Inspect Her Deck
Skins of all colours come together as brothers
Last year, the stone-cold classic that was Liquid Swords celebrated its 20th anniversary and as of last year has officially gone platinum. When I was a member of Rap Genius at this time last year, I wrote something to celebrate the album so I thought why not copy and paste that material onto here since it is worthy of such praise and analysis.
In this thread I attempt to explain the meaning of the term 'Liquid Swords' using GZA's help, I talk about the album itself and what I believe it to represent, and then I finally choose tracks at random to analyse lyrics.
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THE MEANING OF THE TERM ‘LIQUID SWORDS’
According to GZA, the tongue is symbolic of the sword, and he categorised himself as a “lyrical swordsman” in addition to preaching the importance of keeping his tongue sharp. When the tongue is in motion, it produces wind.
The wind is the ‘Wu’, which in itself is the sword that swings across your neck. I’m not sure of the logistics here but it sounds cool nonetheless. GZA also likened the words to different currents of water, hence the name Liquid Swords.
Source:
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WHAT THE ALBUM IS ALL ABOUT
In addition to what GZA explained by the title, I think the album has some sort of a loose concept, which is an amalgamation of all things that make up the identity of the Wu-Tang Clan. After all, when you think of the Wu-Tang Clan, you think of martial arts and chess. Sure enough, more than even 36 Chambers, Liquid Swords is able to incorporate those themes heavily, especially the kung fu theme by way of intros and skits taken from Shogun Assassin primarily.
The rest, track-wise, sort of falls in place. The first two tracks are largely braggadocios in nature but soon afterwards you are brought into different subject matter. ‘Living in the World Today’ literally speaks of social issues occurring at the time, many that are relevant to this day. Then we are introduced to our first storytelling track with ‘Gold’, which carries over into tracks like ‘Cold World’ or ‘Killah Hills 10304’, mainly focusing around street crime and the drug trade. The ‘4th Chamber’ posse cut is perhaps most different sonically with more of a rock vibe to it, at least until the final track ‘B.I.B.L.E.’. The only true concept track is ‘Labels’, a unique track designated to naming and shaming record labels in light of GZA’s negative experiences with Cold Chillin' Records.
The Wu-Tang are of course heavily engrossed in 5%er teachings and that manifests itself in various tracks, especially ‘Swordsman’, which plays penultimate to the final official track ‘I Gotcha Back’. The Shogun Assassin dialogue to conclude this track marks the death of an old man, an enemy of the samurai. Now it is made clear that GZA is the samurai who’s been on a killing spree and with this final victory, he has conquered the album through the context of the Shogun Assassin narrative.
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LIQUID SWORDS
When I was little, my father was famous
He was the greatest samurai in the empire
By now, everyone is familiar with those words. The chilling intro taken from the ‘Shogun Assassin’ film is almost exclusively synonymous with the album itself. It is right from the very beginning that the listener is made aware of the album’s dark and haunted nature, and I suppose the child’s monotonous and unwavering vocals are later echoed by GZA throughout the album, so there’s definitely a link there.
The track is very braggadocios in nature, and appropriate for an intro track just so you know what GZA is all about. But amidst all the braggadocios talk lies a lesson to be learned for biting MC’s:
But it was your op to shop stolen art
Catch a swollen heart from not rolling smart
This couple of lines has heavy rhyming density with ‘op’ and ‘shop’, ‘stolen’, ‘swollen’ and ‘rolling’, as well as ‘art’, ‘heart’ and ‘smart’. I love these lines in particular as they show off GZA’s internal rhyming skills but also they point out a huge irony. GZA condemns MC’s for attempting to bite ‘stolen art’, an art that had been established by rhyming inventors of the genre. But for doing that, the biters have come to pay the price, and what they may have deemed a smart move at the time turned out to not be so smart after all.
DUEL OF THE IRON MIC
They can’t breathe, blood splash, rushing fast
Like running rivers, I be that whiskey in your liver
Notice how ‘rushing fast’ ends one line and ‘like running rivers’ starts the next line. GZA purposefully creates the rhymes as such so that the lines can flow from one to the next as though it was a running river of blood. Also note that this alludes to “I flow like the blood on a murder scene” from the title track. The simile itself is used to emphasise just how much blood is pouring out of the victim. GZA then uses a metaphor to describe himself as some sort of poisonous substance in one’s body. There’s so much going on in just two lines.
GOLD
He got swung on, his lungs was torn
A kingpin just castled with his rook and lost a pawn
Once again you have the rhymes of ‘swung’ with ‘lungs’ in addition to ‘torn’ and ‘pawn’. Here we have a chess reference. In the context of the story, a ‘homeless’ man is peeping on GZA’s conversation but GZA is privy to this set-up and ends up killing the stalker. Castling is a move in chess where the king switches positions with the rook. Now the kingpin represents the king in chess i.e. the main piece. Castling with the rook means he was gambling with the guy’s life by sending him on this mission. Another name for rook is castle so there’s a play on words here. Now rook is also short for rookie, fitting considering the guy sent out was not experienced or else he could have avoided being killed; he was too obvious in his intentions. Then of course he is also a pawn because he is the least important piece in the game, almost a sacrificial piece of sorts.
