Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely heard either the NSFW or the terrestrial-radio-friendly clean version of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s hit song, Thrift Shop. But unless you’ve got a finely tuned rap vocabulary, there are probably some lyrics in that song (and every other rap song, for that matter) that have left you scratching your head.
“I’m gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket
I’m, I’m, I’m hunting, looking for a come up, this is f*cking awesome”
Don’t worry; you aren’t the only one. I’m willing to admit that I wasn’t quite sure about the meaning of “pop some tags” or “looking for a come up” when I first heard the song, and it might not have mattered so much if I hadn’t heard Thrift Shop everywhere I turned. Some might look to Urban Dictionary for a quick explanation, but I have found something better: Genius.
Genius has the lyrics and explanations to thousands of rap songs; anyone can create an account and start entering lyric explanations, and as Genius explains, “If you make good contributions you’ll earn Rap IQ, and if you spit true knowledge, eventually you’ll be able to edit anything on the site..just like a hip-hop Wikipedia..”
Line by line, Genius explains the meaning of every Thrift Shop song lyric, sometimes with pictures and sometimes with .GIFs …
Rap Genius explains Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s Thrift Shop Lyrics line by line
The result of reading through the Thrift Shop lyrics with the Genius user-submitted explanations is that you are left with a thorough understanding of the song’s meaning, which in this case is something along the lines of how it’s smart to look for a bargain — wherever it might be found —- and that it is stupid to try to spend a bunch of money on things to impress other people. That’s a pretty cool message, actually.
“He’s mocking people who buy stuff because it’s “popular” and “designer.”
Many songs have a link to Spotify, so you can listen to the music while you scan the lyrics. This is such a far cry from what I had to do to get lyrics as a teenager — stopping and starting a cassette in the player over and over and over as I wrote down the words. Did I just totally date myself? Oh well. 😉
Just in case you have managed to never hear it, here is the somewhat less NSFW version from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s recent Saturday Night Live appearance.
And if you would rather see the fun Thrift Store video and hear the full NSFW version, here it is …
Intrigued? Want to find out what the real message behind Straight Outta Compton was? Check out the Genius site. Interestingly enough, they have also started using this Wiki approach to break down the news; this should be good!
‘Rap’ and ‘Genius’ in the same sentence?!? 🙂 Seriously, that is pretty cool – I even looked at some older stuff and there were some explanations of lyrics. I am not sure the lyrics are all correct, nor the explanations, but it is an interesting premise.