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The day that Chris Columbus got crucified on golden arches Sage Francis – Slow Down Gandhi
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What is this?
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What is this?
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Another line from The New Colossus. A tempest-tost is an adjective meaning “pounded or hit repeatedly by storms or adversities”–as in, tossed by a tempest.
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What is this?
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This is almost a Xaul Zan verse (Sage Francis' misogynist, misanthropist alter ego). Sage playing devil’s advocate and mentioning the opposing views.
A fanbase with hearing aids and a voice like a hand grenade Sage Francis – The Buzz Kill
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Playing off of the previous line on how he needs a band-aid because he is bleeding from his own actions, he is handicapping himself because he feels it’s unfair for him to rap at full strength. This is similar to the story of Harrison Bergeron. In this story, a young man is handicapped by the government to keep him average and he attempts to overthrow the government.
To strip clubs
They slip drugs
Into the drinks that kids love
Tell us to drink up and get buzzed Sage Francis – The Buzz Kill
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Sage is making it sound like kids are getting rufied when they go out to buy drinks when the reality is that alcohol itself is the drug they are being persuaded to drink that is dangerous to them.
The central point of the song: the things you are told to enjoy don’t give you any real enjoyment. Drugs are ways of being uninformed, inactive, and docile, three things Sage rails against for the rest of the album.
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A play off the Gang Starr line from Moment of Truth.
“They say it’s lonely at the top in whatever you do”
Being the buzzkill means Sage is left alone, but he’s not lonely, dammit! He’s keeping busy entertaining himself as one might stranded on a summit in a snowstorm.
Here Sage shows a self-awareness rare in hip hop, that he knows the consequences his stubbornness brings him.
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The use of “Gandhi” here is ironic, similar to calling someone “Einstein” when they say something dumb or “Sherlock” when they say something obvious.
Basically, it’s condemnation of a military that’s trying to “bring peace” but, through incompetence and corruption, they’re actually doing more harm than good and causing just as many deaths as they’re (supposedly) trying to prevent.
Judging by the next verses and Sage’s wish to snip both sides here (an equal-opportunity derailer), Sage could also addressing wannabe revolutionaries, saying that by being misinformed, inarticulate, and divisive, they’re driving away the people they want to be persuading.
Nope. “Slow down, you’re killin' em” is a phrase you would use when congratulating a rapper kicking ass in a battle–Sage is casting himself as a sort of angry Gandhi.
Also at work here is another definition of the phrase “slow down, you’re killin' em”: You’re moving too fast for people, they’re not gonna be able to get down with what you’re saying. This is the sort of thing that was frequently said to people like MLK and Gandhi. What Sage is pointing out is that today, with the benefit of hindsight, we’d never think Gandhi should have slowed down, but we still tell today’s Gandhis to do so. This will be touched upon later in the line “You need to cut the noose but you don’t believe in scissors,” an expression of frustration with progressives who won’t do what needs to be done.