Aesop Rock - Cycles To Gehenna Lyrics
Baseheads locally approach all spark plugs
Total disregard for a dying man's shark jump
Post-meridian pretty tungsten attracts any once-pale horse painted gunmetal black
Face masking, hard-shelled ebony propeller hat
Clubmans, gloved rakes grappling the clutch span
For the dead-alive that rented parking space 37
2000 out the weekly under "Cycles to Gehenna" gets him floating over 20 buses
Fireproof and festive
Corners like a two-tired tiger so a too-tired rider can accumulate a few excited fibers to assign
Knows no zen in the art of maintenance
Only as the orchestrated patron saint of changing lanes baby
Here is how a great escape goes when you can't take your dead friends names out your phone
Eyes and teeth, new moon on a scale that defies belief
Outside what our fundamental sciences teach, every other mighty lion asleep
The man-ape translates glam thru the visor
Goes in water lilies
Am-scrays Giger, and man-ray
Crammed in a one-player campaign
Blinker like a hallowed bonfire over Samhain
Span where the praying hands mandate
Bars an extension of the arms
They're mutating instead of being farmed
Tonight beneath a marmalade Venus
Haunted mowers chewing every glowing yard of mud between us
Going Ford, Jag, Datsun, Corvette, Lotus
All cones you can slalom when your Zorlac's focused
Via mechanical Dartmoor Frankensteined poorly
And sanctioned by a New Yank Yorkee
Who knew that any moment he could lose it to the decoupaged suicide flooring
And still he keep his fuel tank portly, the 30 odd year old gears thank charlie
The scarf thank Mom's new hobby, kssssht! copy
Eyes and teeth, new moon on a scale that defies belief
Outside what our fundamental sciences teach, every other mighty lion asleep
Gangway - mine eyes, mine teeth [x3]
It was less an act of hubris
More a lonely hearts club at the helm of a magic bullet
Away on a relentless bid for rarefied inertia
Rattletrap forks married to the patchy terra firma Ursa Minor getting warmer
I crowbar into the pecking order
The dreck between the whores and Betty Ford-ers
Hug a double yellow spine
Knobby rubber like a rat on a rope
Those little fuckers run on passion alone
This is the product of a D.I.Y. inadequate home
Grabbing a cabin in the-fuck-outta-dodge
Actin' a savage in the shadows of Rome
Traffic amassed against insufferable odds
Fashioning gallows out of plastic and bone
I got the motordrome walls of death splintering under me
All-city galvanized bikes white knuckling
Bright light, tunnel kings tuck in the devil
P.S. I wrote this on a self destructing memo
Other Lyrics by Artist
- Aesop Rock - Holy Smokes
- Aesop Rock - Leisureforce
- Aesop Rock - ZZZ Top
- Aesop Rock - Cycles To Gehenna
- Aesop Rock - Zero Dark Thirty
- Aesop Rock - Fryerstarter
- Aesop Rock - Ruby '81
- Aesop Rock - Crows 1
- Aesop Rock - Crows 2
- Aesop Rock - Racing Stripes
- Aesop Rock - 1,000 O'Clock
- Aesop Rock - Homemade Mummy
- Aesop Rock - Grace
- Aesop Rock - Saturn Missiles
- Aesop Rock - Tetra
- Aesop Rock - Gopher Guts
- Aesop Rock - Dokken Rules
- Aesop Rock - Pigs
Rand Lyrics
- Richard Ashcroft - This Is How It Feels
- Richard Ashcroft - They Don't Own Me
- Richard Ashcroft - Hold On
- Richard Ashcroft - These People
- Richard Ashcroft - Everybody Needs Somebody To Hurt
- Richard Ashcroft - Picture Of You
- Richard Ashcroft - Black Lines
- Richard Ashcroft - Ain't The Future So Bright
- Richard Ashcroft - Songs Of Experience
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Aesop Rock Cycles To Gehenna Comments
2019 🔥🔥🔥🔥
I wish more riders knew about this song
Beast of a track.... respect
As much as I love his work and place him high above most, a certain part of hip hop is about being relatable, especially to the culture that created it in the first place. And his style just wasn't that. When he came on the scene, most every rapper worth something was lyrical, so there was that much more emphasis on people understanding it and rappers and hip hop listeners usually aren't "scholars", nor should anyone have to be to understand it. Yet and still, art is relative, so there's definitely a place for him among the underground's elite. He fit's right there with Camp Lo, former label mate EL-P, Canibus, Chip-Fu aka Jungle Rock Jr. (from Fu-schnickens) and AZ to name a few for me personally.
