Reading · The Book of John

I can’t even recall how many hip-hop songs I’ve heard that horse in, but it was a 90s rap staple.

I only recently went deep-diving to find out where the sound came from, and got an education not only on the original track to feature it (by Mel & Tim, who I don’t think I’d ever heard of before, but I got a kick out of discovering):

… but as to how the rest of Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Brain” came together:

DJ Muggs, creator of “Insane,” has disputed that it’s a sample, saying he created it with (depending on which interview you believe) a horn or a blues guitar run through an amp, and the fact that it sounds so similar is a massive coincidence.

Uh-huh.

I actually don’t care if they stole it, created it theyselves, whatevs. I know I’m a’supposed to care, as a creator myself, but far as I’m concerned, that couple seconds has long passed the statute of limitations, and now belongs to the whole world. Like “Funky Drummer,” or “Amen, Brother.”

It’s such an odd sound for a rap song.

Muggs had used a similar sound producing House of Pain’s “Jump Around” the previous year, that screeching sound every few seconds:

…which in turn was a different sample from a saxophone:

… and I guess Muggs wanted the same, but different, for his own group.

So we get 90s tracks packed tight with screechy saxes and horsies.

I got set down this path because my beloved daughter loves to listen to Chappell Roan on the way to school…

… every day…

… and that first song on her CD, “Femininomenon,” while it doesn’t use the horse or the sax screech, is layered with a lot of other 80s/90s sonic references that got me thinking on it.

(One being a chainsaw or other revving noise, which Eminem loved to use in his songs around then.)

It even has a cowbell. Or something like it.

It was the cowbell got me thinking about layered sounds in songs. Like the cowbell in “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” and the Eminem chainsaws, which then mentally led me to the horse.

BTW, “Femininomenon,” when it hits the techno part, if you strip out Chappell’s voice, sounds like a Depeche Mode song. Least, it does to me. Everything old is new again…

Click the titles to get at muh stories:

Bastards of a Lesser God

or you c’n find alla this right chere: