Song #61: Lupe Fiasco - "The Show Goes On"

Song #61: Lupe Fiasco - "The Show Goes On" (2010)

Lasers

"Alright, already the show goes on, all night, till the morning we dream so long. Anybody ever wonder, when they would see the sun up, just remember when you come up the show goes on!"

As I said in my writeup for Gotye and Kimbra's "Somebody That I Used to Know" (number ninety-four on "The One-Hundred Songs of Steve Pulaski"), I didn't hear that song for the first time until two years after it was released on the radio. Ever since DreX in the Morning on 103.5 KISS FM (WKSC-FM in Chicago) got fired in 2010, I never had the desire to go back and listen to top forty radio and, to this day, I still don't know more than half the songs that were played at my school dance nor on the radio at this current time. 

The same kind of circumstance happened for Lupe Fiasco's "The Show Goes On." I was listening to KISS FM early one morning, possibly on a morning where I didn't have to arrive at school until around 10am, or so, and heard what I found to be one of the most infectious mainstream raps songs I had heard in years (this was my sophomore year, so around 2011). I need to thank the heavily downloaded music-recognizing iPhone/Android app "Shazam" for saving me on this one, as I identified the song, quickly downloaded it, and listened to it again. I still remember the day I brought up the song to my buddy to hear him say, "you seriously never heard that? That song's been out for over a year." I didn't care, but I was ecstatic to have finally found it; better late than never.

"The Show Goes On" ostensibly plays like your average, motivational song, but the energy of the lyricism, the power to which Lupe Fiasco exercises the song's lyrics and vocals, and the overall competence of the song's structure and production make the song such a rousing great time. I hadn't listen to this song since the summer of 2013, so going back to it this morning before writing the blog, I had to replay it two more times after that - it just has that effect on me. The song's chorus, due to its simplicity and its delivery, is easily one of my all-time favorite choruses in any piece of music ever. 

Fiasco talks about how there are many people that will try and hold you back from what you want to do, but it doesn't matter if you look outside your window and see brown grass, green grass, picket fence, or barbed wire, for you have the ability to make it. Fiasco gets nostalgic, saying, "I was once that little boy; terrified of the world, now I'm on a world tour," providing close-to-home emotional resonance for his listeners. Despite the song's idea sounding tired and worn, Fiasco finds a way to deliver the material in an engaging and relatable way, which is the key to making this old song idea click. 

This song received so much play on my phone my sophomore year it wasn't even funny, so much so that hearing the song three times this morning allowed me to flashback to numerous events of my sophomore year (similar to how Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" - number sixty-four on "The One-Hundred Songs of Steve Pulaski" - can do the same thing). At least I can this song isn't like a song by Dolla or Giuseppe Andrews, where few know it, and it actually achieved commercial success. All I can say to those who haven't heard it is a long overdue listen is better than no listen.

Give "The Show Goes On" a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzvJvOl9Tx0