2:52 is seriously one of my favorite tempo changes in any song ever
Perfect video and sound!Amazing!
This makes me proud to be from Long Island.
I feel like this entire album was just Aes letting us know he owns a motorcycle.
Last verse is fucking BEAUTIFUL
third verse might be my favorite of all time. Captures that road trip feel so well
this is as boring as atmospheres new album
This is my fight walk out song. So good.
San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge
Here's how the great escape goes when you can't take your dead friends names out your phone
Such a powerful line..
SAVAGE IN THE SHADOWS OF ROME
I think it's pretty satisfying that the ballerinas are all asynchronous in their movements and appearance. Like, it's kinda righteous that they aren't stuck to a routine or archetype.
R.I.P to those trying to dececipher,Aesops lyrics are coherent to his lifes expererencies and those outside are hard pressed to discover.
OMG I FUCKIN LUV ASAP SOCKY
This song is about riding a motorcycle at night. Just explained from such a brilliant persons piont of view. So heavy.
Who still listening in 2017? What an important piece of music 10/10
You know it's a good song when you put it on repeat cause the jewels this guy drops fly over people's head
seeing Aesop tomorrow night and I hope he plays this
this is beyond rap
THIS TRACK IS PRETTY GOOD EH???!!
Lyrics:
[Verse 1]
Baseheads locally approach all spark plugs
Total disregard for a dying man's shark jump
Post-meridiem pretty tungsten attracts any once—pale horse painted gunmetal black
Face masking, hard-shelled ebony propeller hat
Clubmans, gloved rakes grappling the clutch span
Tuck go the steel toe, metal gate spreading
For the dead-alive that rented parking space 37
2000 out the weekly under "Cycles to Gehenna" gets him floating over 20 busses
Fireproof and festive
Corners like a two-tired tiger so a too-tired rider can accumulate a few excited fibers to assign
Knows no zen in the art of maintenance
Only as the orchestrated patron saint of changing lanes baby
Here is how a great escape goes when you can't take your dead friends names out your phone
[Hook]
Eyes and teeth, new moon on a scale that defies belief
Outside what our fundamental sciences teach, every other mighty lion asleep
Gangway - mine eyes, mine teeth
[Verse 2]
The man-ape translates glam thru the visor
Goes in water lillies
Am-scrays Giger, and man—ray
Crammed in a one-player campaign
Blinker like a hallowed bonfire over Samhain
Span where the praying hands mandate
Bars an extension of the arms
They're mutating instead of being farmed
Tonight beneath a marmalade venus
Haunted mowers chewing every glowing yard of mud between us
Going Ford, Jag, Datsun, Corvette, Lotus
All cones you can slalom when your Zorlac's focused
Via mechanical Dartmoor Frankensteined poorly
And sanctioned by a New Yank Yorkee
Who knew that any moment he could lose it to the decopaged suicide flooring
And still he keep his fuel tank portly, the 30 odd year old gears thank charlie
The scarf thank Mom's new hobby, kssssht! copy
[Hook]
Eyes and teeth, new moon on a scale that defies belief
Outside what our fundamental sciences teach, every other mighty lion asleep
Gangway - mine eyes, mine teeth
[Verse 3]
It was less of an act of hubris
More a lonely hearts club at the helm of a magic bullet
Away on a relentless bid for rarefied inertia
Rattletrap forks married to the patchy terra firma Ursa Minor getting warmer
I crowbar into the pecking order
The dreck between the whores and Betty Ford-ers
Hug a double yellow spine
Knobby rubber like a rat on a rope
Those little fuckers run on passion alone
This is the product of a d.i.y. inadequate home
Grabbing a cabin in the-fuck-outta-dodge
Actin' a savage in the shadows of Rome
Traffic amassed against insufferable odds
Fashioning gallows out of plastic and bone
I got the motordrome walls of death splintering under me
All-city galvanized bikes white knuckling
Bright light, tunnel kings tuck in the devil
PS - I wrote this on a self-destructing memo...
In the hook, i thought he says "Gangway - mind eyes, mind teeth"
I just can't get over this song. It's been four years and I still come back,
Patrick Maley me too, there‘s no day where i hear Aesop Rock
ace's delivery of "2,000 out the weekly, under cycles to Gehenna" really stands out to me. its something about that line that gives me chills
An excellent example of something entirely constructed with methaphor.
