Turning On Your Sign
In the schoolyard and shit...
Back in the days...
Basketball MVP and shit...
Playing with Monopoly money...
[Verse 1]
My earliest memory
Throwing away Raisin Bran to my father’s obscenity
Open car doors, desert roads coulda caught fatal
Duke Wildhead, cousin, I was not stable, listen
And as a youth, glow-in-the-dark stars marked harbingers
Of death, destruction and dedication to the farthest
Lingering respect for my elders, how long would that last?
Cash crops in the basement, topped with black ash
Progression brought questions, although atypical
They were pivotal, ahead of my time in this seminal
Stated to the bedroom, noir pitch, sighed slow
“Where did I come from and where will I go?”
Hearing my heart beat through my ears, years of tears
Leers and jeers from searing peers mirrored my fears
That’s junior high speaking, I’ve moved past it
I could hear the rocked bells, it started to get mastered
[Chorus]
I never learned how to swim
But the waves keep breaking upon miles of sin
And I never learned how to bike
But I ran through the math, man, I had to fight
[Verse 2]
It only takes a teaspoon, lost my grip on the edge
And the edge lost its grip on me, losing my grip on reality
Never had it, never get it, built with savage authors
Found my home in digital temples and graphic novels
Had to swallow to push through trident tides of wrath
Maximum pairs rhymed, fractured hairline, defined by math
Class clown, around the bell curve, cracked
Labelled with fables, seen by the way that I act
I remember books and papers, rooks and ravers
Cooking tables, unhooked by looks and labels
Split the hinges on a notebook, a testament to the Testament
Tested men and women through irrelevant suggestions sent
Apathy was mastered by the rather scattered gallery
Motley crews of oddly screwed bulbs with faulted batteries
But that was short ceilings and lower morals
I grew out of both and kept a slower total in the game of life
[Chorus]
I never learned how to swim
But the waves keep breaking upon miles of sin
And I never learned how to bike
But I ran through the math, man, I had to fight
[Verse 3]
And critics say I lack impact in my beliefs
When my parents used to blast tracks and dance in the streets
Car in neutral, Volkswagon, shit was such a relic
They pumped some Al Green and a bunch of Funkadelic
To his dying day, my father mailed me bootleg tapes
And sweaters that didn’t fit that I’m better for getting sent
Hearing “New York State of Mind” on the radio, played before
Phyllis Hyman, rhyming was the way I’d go, plain to know
I was never a thief, you see, the only shit I stole
Were his records and discs, I would get blessed with a gift
First, I didn’t have much presence but the essence was instinctive
Testing for the sections with the methods to relinquish
Them to us, you to me, I first made synth at 15
Flipped samples at 1-6 and they say I don’t love this
Dog, I swallowed that disease and hollered at the beast
Until my room was just record sleeves and dollar store receipts
I live for this
[Chorus]
I never learned how to swim
But the waves keep breaking upon miles of sin
And I never learned how to bike
But I ran through the math, man, I had to fight