This Music
By Timothy Welbeck (1991)
On album Germain Presents Party Mix (1991), 'Trane of Thought (2023)
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Verse 1
This all started in an office with calmness/My parents heard swearing and some 2 Live nonsense/And now the name “rap” was tainted and tarnished/They came proclaiming, “You ain't gone listen to that garbage/Disregard it, these rappers ain't artists”/I had no option, I grabbed their tapes of Marvin, Aretha, and James, I even found Bob then/Stevie and Michael, whatever I could find art in/They were in boxes from our old apartment, and as I copped them, I popped them in my walkman/Rummaging through those boxes, I didn't know which one to start with/But I would listen everyday, and I knew all of their songs then/I studied every cord, and every guitar riff/The became the soundtrack of my youth in all the years I grew up/And took my mind to places that I never knew/I listened carefully to the movements pass/Heard jazz grow from blues, and soul grew from jazz/I saw how rock and rap took congruent paths/And if soul influenced that, what am I do with rap—it's all music
Hook
God, what am I to do with this, when no one else in the world is seeing you in it/And me trying to fight it is oh so useless/So God tell me what am I to do with this music (repeat)
Verse 2
Em told us music an alter moods and talk to you/And as a youth, I learned that truth all too soon/When my cousin Audrey visited in part of June/She turned on the radio, and blasted awkward tunes/The music was contagious, it spread over its blaring beat/I moved on instinct not caring what would my parents/Audrey couldn't help but laugh as she stared at me/Watching it carry its melody throughout my very being/This was music like I had heard through the grapevine/Percussion, bass lines, that people used to create rhymes/It changed lives, from that day it changed mine/I was in love, fighting it only would waste time/So from then on, when it spoke, I listened/To the hum of every drum, I would flow along with them/This music had touched me, giving me no description/Except it spoke to my soul in ways that old ones didn't
Hook
God, what am I to do with this, when no one else in the world is seeing you in it/And me trying to fight it is oh so useless/So God tell me what am I to do with this music (repeat)
Verse 3
Within eighteen months, I was simply gone/And I would pen these songs with Whitney Vaughan/On the weekends, all that we would know was writing, and we took our rhyming to every social climate/Football games, parties, we would flow in parking lots,/Rhyming in ciphers around the time that Pac got shot/I guess you could say, that's when I earned respect then/And you had the beginning of what became a suburban legend/I battled everyone, so the praise was due/Even the music, cause it would try and play me too/And hop, and skip, and skip, like a six-year old on the way to school/But I kept rhyming, I kept writing, I kept fighting/Looking for a purpose in this, praying that I'd find it/And that's when I gave God glory in all that I did/Flowing in His name, knowing this wasn't my gift/So I obeyed saying that I would do it in faith/And at each place, they would say, “What must I do to be saved”/And that's when I would say I knew that my influence was great/And I would preach this gospel, I would do what it takes/I couldn't do this any more to rock an audience/I'm held accountable when all of the applauses end/But at each location, the battle continued/Because of tradition, churches kicked me out of their venues/And when it seemed like all else was about to fail/The Lord, He introduced me to a Malcolm Sales/And ladies and gentlemen, that's how you're hearing this now/Because he believed, we are recording this here in his house
Hook
God, what am I to do with this, when no one else in the world is seeing you in it/And me trying to fight it is oh so useless/So God tell me what am I to do with this music (repeat)
Verse 4
I was predestined to spit, I will not shut up and run/Because these rhymes will stay so hot, they'll burn the spit off my tongue/So I must release, what is burning in me/It's fire shut up in my bones, it's earnest to sleep/But they say, “Red, you can't be godly and controversial/So the music you do has got to be poppy and commercial/Even if you receive the truth, don't report it/Because the day you do, we'll make sure that we stone you for it”/It's like thy can't hear, and they don't know that they're deaf/That's why I feel like I'm Elijah—no one is left/They're too busy saving their lives, holding their breath/Knowing that we pause from breathing for speaking, meaning sacred is prose/So in these last six years that I've been placed in these shows/I've been placing my life on hold for the saving of souls/And critics have been hating my songs, taking up stones, and they hurl them at me every time they say that I'm wrong/It's days like this, I'm left with nobody, except Rashida, my sister Katherine, and a brother named Kwasi/We're like the faithful Remnant who get the clue/God exists outside of church vestibules/I make His Word my Lyrix and take them to the restless youth/And stay on a Kwest for Jesus like I'm led to do/And since my Savior conquered the grave, I refuse to bow to death/But I will sing of His praises until I'm out of breath/So you can go ahead and stone me if you must do it/Just let it be said that I was used through this music…