Pale horse painted gunmetal black
Three metaphors in four words
this video and song is beautiful asf aes is a god
goin' ford, jag, DATSUN, corvette, lotus!
whoever made this beat omg I would marry him/her this song is so godly I fucking cherish aesop fr he's the most lyrical rapper to ever live
Aesop produced the album himself.
@Jason McFarlane oh shit I want him to produce my shit
Deep song, About Gehenna, a place in Jerusalem where they dump bodys and garbage and such. This man dies in a bike crash and is carried to Gehenna by the ballerinas.
Nah It's just a song about a guy riding his bike through the city
Biker riding through hell.
what was the bike in the vid?
looks like kowasaki (however u spell it)
Noel, I agree. He is def an intellectual artist without a question and he has a very unique and awesome voice that draws you in and that's what I love most about his sound. Lyrically, he is just in another dimension that we basically can't understand because its his dimension. It gives imagination what he raps about.
no truer words been spoken
The last verse always gets me.
and thats with vice!
Song is good, comments are cancer
Lucy Because why?
Damn I love this album
This is hard!!!!! Goes in.... man this dude should write a book. He has a way with words like I have never heard. Since Float.
+jacob sekgwama this fallen angel can stitch a wing with a shoe string..
I float when everyone around me is busy drowning
+jacob sekgwama so I heard y'all wanna float
I have no words to express my feelings about this. I´m just thankful that i can watch this from now on, whenever i want, for the rest of my life.
Long Live Aesop
I honestly feel like I'm not intelligent enough to understand Aesop's lyrics and that sucks. He's my favorite lyricist and I can't even decipher his music into a cohesive message or intent.
@phantombread Good point. When I made that original comment, I admit, I just began to delve into the world of Aesop. Since then I've explored much more, and I must say right you are. Grace is pretty good but a few songs with a more immediately cohesive stories are, Nine to fivers anthem, Ruby '81, Daylight, and take me to the basement. A good "starter kit" so to speak, for people just getting into him. after that move into the more abstract stuff. I must agree as well, his collaborative works are much more immediately digestible.
+Kenny Sullivan I would throw ZZZ Top and Pacman Victory on that list too.
Btw, I heard Danny Brown wrote down every word of an Aesop album (I think it was Labor Days) years back to decipher it
The biggest thing is understanding that aesop speaks almost entirely in metaphors. He will never just come out and say whats going on. You just need to listen to it and allow his words to paint a picture for you mentally. Allow one metaphor to transform into another and soon enough you will be able to follow what he's trying to trully say.
This songs about riding a motley cycle through downtown
Keep listening, you arent meant to understand after one sitting. Kinda like those books that have to be read 5 times before you catch that one little detail that ties the whole novel together. Ill give you this much though, he hates money but he doesnt like being broke. He doesnt like being around people but he doesnt like being alone. He thinks we dont need phones and we should go back to a simpler time. Aes is like the epitome of our inner child, hes trying to explain through coded lyricism what led him to be jaded so we can remember what its like to live without rules or premeditated expectations. "Outside of what fundamental sciences teach"
Straight uncanny!!!
I want to find this guy promising me "the secret to getting a Ferrari for free" and stab him in the fucking face 'til I forget why I started.
I feel like underrated isn't enough to describe this guy.
Disagree,he is rated very highly by most who knows about him. Not being world famous doesn't necessarily make you underrated.
+lieedd fax
Joe Lally of Fugazi called one of his solo albums "Nothing is underrated" and this is exactly what I think. If you create great art there will always be people to appreciate it a lot. You just can't expect to have many of them, that's on a completely different page.
"remarkable, but un-marketable..." - Aesop Rock
Lyrical god
If anyone ever wondered what "next level" sounded like.....
Mmmm...nice beat. Aesop 's style, lyrical content , ect. IS DIFFERENT. Hmmmm. The cats nice but just because you know man worlds don't mean you smart Albert Einstein was considered a genius and he didn't have to use every word in Webster's Dictionary( I'm not saying it all you have to dumb down You Lyrics to be appealing even know seems like hip hop is dying I'm not saying you gotta come down you lyrics to be hot) he's nice but different he's not appealing to me or original demographic that hip hop came from who it was made for I can just tell by the post the cats nice but different I don't know definitely has his own lane...... Yeah he's in his own lane and he's doing his thing......... the cats & nice very different
Didn't get any of that.... Like at all
@clrkkdd12 This is a bad analogy at best. There is no reason for Albert Einstein to use every word in the dictionary to get his genius across. A mastery of diction is not inherent to being a mathematician or a scientist.
