Deca - Bough

Rap analysis

A lot of psychiatrists started following this substack over the last few months. Now, I have to disappoint those new followers by talking about rap music, not psychiatry.

Deca is the artist I have listened to the most over the last decade, and I only discovered him four years ago. My end-of-year Spotify wrap-up always tells me I am in the top 0.5% of his listeners.¹

I’m not sure how to describe his genre of music. It’s probably categorized under hip-hop/rap, but his recipe isn’t women, weed, and weather². Instead, it is a mix of Judeo-Christian allusions, Greek mythology, Eastern symbolism, and Jungian archetypes woven into themes of esotericism (spirituality, mysticism, “inward traditions” transpersonal psychology, etc.) and sociopolitical critique (military-industrial complex, capitalism, skepticism towards ‘mainstream’ narratives, tech-pessimism, etc.). This is all done over dope beats. I’d call it psychedelic rap, but ‘psychedelic’ is in vogue right now, which makes me hesitant to do so.

His new album Bough is out. I made this blog post as an excuse to listen to songs on repeat while analyzing the lyrics. Doing this was more fun than I anticipated, but disclaimer: you won't appreciate the album by only reading this blog post. Thinking that you could is like thinking you could appreciate the flavor of Duck à l'oranges's bigarade sauce by reading a recipe.

Below are some highlighted lines from his latest album. I’ve landed on three categories of bars to highlight because they demonstrate the unique, intellectually stimulating nature of his lyrics: 1) historical/cultural references, 2) literary references, and 3) simply clever lines I like. All categories are non-exhaustive; there are plenty of examples of the categories throughout the album beyond what I mention below. But eventually, I had to stop going down rabbit holes and hit submit on this post.

Categories are ranked such that my favorite is at the top of the section. Granted, favorite is subjective and influenced by how it fits into the music and the song itself. Your miles may vary.

• Song Title

  • Lyrics of the song

    • Commentary

What the commentary section may or may not look like. I've concluded that art analysis is just a more publicly acceptable form of a Rorschach test.

Historical/Cultural Reference

• The Gist

  • Blood and strife, talk is dirt cheap, up the price
    Everybody's Bobby Sands 'til the hunger strikes

    • Bobby Sands was a member of the Irish Republican Army (a part of recent history I have no exposure to or understanding of). He died from starvation while on a hunger strike when his POW (prisoner of war) status was changed to just…normal prisoner by the government. The double entendre with ‘hunger strikes’ is just so good. And the line is short and sweet. For the rest of my life, I will be mumbling ‘Everybody’s Bobby Sands ‘til the hunger strikes’ to myself when I see actions fall short of commitments. 9.5/10

• Caught in the Fray

  • I can see clear now the rain is gone
    You dont have to fill your gut with what they consume
    Or space out like Major Tom

    • Major Tom is a persona referenced in David Bowie’s songs as a junkie in Ashes to Ashes, then the astronaut in the more infamous Space Oddity. Referencing the name draws up both outerspace and substance use (though Space Oddity itself is conceivably (obviously?) an allegory for overdosing). I insert the emotions invoked by this song into the line above, and mixed with the smoothness of the rhyme scheme, we land at 9/10.

• Move Right

  • I begged her not to move in the now based on future gains
    Eventually, that'll boomerang
    I know the pen's mightier than a sword forged by Tubal-cain

    • I call these types of wordplay’s freebies. It’s an unnecessary addition of the word Tubal-cain - the sentence should stop at ‘sword’. But by adding it the rhyme scheme and cadence of the lyrics is smoothened, and the creator gets to display wit. I snorted. I appreciate the underlying carrot > stick message. And what other rapper has referenced Tubal-cain? 8/10

• Homesafe

  • The same tired imagery's repeating like Warhol’s

    • Simple simile. I don’t know art, but the one thing I do know about Warhol is it was all about repeating images. 7/10

• Driftwood

  • Holding mics since I was shoulder height to Gary Coleman

    • Freebie. Hilarious way to say you’ve been rapping since you were a kid. 6/10

• War:

  • Nothin' new, same old hustle and subterfuge
    Suffer through shockwaves we've grown accustomed to
    Up the views, more skewed coverage and buzzard food
    Trouble brews and pundits fish in the blood that pools
    Nationwide they're harmonizin' like the Four Tops
    War hawks on Park Place and Boardwalk

    • On paper, not that special. In the rhyme scheme and beats, stellar. I’ll settle with a 6/10

• Homesafe

  • Go to work
    Talk to spirits like Roland Kirk
    It might blow up, but won't be served by the Soda Jerk

    • I can’t figure out why Roland is called a spirit here, other than the fact he has passed. So I guess that’s the play here? I probably don’t appreciate Roland enough, considering I had to google who he was. But finding a way to rhyme two lines with work is not bad. 3/10, honestly mostly because soda jerk is a fun word to fit into a rap.

