9th
Ghostface Killah - “Save Me Dear”
Elaine’s brother’s admonishing Biz Markie’s interpolation of “(You) Got What I Need” on “Just a Friend,” immediately made me think of another rapper who borrowed from the late, great Freddie Scott. While the Biz flipped the script from sincere and soulful to tongue-in-cheek and comedic, Ghostface takes the original’s sentiment and runs with it.
Most samples take 5 or 10 seconds or a chorus at most, chop it out, and loop it to create a canvas for the MC in question. On “Save Me Dear,” Ghost (yeah, he produced it himself) more or less let’s the track ride while he does his thing over top. The song doesn’t so much sample “(You) Got What I Need” as it does borrow it almost wholesale. The rhythm section gets a boost in the low end and a few other short samples get thrown over top, but the verses, while cut up and rearranged, are there nearly in their entirety.
Sampling was originally about taking something old and, a la “Just a Friend,” changing it into something new. “Save Me Dear” seems to throw that idea out the window, not so much taking a past idea and transforming it into something totally different, but taking something classic and charging headlong down the same path. It doesn’t twist a few bars into a backing track. It doesn’t even try to twist the original’s meaning. In fact, it sounds more like a duet than anything.
For some reason—maybe because it was just too iconic in the hip hop world after Biz Markie used it—the the original’s chorus is the only thing that’s been chopped out after Ghostface is done with it. If you’ve heard “(You) Got What I Need,” that might seem strange. Great love songs tend to have one part that really hits you; one part that makes you “get” what the voice on the other end of the headphones is trying to convey. And from the first time the title’s words escape Freddie’s lips, when the cooing of the back up singers and the horns swallow up that plonking piano line, it’s the “youuuuuuuu got what I need” that really gives the song it’s soul.
But maybe that’s part of the beauty of “Save Me Dear:” with that critical piece missing from the puzzle, it’s up to Ghostface to express that same feeling with his words. It ends up taking him a few more lines, but, by the time 3-minutes and 3-seconds have ticked away, you get it.
Oh, and since I’m supposed to add something personal, I should note that I’ve snuck this onto some mixtape at some point for the three people I’ve said “I love you” to in the last half a decade. And I can’t say that about any other song.
![So here is the logo. I don’t know how to put it in the header space. I also don’t know if I want the subhead, cause in retrospect it might have been one of those things were I confuse talking to dogs with talking with people. I also don’t know if the person who made it wants credit, especially as I gave them the words and font type, which tied their hands pretty much. Feel free to jack-up the logo/redesign it/whatever. This is Open Source.
So I am hoping this will be this spot of the new project I talked about yesterday. I figure I have no right editing anything of anyone’s, so feel free to post at will. If you want a second look before you publish, hit me at elainecorden[at]gmaildotcom
Here are the rules:
1) Don’t be a dick. This includes negating points via attacks on grammar, altering work, or just generally doing anything that you know in your heart kinda makes you a tosser.
2)New Attitude wants to hear why you love what you love: albums, art, films, literature, a really nice pair of shoes - whatever.
3) You have to have lived with what you’re writing/talking/drawing/whatevering about for a while. No “I just heard this album last week and it rules”. It has to be something that’s stood the test of time. We want to know how you live with art, when you feel the need to pull it out, why you’re not sick of it, how it made its way into your heart etc.
4) It doesn’t have to be short, long, perfect, or complete, but it does have to offer some sort of personal relation to what you’re writing about. That’s kind of the point of this: for example, of course everyone knows “Physical Graffiti” is great, but how does it fit into your life, and why is it great for you?
5) Here is the login.
email: thisisyourcoolattitude@gmail.com
pass: gideon
On this point, please refer to number one. Don’t be a dick.
6) We recognize not everyone has time for this. If you know someone who does, pass this along. If you have time yourself, please do contribute.
7) Feel free to link to your own tumblr/blog/website.
8) Feel free to write anonymously.
9) Don’t be a dick. We get that pissing all over stuff is fun, but this isn’t the place for it, kay? This is an experiment in talking about how with live with what we love. There is no reward here except sharing a bit of yourself. We are, of course, asking you to write for free, but the idea is to build something a little bit bigger that all of us.
Okay. Looking forward to reading. Workin’ on my own right now. Please reblog, if you’d like.
~Elaine
P.S. Remember when I went first at Hindle’s Goodbye Roast? ANd you guys booed me for being all earnest? Someone’s gotta go first. I will not boo you.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/SQYvlgKxwjih0qabjV9tszhBo1_400.gif)
