The Billiken's Bluff

I'm trying to right my wrongs,
But it's funny these same wrongs helped me write this song.

Kanye West provides this lyrical insight on his new single Touch the Sky.



Kanye's shortcomings and idiosyncrasies (read idiot) have been well documented here on Billiken. But, he has redeemed himself with this lyrical gem. It is self-conscious in the best of meanings. It is not political/social self-consciousness, i.e., Talib Kweli's:

Soldiers fighting in the Petroleum Wars, think they dying for the holiest cause.

or Kanye West's off-the-cuff telethon outburst:

George Bush doesn't care about black people.

A better term for this line is self-aware. It is true. It is something any writer who chooses to explore a subject other than morning dew on a grassy meadow, draws off of.



The struggle with one's conscience. The struggle to remain faithful to one’s partner. The struggle with insecurities, addictions, hate, anger, desire. This is the stuff that makes great music, fiction, non-fiction, movies, art. Once the struggle is over you have nothing to draw on for inspiration. To regain that that inspiration you have to speak about the past.

it's funny these same wrongs helped me write this song

The Bible. The conversion narrative. Saul's story is compelling because he persecuted Christian and then he converted. I have sinned and now I see the light. Saul committed many wrongs before converting. This is why I remember him. This is why I am referencing Saul/Paul's life now, 2,000 years later, while posting on my blog.

Rappers are always referring to the past. Referring to the days before stadium concerts, when they were in the wrong. That is the material that has some vitality to it. It is the material that makes good music.

Or good writing...

Hemmingway wrote about his alcoholism. Henry Miller wrote about cheating on his wife again and again and again. Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg wrote about drugs they took, the laws they broke. Bret Easton Ellis writes about cocaine, uncertainty with his sexual identity, and slicing women open with chain saws and various forms of cutlery.



The wrongs are what you write about. Once you right those wrongs you reminisce about those wrongs.

A reverend with a television ministry like TD Jakes stands on stage, in front of his congregation and tells them about those days when he was sinning, before he felt the presence of the Lord Jesus.



Jakes focuses on these uncertain days when he was a wayward sheep, lost without a Shepard. He tells this story repeatedly. Every Sunday. I'm making this up but I feel it's probably true. If it’s not true, it should be. What else would a reverend talk about? You need a compelling story. You need a basis for comparison. Right and Wrong.

But like Kanye's label-brethren, Jay-Z says, "Let's not stray from what I came to say, today."

This lyric is good.

I'm trying to right my wrongs,
But it's funny these same wrongs helped me write this song.

True.