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The Wax

May 05, 2004

I don't give a f$%k where you're from.

When we have work to do around the house, we typically let the almighty iTunes run on random. This gives my wife the unique opportunity to listen to full songs without me skipping it to find something else -- which I will inevitably skip again, and again and again.

"Jenny From The Block" was on. Not withstanding that I dislike the song in general, there is something about it that drives me to hate it:

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got
I'm still, I'm still
Jenny from the block
Used to have a little, now I have a lot
No matter where I go
I know where I came from.

Right Jenny, I get you. But then she yells....yells, "The Bronx!"

That rubs me the wrong way. It just seems gratuitous. She goes from making a nice claim about remembering her roots, to being a Bronx elitist, alienating the other four boroughs as well as the world at large. Why would she want to do that? She could have left it alone and been from your town, my town, or anywhere.

Its not a new phenomenon to talk about where you're from in your songs. LL Cool J would be as beloved by the ladies unless he was from Queens. But his geographical notations are in the context of the song, usually used as a rhyming lyric or a footnote to the science just dropped. Jenny seems like she was throwing that in, just in case you thought she was from Staten Island. It smells of an insecurity. What does she have to be insecure about? Successful businesswoman, a good dancer, good looking, she seems to have it all. So what if people think she's from Staten Island? She'd be in good company....Wu-Tang....uh...Mariah....uh....

By the way, I could say I'm from Queens, but when I sing, I say Scarsdale because its cooler. Scarsdale!


Posted by davidissimo  ::  Permalink  ::  Comments [5]  ::  

Comments Section

Vanilla Ice's greatest failure was in proclaiming that Miami was not only "on the scene" as it were, but also his town. He compounds the tragedy by rapping at length about A1A Beachfront Avenue.

Who knows what heights he would have reached if only Miami had been Anytown, USA?

Posted by: George Hotelling at May 5, 2004 11:27 AM

Right. Because he'd have been way more popular if only the folks in Omaha could have held on desperately to their need to believe he felt their Nebraskan pain.

Meanwhile, and against all common sense, declaring their New Jersey love (as the title of their biggest freakin' album, no less) didn't seem to hurt Bon Jovi. Go figure.

Posted by: alex at May 5, 2004 11:32 AM

Claiming the virtues of Jersey works. Take some other great Jerseyites: Bruce, Whitney Houston, Fugees, Frank....and many others. In fact, wasn't Bruce's Born To Run supposed to be New Jersey's anthem?

Posted by: davidissimo at May 5, 2004 11:39 AM

Ah...you're right...it was "Play". Which I equally hate...I'm not sure I entirely agree with you about the swearing though. I guess you can draw a Wu-Tang/RUN-DMC comparison. The Wu relies fundamentally on the ability to use pejoratives to rhyme, while RUN-DMC rarely cursed at all. You have to admit that the songs are about different things. One is parties that end at 8 o'clock and the other is pimpin' them bitches...it's awfully hard to pimp them thingies. But then again, pimpin' is never easy.

Posted by: Davidissimo at May 5, 2004 03:22 PM

I agree with Susana on the comment on swearing. I actually really like that J-Lo song where she implores the DJ to 'play her f**king song', except I think the swearing is somehow really out of place.

Anyway, I don't really care where anyone is from, either. Though Scottish people have sexy, charming accents. Why is it, though, that some British singers seem to lose their accents when they sing? Keane, Belle & Sebastian, Travis, where did their accents go?

Posted by: Anar at May 6, 2004 12:23 PM

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