Literary References

• Caught in the Fray

  • Paradise lost for capital gain

    • Mic. Dropped. The juxtaposition is just so good and so on point for the type of social commentary Deca does. How much more curt can you be? 9/10

• The Gist

  • Computers can play Chess, but not the glass bеad game

    • The glass bead game refers to a Hermann Hesse book (author of Siddhartha, which I happily devoured as a 22-year-old) in which a sect of society breaks off and devotes their life to seeking ‘knowledge’ as a pure concept. They create an esoteric game that condenses all of art, history, and science into symbols that can then subsequently be manipulated and scrutinized to find common, deeper patterns across domains. It is a very cerebral exercise emphasizing pattern, meditation, and (strangely in the book) music. At least, that’s what I have gathered in the first three chapters I have read so far after being inspired by this line. The game itself is intentionally vaguely described in the book despite being the title. The actual game and its rules are secondary. The game doesn’t even make sense under scrutiny. It’s more metaphorical for the recursive journey inward; finding the center of the maze. Computers can play chess, but not the glass bead game. 9/10 (I’m biased on this, it resonates with me)

• Driftwood

  • Sometimes I over do it, spill guts like Tetsuo
    Desperate for a world that's less brutal

    • I’m dead. What a simile. I’m not sure what this is called, but the second line's first word (Desperate) has many of the same consonant-vowel combos (a partial rhyme?) as the first line’s last word (Tetsuo). This subtle similarity helps bridge us to ‘less brutal’ as the actual end-of-line rhyme. Another side point: there are plenty of other references to the dark side of technology and machines in Deca’s work - Tetsuo had to be referenced. 8.5/10

• Sun Tzu

  • No such thing as Artistry in War, save the Sun Tzu

    • Clean, easy line to sing when you can’t keep up with the rest in the actual song due to speed. 7.5/10

• Homesafe

  • All the new-age new-speak, the Kool-Aid’s too sweet

    • Lovely play on words with compound words. Simple and sweet. Within the larger context of the album - of course, we get a 1984 reference. 7/10

• Move Right

  • We got safety nets with gaping holes
    Don't mistake your narrow lens for the greater whole
    Horatio
    While some move and shake spearheading our collective fate, others pay the toll
    On roads' paved with skulls, post violent force

    • Horatio is a character in Shakespear’s Hamlet. I can’t figure out any reason the name is randomly inserted here other than to keep the rhyme scheme, and it’s made kosher with the subtle play on words. In a way, it feels forced. In another way, it’s pretty witty not to even directly say Shakespeare. Mixed feelings, but 6/10

• War

  • Learn to love the bomb, act like nothin's wrong
    Dusk 'till dawn snatchin' crumbs from your brother's palms
    If it detonates when all faith and trust is gone
    You won't have to turn the oven on to make duck l'orange

    • It may be a stretch of a reference, but given (at least) two other older iconic movies have been referenced, I’m assuming this was intentional. Pieced together with the unique last line, 5/10

• Sun Tzu

  • Peace and love to fam and friends
    Standing Where the Sidewalk Ends…

    • Clever way to sneak significant emotional weight into a line and keep a rhyme scheme. The original poem alludes to a magic, conflict-free paradise at the end of the sidewalk. This is a nice counter-literary reference to a track called Sun Tzu. 5/10

• The Gist

  • Lotta shapeshifting in this fallen age of reason
    Call up Snake Plissken to escape on Major Deegan

    • I’m too young to appreciate this reference, but it was easy to find on Google. Mostly, it is just another old film that I don’t know, but now feel I need to watch. 2/10

Lines I liked

I eventually had to stop adding to this list because it kept growing. There are lots of good one-liners (In a fallen Rome where the fallen roam) that I opted not to add.

• Driftwood

  • Driftwood down the river styx
    One side's scorched earth, the other side's triple six
    Which way to go from here, to flip a switch and strip away the old veneer

    emerging from a cave-like chrysalis
    We sit and watch snakes slither off a grifter's lips
    One day it's Herculean feats the next Sisyphus
    Earth angels sending signs, letters sealed with a kiss
    Assurance that it all will work out, the sky's limitless,

    you get the gist

    • I started off with just the first two lines, but the rhyme scheme goes for so many lines I had to include it all. River Styx was the main river in the underworld that separated the world of the living from the world of the dead. Set to its beat, this is a banger of an opening verse - 9.5/10

• Bough

  • Tree Rings, old limbs
    See the same patterns repeat like slogans
    Or old sins

