windows ‘n’ if you hear a crash and smash/you know I’m looking for you/can I get yr attention? can I get your attention? can I keep my attention? not gonna scream knock on screen
A15: Lincoln Flies Without Wings (3:32)
(Now students fly with me to the dawn of history…toot…‘n’ the whistle…plunk…‘n’ the boom…it’s very stimulating)
(You know it may seem hard to imagine but once upon a time people didn’t have any such thing as television…didn’t have any radios…‘n’ if you wanted to have any music you just had to make it yerself…it was only the kings ‘n’ queens who could afford to have somebody else make music for them…& you might not think it would be very good music, everybody making their own music…but you’d be surprised)
Cut out/slice sides/Cut out the middle ‘n’ you cut out the wings/ Cut out the middle ‘n’ you cut out the wings/Not on my watch my hard shell sings/Put it on the board ‘n’ you make it two things/Cut out the middle off with the wings/Rekkerd skips one time two times skips two time skips on the rekkerd ‘n’ time skips the time skips on the rekkerd ‘n’ it skips every time flip it on the side ‘n’ skip on the side flip it on the side ‘n’ every other side skips on the rekkerd ‘n’ the rekkerd one time skips every time ‘n’ one ‘n’ two times/Mr. Abe Lincoln doesn’t feel well today/He’s driving in his Lincoln into Christendom’s Gate/Smiles as he flies waving to JFK/I know it must be true in the paper today/I’d certainly have seen him if it wasn’t too late/When am I gonna get a seat with the Saints?