Novacane gets (sic) with it
Unlike most people competing for a lane on the Bridge at 6 today, I was on my way home from work. I’m kind of over the 90’s weekend on Live 105; maybe they’re done with the good tracks, although I caught an enjoyable Spanish lesson before I left.
I heard a song on 94.9 called Novacane by Frank Ocean today; I knew the hook rubbed me wrong, but I wanted to give it another chance before I listened to it. Luckily, by the time I turned off Junipero Serra, I was serenaded once more by this decidedly mediocre yeah-baby track with a recreational drug use twist.
Novocaine, baby, baby, Novocaine, baby, I want you
me good,
Love me now, when I’m gone, love me none
Love me none, love me none, numb, numb, numb, numb
Finding the video below (redundant; for peeps who like a good comments section) wasn’t easy by the way. It’s not just that plenty of bands have figured out that novocaine & pain rhyme and that excruciating dental troubles make a great metaphor for how much life can suck. It’s that you have to spell it wrong in two ways (Chevy Nova Sugar Cane) in order for it to come up. That’s stupid, don’t do that.
The rhymes are entertaining and fit the generic backing track well. The crooning is over the top, but that’s just not my taste. The narrative is immersing & believable, but then things get weird. Kubrick’s name dropped, which seems fitting–it’s enthralling, absurd, and I keep checking to make sure no one’s going to walk in on me in the middle of enjoying this.
Now I’m somethin’ like the chemist on campus
But there’s no drug around, quite like what I found in you
I still can’t feel my face, what am I smokin’ anyway
She said don’t let the high go to waste but can you taste a little taste
of…
That last couplet isn’t filler; that’s a refrain, man. I’d call Pandering, as obvious, imprudent recreational drug use is totally oh-kay in pop music right now. But it’s just weird. Maybe it’s the return to narrative in the last line; so she is there? You’re really smoking procaine?
I thought it was pretty clear you just wanted NSA coupling as part of your fast life. Because the track works if it’s kept that way. Numb your brain, numb your brain, numb your brain….”
(no, not really; the video’s up there)