Best of, #25. Food, Clothes, Medicine
Food, Clothes, Medicine comes to us off of Aesop’s EP entitled Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives released in February of 2005, two years before None Shall Pass. The EP has songs produced mostly by Aesop and Blockhead, with this specific tune being produced by the man himself.
Food, Clothes, Medicine will be the only song clocking into my top 30 from the Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives extended play. Nonetheless it is a great EP from Aesop, with some great songs being Number Nine, Rickety Rackety, and Zodiaccupuncture. I’ll go weeks without listening to this EP, sometimes almost forgetting about it, only to reopen it and (usually) be taken back by how good it really is. The entire extended play has a great ‘fuck you’ atmosphere, similar to Bazooka Tooth which predated this EP by two years. You still get the feeling he is still in that Bazooka Tooth persona.
The start of Food, Clothes, Medicine is probably the worst part. I’m not sure why Aesop choice to put a sound-clip in of a couple doing it and a girl yelling ‘fuck me’, but it never fails to make it a little awkward when I’m listening to it with a group of people. But then Aes starts rapping and it is all good again-
Two shoes chewed up, colluded with the feuds, rogue, veterans. Food, clothes, medicine
Interjecting the ‘food, clothes, medicine’ will be a reoccurring theme in this song. He probably has about ten or eleven different rhymes with the phrase throughout the song. Some are a bit of a stretch, for example:
Now Major Aes routes the following order to all his crew’s chromed generals: food, clothes, medicine.
Regardless, this song is packed with great lyrics, and here are some of my favorites:
United we stand until all our parties click, I divide and conquer because frankly I’d rather sit
It’s tough to legislate with scum tongue down a dinner plate of booze, coke, heroin.
I wiped placenta off my face in the height of the disco era. Grew through liquid bubble gum, fever, death, and Christmas sweaters. Grew through saccharine fast food, study hall, and Cliff Note benders. Now holds a bachelors in training ninjas to tip toe better.
The first line is a reference to the fact Aes was born in ‘76.
Keep your schnoz clean, ears open, chopper zipped up. Food, clothes, medicine, because hungry, naked, sick sucks!
That’s all folks. Keep your eyes open for #24 coming to you off of Aesop’s Daylight EP.