4th CHAMBER
Choose the sword, and you will join me
Choose the ball, and you join your mother… in death
You don’t understand my words, but you must choose
{baby gurgling}
So… come boy, choose life or death
Now watch me blow him out his shoes without clues
Cause I won’t hesitate to detonate, I’m short fused
Aside from the rhymes of ‘shoes’ and ‘clues’ and ‘fused’, and ‘hesitate’ and ‘detonate’, I want to focus on “I’m short fused”. The last two lines are effectively broken up in to two sentences if we use the comma as a separation point. Now GZA notifies the listener that he’s about to literally kill someone with no trace of evidence and he likens himself to an explosive in the process. Now as the explosive, he claims he is short fused, meaning it won’t take long for the explosion to set off, but of course it could also refer to his short tempered nature as well. However, most importantly, the final three words that follow the comma acts as an extremely abrupt and short sentence, and of course that half-line itself is short fused. I like the ingenuity of that construction.
HELL’S WIND STAFF/KILLAH HILLS 10304
Restaurant’s on a stake-out so order the food to take out
Chaos outside of Sparks Steak House
This was actually annotated by GZA so I’ll only cover what’s missing. Here’s what GZA had to say:
That’s just be aware.
Yep. Cheers m8. 8/8 insight.
“Restaurant’s on a stake-out” refers to the restaurant being under surveillance for suspected criminal activity. Now GZA is smartly advising people to get their food in a doggy-bag and flee the scene, not only because it has become a dangerous environment but also in reference to the “out” part of stake-out; there’s a lot of directional focus in this line. Sure enough, the next line confirms that there is chaos, and we discover that the restaurant is a steak house. Notice the pun between ‘steak’ and ‘stake’.
I GOTCHA BACK
What is the meaning of CRIME (what?)
Is it Criminals Robbing Innocent Motherfukkers Everytime?
What more is there to say here? This is just pure Genius (pun intended). This is not the first time GZA or fellow Wu-Tang members use backronyms on the LP. RZA used one for PEACE in his ‘4th Chamber’ verse. GZA used one to say fukk the police to conclude ‘Living in the World Today’. He also used one for Wu-Tang on ‘Labels’. This might be my favourite of the lot so I thought it was worth quoting.
----------------------------------------------------
I can’t say anymore that hasn’t been said already. GZA and RZA teamed up to produce the perfect album, RZA with his dark, sadistic and howlingly cold production accompanied by GZA’s ruthless and incisive delivery and some of the best in-depth and intricate lyricism to date. Happy 21st anniversary!
In this thread I attempt to explain the meaning of the term 'Liquid Swords' using GZA's help, I talk about the album itself and what I believe it to represent, and then I finally choose tracks at random to analyse lyrics.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MEANING OF THE TERM ‘LIQUID SWORDS’
According to GZA, the tongue is symbolic of the sword, and he categorised himself as a “lyrical swordsman” in addition to preaching the importance of keeping his tongue sharp. When the tongue is in motion, it produces wind.
The wind is the ‘Wu’, which in itself is the sword that swings across your neck. I’m not sure of the logistics here but it sounds cool nonetheless. GZA also likened the words to different currents of water, hence the name Liquid Swords.
Source:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT THE ALBUM IS ALL ABOUT
In addition to what GZA explained by the title, I think the album has some sort of a loose concept, which is an amalgamation of all things that make up the identity of the Wu-Tang Clan. After all, when you think of the Wu-Tang Clan, you think of martial arts and chess. Sure enough, more than even 36 Chambers, Liquid Swords is able to incorporate those themes heavily, especially the kung fu theme by way of intros and skits taken from Shogun Assassin primarily.
The rest, track-wise, sort of falls in place. The first two tracks are largely braggadocios in nature but soon afterwards you are brought into different subject matter. ‘Living in the World Today’ literally speaks of social issues occurring at the time, many that are relevant to this day. Then we are introduced to our first storytelling track with ‘Gold’, which carries over into tracks like ‘Cold World’ or ‘Killah Hills 10304’, mainly focusing around street crime and the drug trade. The ‘4th Chamber’ posse cut is perhaps most different sonically with more of a rock vibe to it, at least until the final track ‘B.I.B.L.E.’. The only true concept track is ‘Labels’, a unique track designated to naming and shaming record labels in light of GZA’s negative experiences with Cold Chillin' Records.
The Wu-Tang are of course heavily engrossed in 5%er teachings and that manifests itself in various tracks, especially ‘Swordsman’, which plays penultimate to the final official track ‘I Gotcha Back’. The Shogun Assassin dialogue to conclude this track marks the death of an old man, an enemy of the samurai. Now it is made clear that GZA is the samurai who’s been on a killing spree and with this final victory, he has conquered the album through the context of the Shogun Assassin narrative.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIQUID SWORDS
When I was little, my father was famous
He was the greatest samurai in the empire
By now, everyone is familiar with those words. The chilling intro taken from the ‘Shogun Assassin’ film is almost exclusively synonymous with the album itself. It is right from the very beginning that the listener is made aware of the album’s dark and haunted nature, and I suppose the child’s monotonous and unwavering vocals are later echoed by GZA throughout the album, so there’s definitely a link there.