I will bring up Shakespeare who's genius is recognized through his writing and diction. Not only did he use the dictionary to it's full extent, it wasn't enough for him. He coined many words and phrases through his plays and actually in the long run made the dictionary larger.
On another note, if Hip-Hop was exactly the same as the way it was when it started, it would likely have not made it the 40 some-odd years it's been around. The reason Hip-Hop still exists today is because it changes overtime to appeal new generations of people. Hip-Hop back in the late 70's and early 80's was completely sample based instrumentally, had a specific kind of vocal style and flow (one that you NEVER hear being used today) and was very specifically party music. So yeah, Aesop Rock is not appealing to the early 80's Hip-Hop heads (who are now thirty years older than they were) and really, no one else is appealing to them either.
+Bartholomule01 Preach!
My favorite rapper. Say what you will. He is utterly unique.
+James Rone, "utterly unique" describes it wonderfully. The popular "em-cees" these days can't hold a candle to Aes's flow.
i finally started looking up aesop's lyrics on rapgenius. my mind is blown
James Dorman It's so much going on
Art is supposed to make you feel something.
Imo he leveled up on this album
rap genius has done him no justice. They only annotate with a single sentence when Aes’s shit is way deeper than just being deciphered into one thing
Was this in a car commercial or something?
@Trevor Brosiedon no more words please.
Just dope.
Great music and video.
Mmm. This song in particular has the instrumentals to back up the amazing words
https://soundcloud.com/lalaruga/i-dont-usually-speak-so-i-had-to-show-you-niggas
Tonight beneath a marmalade Venus
Haunted mowers chewing every glowing yard of mud between us
Aes is just...there are no words. No one comes close..the mic' has been dropped.
great video to a great song.....aesop is the best.
Touches my soul. I meditate to this
This song should go down in history as one of hip hop's best.
Sick.. Just too fuckin sick.. Stendhal Syndrome, Aes is the man.
This song is too fucking good, until 2:48, then it becomes shit
@***** Personally after 2:50 is my favorite part of the track.
@***** Dude he made a typo. What he meant to say was, "This song is too fucking good, until 2:48, then it becomes the shit."
That's the best part.
That's the part I like the best out of the whole song. I wish he would take it and make a whole song of it :)
I wish the video represented the theme of the song more, I'm not really sure what is trying to be conveyed with the ballerinas in black, seems like the song is about a stunt rider with a disregard for life, or feels most alive when close to death? I don't really find the video sequence interesting in any way. The Zero Dark Thirty video at least uses an interesting concept and filming. This is one of the best songs on the album in my opinion, which is why I even say anything... I generally don't think most people, including me, have the right to criticize the work an artist of his skill. Maybe I am expecting too much? It's just his music and messages are so much better than this weak filming.
I very much doubt Aesop has a direct hand in the videos, though he probably signed off on the idea. Seems pretty high budget. Probably got a bigger but safer director. Check out Jonathan from Hail Mary Mallon, his side project. He's still doing very, very creative stuff, just with less production.
The "dark" ballerinas represent a motorcycle, you idiot. How they are dangerous but move with grace, weaving in & out of traffic, spinning through the streets in a form of beauty. The song is entirely about losing yourself and an escape from reality while testing mortality on a piece of metal & rubber amidst society all around...
@conquerthemonotone So, i'm an idiot because I interpreted the role of characters in a music video differently than you? Why is your interpretation of the ballerinas or the song the correct one? Are you Aesop? Are you the film maker? Did you work on this film, or write the script? The ballerinas could have nothing to do with story of song, or maybe one of them represents the woman that drove the rider to be so reckless? They could be be a metaphor for the motorcycle, like you said.
Only an idiot would be so egocentric to assume that their interpretation is the only correct one, especially when it comes to someone else's art.
Aesop really proved to be a hell of a producer on this album.
MrMalicious5 impossible kid even more so
He's been producing his own music the entire time with the exception of a few songs. Ever heard Cat Food, or Bug Zapper? Personally Labor Days is the earliest I can listen to. Find anything older a bit grating.
