This MTV trading card depicts a young Young MC and harkens back to a time when MTV was still into music and there were trading cards for everything!
Take a few minutes to remember the catchy beat about young, jobless, carless men trying to charm their way into the um, hearts, of attractive young ladies. Then let’s examine some of the awful lyrics in this thing.
The first verse speaks of the typical jobless young chap who somehow finds the wherewithal to attend a party one night, then somehow makes his way into a “high class luncheon” the following day. He ends the first verse imploring the chap, who is clearly taking advantage of free food at the affair, to dance with the available young ladies despite having just over-eaten.
After stealing a lyric from a hit from the early 80s, “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places,” Mr. MC muses on a form of suicide I’ve certainly never read about or heard of in any other song:
No fine girls just ugly faces
Some frustration first inclination
Is to become a monk and leave the situation
But every dark tunnel has a light of hope
So don’t hang yourself with a celibate rope
The end of the second verse discusses meeting a young lady in a movie theater, clearly a precursor to an Alanis Morissette tune…
Your movie’s showin’, so you’re goin’
Could care less about the five you’re blowin’
Theater gets dark just to start the show
Then ya spot a fine woman sittin’ in your row
She’s dressed in yellow, she says “Hello,
Come sit next to me you fine fellow.”
You run over there without a second to lose
And what comes next hey bust a move
How in the world would he know she was dressed in yellow if the lights had gone down? Please.
Verse 4 brings us this gem:
Your best friend Harry has a brother Larry
In five days from now he’s gonna marry
He’s hopin you can make it there if you can
Cause in the ceremony you’ll be the best man
Why is he the best man in the brother of his best friend’s wedding? Doesn’t his best friend’s brother have a best friend? Could his best friend, who is the brother of the man getting married, be the best man in the wedding? And these problems say nothing to the issue of parents who name their sons Harry and Larry. That’s almost as bad as naming your two sons Walker and Texas Ranger. Ridiculous.
Maybe Harry or Larry could give our unemployed friend a job, and then he could rise above the timeless truth Young MC describes thusly:
Girls are fakin goodness sakin
They want a man who brings home the bacon
Got no money and you got no car
Then you got no woman and there you are
But until that happens, sadly, there’s no way to know when the poor young man in the song will be able to “bust a move.” Sad indeed.
You are now informed. Go and do likewise.
Let us not forget that Young MC won the Grammy award in 1990 for Best Rap Performance! Now let us temper that enthusiasm by reminding our dear readers that was the same year Milli Vanilli won for Best New Artist.