The track is very braggadocios in nature, and appropriate for an intro track just so you know what GZA is all about. But amidst all the braggadocios talk lies a lesson to be learned for biting MC’s:
But it was your op to shop stolen art
Catch a swollen heart from not rolling smart
This couple of lines has heavy rhyming density with ‘op’ and ‘shop’, ‘stolen’, ‘swollen’ and ‘rolling’, as well as ‘art’, ‘heart’ and ‘smart’. I love these lines in particular as they show off GZA’s internal rhyming skills but also they point out a huge irony. GZA condemns MC’s for attempting to bite ‘stolen art’, an art that had been established by rhyming inventors of the genre. But for doing that, the biters have come to pay the price, and what they may have deemed a smart move at the time turned out to not be so smart after all.
DUEL OF THE IRON MIC
They can’t breathe, blood splash, rushing fast
Like running rivers, I be that whiskey in your liver
Notice how ‘rushing fast’ ends one line and ‘like running rivers’ starts the next line. GZA purposefully creates the rhymes as such so that the lines can flow from one to the next as though it was a running river of blood. Also note that this alludes to “I flow like the blood on a murder scene” from the title track. The simile itself is used to emphasise just how much blood is pouring out of the victim. GZA then uses a metaphor to describe himself as some sort of poisonous substance in one’s body. There’s so much going on in just two lines.
GOLD
He got swung on, his lungs was torn
A kingpin just castled with his rook and lost a pawn
Once again you have the rhymes of ‘swung’ with ‘lungs’ in addition to ‘torn’ and ‘pawn’. Here we have a chess reference. In the context of the story, a ‘homeless’ man is peeping on GZA’s conversation but GZA is privy to this set-up and ends up killing the stalker. Castling is a move in chess where the king switches positions with the rook. Now the kingpin represents the king in chess i.e. the main piece. Castling with the rook means he was gambling with the guy’s life by sending him on this mission. Another name for rook is castle so there’s a play on words here. Now rook is also short for rookie, fitting considering the guy sent out was not experienced or else he could have avoided being killed; he was too obvious in his intentions. Then of course he is also a pawn because he is the least important piece in the game, almost a sacrificial piece of sorts.
4th CHAMBER
Choose the sword, and you will join me
Choose the ball, and you join your mother… in death
You don’t understand my words, but you must choose
{baby gurgling}
So… come boy, choose life or death
Now watch me blow him out his shoes without clues
Cause I won’t hesitate to detonate, I’m short fused
Aside from the rhymes of ‘shoes’ and ‘clues’ and ‘fused’, and ‘hesitate’ and ‘detonate’, I want to focus on “I’m short fused”. The last two lines are effectively broken up in to two sentences if we use the comma as a separation point. Now GZA notifies the listener that he’s about to literally kill someone with no trace of evidence and he likens himself to an explosive in the process. Now as the explosive, he claims he is short fused, meaning it won’t take long for the explosion to set off, but of course it could also refer to his short tempered nature as well. However, most importantly, the final three words that follow the comma acts as an extremely abrupt and short sentence, and of course that half-line itself is short fused. I like the ingenuity of that construction.
HELL’S WIND STAFF/KILLAH HILLS 10304
Restaurant’s on a stake-out so order the food to take out
Chaos outside of Sparks Steak House
This was actually annotated by GZA so I’ll only cover what’s missing. Here’s what GZA had to say:
That’s just be aware.
Yep. Cheers m8. 8/8 insight.
“Restaurant’s on a stake-out” refers to the restaurant being under surveillance for suspected criminal activity. Now GZA is smartly advising people to get their food in a doggy-bag and flee the scene, not only because it has become a dangerous environment but also in reference to the “out” part of stake-out; there’s a lot of directional focus in this line. Sure enough, the next line confirms that there is chaos, and we discover that the restaurant is a steak house. Notice the pun between ‘steak’ and ‘stake’.
I GOTCHA BACK
What is the meaning of CRIME (what?)
Is it Criminals Robbing Innocent Motherfukkers Everytime?
What more is there to say here? This is just pure Genius (pun intended). This is not the first time GZA or fellow Wu-Tang members use backronyms on the LP. RZA used one for PEACE in his ‘4th Chamber’ verse. GZA used one to say fukk the police to conclude ‘Living in the World Today’. He also used one for Wu-Tang on ‘Labels’. This might be my favourite of the lot so I thought it was worth quoting.
----------------------------------------------------
I can’t say anymore that hasn’t been said already. GZA and RZA teamed up to produce the perfect album, RZA with his dark, sadistic and howlingly cold production accompanied by GZA’s ruthless and incisive delivery and some of the best in-depth and intricate lyricism to date. Happy 21st anniversary!
I make that mistake a lot too 