Hip hop
I can't get enough of this track
Excellent
It almost hurts to know how underrated Aesop Rock is.
@Alejandro M. Guadarrama you're actually incorrect about that, my dude. Shakespeare wasn't just some average dude until he died. He just became more celebrated after death. Just like every person.
@Micah Barnes Never said he was just an average person, I said he was thought to be just another poet during his time. You quite literally said I'm wrong, and then you just rephrase what I said, my dude.
@Alejandro M. Guadarrama I literally have no recollection of leaving that comment, but I'm sure what I meant was that even in his life he was one of the most celebrated play writers of his time. However after he died he was even more celebrated. His plays were often put on for royalty, and nobility. He was not seen as any other writer in his life, and then as incredible afterwards. That is an incorrect statement.
@Micah Barnes
j
Good point. Imagine how he will be seen in future generations. I knew an English professor who I turned Aesop rock onto. Initially I showed her lyrics and she asked me who the poet was.
That last minute gives me some serious goosebumps. I wish there was a full track with that beat.
Aesop Rock was interview in the book series, *HOW TO RAP* and *HOW TO RAP2*. He shared many of his rapping techniques. In this quote he tells us how he uses symbols to write down his lyrics.
"I have a little system of symbols and shit—I think a lot of people
do, that I’ve seen. I thought I was crazy, and then when
I started seeing other rappers, everyone has their own little
symbols. I have a system of maybe ten little symbols that I use
on paper that tell me to do something when I’m recording."
hip hop is poetry.
"Girl got a big booty, call her big booty"
-Tauheed "2 Chains" Epps
@jamie fleming That's a product, not poetry.
Thats how the great escape goes when you cant take your dead friends name out your phone
For me, hip hop at it's best. This man is an amazing artist!
Probably my biggest influence
Man it's sad that this doesn't have more views. Aesop Rock is fuckin awesome.
woahhahhah GESTALT
Well put man, it's about the whole, not the sum of it's parts.
God's Smart Juice.
I think Daylight/Nightlight is the best, but that's just me. All of his tracks are amazing, though, no doubt.
That's my point...context, wit and specific wording in prose may be lost on you, but that could just be an assumption on my part.
The meaning of the chorus in "Cycles to Gehenna" was meant to have a specific edge for a reason. It was the right wording and tone to convey the message...no more, no less.
Just because you know what the lyrics are doesn't necessarily dictate you grasp what they mean at any given moment.
Otherwise you'd realize liking or disliking the chorus is irrelevant... ^_^
dafuq are you smoking dude?
But that is merely a question of taste. We all know what opinions are like...everyone seems to have them.
Kid Aesop here is very big on enunciation. The tone is very specific to articulate. Let it wash you over like a good painting, wash down like good drink. Take time to think...
'cause if you understand what is said, there was no other way to say it and/or relay it.
To connect, what to expect to resonate in my cranial so as not to forget.
Edgeways, edgewise so the idea doesn't die ^_^
True art...
I said that I can't stand it, not that I can't understand it.
But I do understand it, I just don't like the way it sounds.
the chorus is incredible :))
It's because you don't understand the chorus... ^_^
Amazing - This dudes on some other sh....... Hes mad different unique.
Also feeling abstract styles from
EL-P, Sage Francis, Saul Williams, Death Grips, AllFlaws
gangway, mine eyes, mine teeth.
I just had the beer shits in my pants now think fast
Perfect track, you just have to be able to understand where he's coming from. It's all futile, he knows.
hate the snare
Cant take your dead friends name out your phooone
". . . parking space 37 . . ."
Poverty bro, walking around with shitty gear eating shitty food that's not been kept properly. Also excellent word play because a black jack in this context is a weapon (the narrator is unsafe and worried) but also a type of sweet, meaning it's just another form of sustenance for the speaker. Maybe a stick up kid? Maybe just a kid who gets bothered a lot and needs protection?
Eating shit food and having stuff in need of repair speaks to poverty, and the gummybears leaking onto a blackjack (which is a blunt weapon) present a dichotomy of childhood and violence. Looking at those two sentences alone, I imagine a young runaway eating in a diner, nervous about getting abducted/raped/killed on the road. /shrug
"Fumes" and "The Harbor is Yours" are stories too. But yeah, with Aesop it's mostly about his verbosity and flow, which are pretty much second to none
This song was perfect up until 2:50, then it got frickin BETTER.
OMG I love this song especially the hook