This all started in an office with calmness/My parents heard swearing and some 2 Live nonsense/And now the name “rap” was tainted and tarnished/They came proclaiming, “You ain't gone listen to that garbage/Disregard it, these rappers ain't artists”/I had no option, I grabbed their tapes of Marvin, Aretha, and James, I even found Bob then/Stevie and Michael, whatever I could find art in/They were in boxes from our old apartment, and as I copped them, I popped them in my walkman/Rummaging through those boxes, I didn't know which one to start with/But I would listen everyday, and I knew all of their songs then/I studied every cord, and every guitar riff/The became the soundtrack of my youth in all the years I grew up/And took my mind to places that I never knew/I listened carefully to the movements pass/Heard jazz grow from blues, and soul grew from jazz/I saw how rock and rap took congruent paths/And if soul influenced that, what am I do with rap—it's all music
Hook
God, what am I to do with this, when no one else in the world is seeing you in it/And me trying to fight it is oh so useless/So God tell me what am I to do with this music (repeat)
Verse 2
Em told us music an alter moods and talk to you/And as a youth, I learned that truth all too soon/When my cousin Audrey visited in part of June/She turned on the radio, and blasted awkward tunes/The music was contagious, it spread over its blaring beat/I moved on instinct not caring what would my parents/Audrey couldn't help but laugh as she stared at me/Watching it carry its melody throughout my very being/This was music like I had heard through the grapevine/Percussion, bass lines, that people used to create rhymes/It changed lives, from that day it changed mine/I was in love, fighting it only would waste time/So from then on, when it spoke, I listened/To the hum of every drum, I would flow along with them/This music had touched me, giving me no description/Except it spoke to my soul in ways that old ones didn't
Hook
God, what am I to do with this, when no one else in the world is seeing you in it/And me trying to fight it is oh so useless/So God tell me what am I to do with this music (repeat)
Verse 3
Within eighteen months, I was simply gone/And I would pen these songs with Whitney Vaughan/On the weekends, all that we would know was writing, and we took our rhyming to every social climate/Football games, parties, we would flow in parking lots,/Rhyming in ciphers around the time that Pac got shot/I guess you could say, that's when I earned respect then/And you had the beginning of what became a suburban legend/I battled everyone, so the praise was due/Even the music, cause it would try and play me too/And hop, and skip, and skip, like a six-year old on the way to school/But I kept rhyming, I kept writing, I kept fighting/Looking for a purpose in this, praying that I'd find it/And that's when I gave God glory in all that I did/Flowing in His name, knowing this wasn't my gift/So I obeyed saying that I would do it in faith/And at each place, they would say, “What must I do to be saved”/And that's when I would say I knew that my influence was great/And I would preach this gospel, I would do what it takes/I couldn't do this any more to rock an audience/I'm held accountable when all of the applauses end/But at each location, the battle continued/Because of tradition, churches kicked me out of their venues/And when it seemed like all else was about to fail/The Lord, He introduced me to a Malcolm Sales/And ladies and gentlemen, that's how you're hearing this now/Because he believed, we are recording this here in his house
Hook
God, what am I to do with this, when no one else in the world is seeing you in it/And me trying to fight it is oh so useless/So God tell me what am I to do with this music (repeat)
Verse 4
I was predestined to spit, I will not shut up and run/Because these rhymes will stay so hot, they'll burn the spit off my tongue/So I must release, what is burning in me/It's fire shut up in my bones, it's earnest to sleep/But they say, “Red, you can't be godly and controversial/So the music you do has got to be poppy and commercial/Even if you receive the truth, don't report it/Because the day you do, we'll make sure that we stone you for it”/It's like thy can't hear, and they don't know that they're deaf/That's why I feel like I'm Elijah—no one is left/They're too busy saving their lives, holding their breath/Knowing that we pause from breathing for speaking, meaning sacred is prose/So in these last six years that I've been placed in these shows/I've been placing my life on hold for the saving of souls/And critics have been hating my songs, taking up stones, and they hurl them at me every time they say that I'm wrong/It's days like this, I'm left with nobody, except Rashida, my sister Katherine, and a brother named Kwasi/We're like the faithful Remnant who get the clue/God exists outside of church vestibules/I make His Word my Lyrix and take them to the restless youth/And stay on a Kwest for Jesus like I'm led to do/And since my Savior conquered the grave, I refuse to bow to death/But I will sing of His praises until I'm out of breath/So you can go ahead and stone me if you must do it/Just let it be said that I was used through this music…
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