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Waiting for that "Hark, hear that archangel calling?" El-P (Ft. Danny Brown & Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire) – Oh Hail No
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Another religious reference, specifically to the poem: Hark, the voice of Jesus calling,

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Blood beach El-P – Deep Space 9mm
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Shoutout to the 1980 horror film starring Marianna Hill

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697849a78968db3032afcb186bfbfb88

220

9 years

Sharks can leave their victims a bloody mess. The next line refers to land sharks and beaches are on land.

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Bizarre me mere mortal? Hardly, hardly Nacho Picasso – Haile Selassie
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Haile Selassie can pet lions, it’s what you do when you'r an immortal god among men.

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Coca-Cola here here, not RC Nacho Picasso – Haile Selassie
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Good choice RC tastes awful.

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Iahxv2vnbus

299

7 years

Coca Cola vs. RC..
in reference to quality of Cocaine.
CocaCola is better Quality, as nacho is bragging about the cocaine being better quality than others (RC cola)

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In the way you view the graves like a string of tiny thrones Aesop Rock – Crows 1
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This line is about putting the dead on a pedestal. It’s not to be interpreted literally, due to the phrasing “in the way YOU VIEW”.

Thrones are for Kings, and once a loved one dies, we tend to view them as more perfect and better than they were in life. The line directly works with the previous one: if you idealize the dead, it says quite a lot about you.

“Graves like a string” meaning several dead, one next to the other. This fits in with the overall theme of Skelethon: a marathon of skeletons.

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B61cf4eeeab8c24248b75b420be62605

608

8 years

There’s an interesting hypocrisy here, because in the beginning of the song he is describing Camu as a king “brother was a face card
Crown like a heart-shaped tunnel of woven branches…”

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jay
8 years

When people approach a throne they drop to their knee/s, in doing this at a grave you reveal your thoughts on the person buried. Definitely for literal interpretation, but the implied reverence is true in both cases.

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Nikelmouse
9 years

The line doesn’t mean that you idolize the dead, the line means that you see the dead as a series of small victories; kings would sometimes kill their way onto the throne, that the throne would be their reward for winning battles.

It does fit with the last line; you think that you are concealing the type of person you are but the type of person you are is revealed in the way you view the dead.

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Past the pyrotechnics, undetected and invisible
Woke the sleeping beagle skipping toward the kidney swimming pool Aesop Rock – Ruby '81
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Here Pyrotechnics (not pyrotechnicians) means the fire works. Due to the obvious distraction of fireworks ruby becomes invisible to everyone at the celebration. As she wanders toward the swimming pool (in the shape of a kidney) she wakes up the dog.

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5476379fc70d3d83227a94684cce32e4

1,012

10 years

Kidney?

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Default_avatar_100

255

10 years

This is the first introduction of the dogs character.
Why was it sleeping with all the family commotion commencing?
Suggesting its disconnection to humans, setting the scene for it’s misleading “beast, monster” references later on.

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Vr7kwzj0qg6p6wm4lzng

247

10 years

I believe he is saying “..the sleeping beagle skipping toward the KIDDIE swimming pool.”

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Patio was charcoals and extended fam in folding chairs
Safely arced around the yard to focus on the smoking flares Aesop Rock – Ruby '81
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On the patio people were grilling and hanging out. Rather than mingling freely, everyone has formed a sort of ring (or rather, an arc) around the fireworks. They’re a fair distance off, for safety’s sake, but that’s still the focus.

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Now I'm looking down the barrel of a string-bean side like an exodus of biblical proportion redefined Aesop Rock – Grace
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Later on in the song he makes it clear that the thought of eating green beans makes him want to throw up, so the exodus refers to vomiting (like an exodus of the contents of his stomach).

Also, the Exodus in the bible saw an entire Jewish people leave Egypt, in one of the biggest human migrations the planet had ever seen. Aes uses this comparison to show that the exodus from his stomach is going to be HUGE.

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Your mom's name
9 years

For Aes, having to eat his vegetables is like having a gun to his temple, and he’s looking down the barrel, daunted by the scale of the task (eating his string-beans) before him, just like how Moses was initially reluctant to lead the Exodus from Egypt because he felt he was inadequate for the task and couldn’t pull it off.

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(.. then strike! Pull out my naked eye and with this..
My mask of sanity's about to slip!) Cage – A Suicidal Failure
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From the film American Psycho

My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.

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to 02143 Titus Andronicus (Ft. Nolen Strals & Okey Canfield Chenoweth III) – A More Perfect Union
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The 02143 is lovely Somerville, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston where Patrick lived when writing The Monitor in 2008-2009. It is consummately suburban, with entire neighbourhoods of houses constructed in the same fashion, in neat rows.

Fun fact: The American Flag flew for the first-ever time in Somerville, on Prospect Hill.

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Eric Colantonio
3 years

Than*

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Eric
3 years

I think technically Somerville is a suburb despite its urban feel. It’s definetly more of a traditional American “Streetcar suburb” from the 19th and early 20th century then a post-war McMansion suburb.

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George
4 years

“consumately suburban”? This doesn’t describe Somerville at all. Somerville is absolutely urban and is one of the densest cities in the country. This comment is overall, just a really weird description of the city to see if you’ve ever lived there.

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