    • Needs the music with it for full effect. I imagine if I had my associations pharmacologically loosened (i.e., was high) one would say ‘Dude. Slogans are just like capitalism’s version of tree rings. And old sins like, the tree rings of the collective unconscious, man’. Another absolute banger of a song opener. 9/10

• Furthermore

  • I know there's eyes everywhere, like an Aspen grove

    • Aspen trees are genetically identical trees, all connected via their roots. The whole forest is really one tree (Pando, the largest colony is 10,000 years old). When their limbs fall off, they leave an eye-like imprint. Not only are there ‘eyes everywhere’, but the eyes are all ‘of the same’ in a very Big Brother-esk, Illuminati way - 9/10

      

• Homesafe

  • You consume - you become; Rule of thumb
    Gain the world, lose your tongue; Or move as one

    • First line: self-explanatory adage, prominent in Eastern philosophy (buddishm). And references a body part (thumb). Second line: another classic adage (referencing Christianty’s Matthew 16:26), but with the soul replaced by the tongue to keep the body part reference symetric. I think by ‘lose your tongue’, it is referring to losing your authentic voice (i.e., you. i.e. your soul). The alternative to a squallored life of consumption and material gain? Community. For the message, rhyme scheme, subtle contrast of multiple religions, etc. - 8.5/10

• War

  • No solace in the eye for eyeball they're callin' for
    You know the mantra well colonize call it yours

    • 1) The (subliminal?) juxtaposition of ‘I’ in colonIze and ‘call it yours’ is the type of thing I imagine just came off instinct when writing. Both instances of ‘cal’ (col, call) preceded this juxtaposition, and the symmetry is music to my ears. Succinct and catchy manner. 8/10

• The Gist

  • Take your pick, different scene or setting, same basic script
    A rogue state stripping life of its sacredness
    And two opposing sides, going at it like Beta fish

    • Within the context of the track, I’m under the impression that this refers to the timeless story of two (political) parties going at each other tooth and nail = Beta-fish are notorious for aggressively fighting to the death when placed together. But I see a double entendre here with the word ‘beta’. Obviously, it is needed for the beta-fish sense of the line to work, but also an emphasis on the lower quality ‘beta’ of those who fall into that trap. This line summarizes my outlook on modern politics and (the American) two-party system. I (think I) support ranked choice voting. And that’s the end of my political rant. Happy election season. 8/10

• War

  • Our free and fair press every step beatin' bare chest
    Which three letter agency's inkin' their checks?

    • My weakness for conspiratorial thinking kicks in when I hear this line. But making commentary on the relationship between government and information outlets while indirectly highlighting the ‘otherness’ of agencies condensed into alphabet soup (FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA (lol)): 7.5/10

• Furthermore

  • Decepticons call for scanning retinas and palm prints
    Sound minds assessing our collective unconscious
    Say to focus on what's precious - all the rest of it's nonsense

    • 1) The contrast of machine (Decepticons) and human (palm prints, retinas). 2) found a way to rhyme the word palm prints. 3) end with a slam dunk adage. 7/10

• Caught in the Fray

  • One too many lost that were close to me
    Nodding out, burning holes in upholstery
    You know the code of the coterie

    • I only knew Coterie was a brand of diapers that my kids used. Now I understand where that name comes from! 6.5/10

• The Gist

  • But Son’s Raw, join the Arkestra when the flood comes

    • A play on The Sun Ra Arkestra, (jazz musician Sun Ra’s group) and the story of Noah’s Ark. H/t Rap Genius. It’s honestly too big-brained for me, 4/10

• Furthermore

  • But for the sake of argument and Pete's Pistol

    Or Gabriel's Ratchet, I keep clean as a whistle
    A swarm of silver-tipped heat-seekers like
    Migrating Geese fly through the air and tear through your meat and gristle

    • I like this line for a few reasons. First, I learned what a Gabriel Ratchet was - a classic supernatural/mystical type reference Deca would pull out. It also is a great example of something I visceral identified as a ‘thing’ but never cognitively knew that it had a name. Second (and this is only one I have mentioned of at least a handful), it is a direct reference to a song³ on a previous album. Lastly, it has a pop culture reference. My qualm is I can’t figure out how the Pete Pistol reference fits into the picture. Rating TBD

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Bough isn’t my favorite album, but it’s grown on me the same way The Ocean, The Way Through, Snakes and Birds, and Smoking Gun did. If you want references to quantum Rubix cubes and Gain-of-Function research⁴, frying the circuit board of SkyNet⁵, Lotus-eaters and Yoga teachers⁶, check out his other albums. All his albums have interludes⁷ that tickle my mind. I’m always afraid to hear a new album out of concern that it will not keep up with the previous one, but so far, I have not been disappointed.

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2. Anyone?

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