House of Pain- “Jump Around”
From their album House of Pain

Because it has gone through so many different permutations in the public consciousness, it’s impossible to evaluate this song objectively. Most people agree that a) it’s pretty annoying, and b) it’s pretty awesome. I can guarantee that no one assumed it would still be played at football games eighteen years later.

But played it is. It was played at my high school’s football games. (Comically, someone always forgot to cut it off before the “smackin’ your ho” line, which speaks to how completely “Jump Around” crossed over, that it’s so catchy you forgot it had lines about smackin’ hoes.) It is played at high school football games today. It will be played at my son’s high school football games, when I’m the only parent still crazy enough to force a fifteen-year-old to play a game that exposes him to possible concussions about fifty times in an afternoon.

Anyway, since the song was released, my imagination has always been glued to one specific line, so much so that I become too distracted to jump in even one spot, let alone around. In the second verse, Everlast treats us to: “Word to your moms, I came to drop bombs / I got more rhymes than the Bible’s got psalms.” This line is delivered with a boastful elan, as if it’s a daunting exaggeration of some kind. Oh, man, if that’s the case, Everlast and Danny Boy must have a whole lot of rhymes!

Unfortunately, that’s not how figurative language works. The number of psalms in the Bible is quantifiable. You know how many psalms the Bible’s got, DJ Lethal? You can find out; it has its own section and everything. There are exactly 150 psalms. So you’re saying that you have greater or equal to 150 at your disposal. That’s not impressive. It’s not like saying you have more rhymes than there are grains of sand on a beach or some shit like that.

Let’s say that the standard rap verse is sixteen bars, which means that there are more or less eight actual rhymes per verse—one line rhyming with the one before it. Let’s say that the average rap song is composed of three verses. That’s twenty-four rhymes a song, and there are seventeen proper songs on House of Pain’s eponymous debut. That equals 408.

So I would hope you have more than 150, bro. You’re basically bragging that you have enough material for one-third of a CD, yet you’re expecting me to buy the whole thing? No wonder it’s in the bargain bin.