DEATH GRIPS!!!!!! ON GP!!!! LETS GOO!!! ANALYSIS!!!!

Quick disclaimer!!! This entire song is about Suicide so if you find that triggering, please don't read This!!! I also don't necessarily align with what Ride says, this song is incredibly nihilistic and I'm just trying to understand the song and how Ride felt writing it, this is also my interpretation so if you have your own, I'd love to hear it, these lyrics allow for many different interpretations too. Also just listen to the song if you haven't! Let's get into it

I think that this song is incredibly mature. I don't agree with what Ride is saying because I love life, it's great but this song just presents exactly how Ride feels about life and death but mostly death and it made me emotional.

I think we can split this song into two bits. You have the loud parts/chorus and the verses. The verses are really sobering, that's how I would describe it. I'm not legal drinking age or smoking age and I haven't done either of those but I imagine that a hangover would feel like the verses in this song. So for the longest time, I thought this song was about drug addiction and the 2nd line makes it seem that way 

"I've tried nothing, everything works" which is a saying that can easily be applied to drugs but it's so much more morbid than that, it's referring to methods of suicide, he hasn't tried any but they could all work. The song also opens on the chorus, that's insane, it starts by blaring it into your ears from the get go, the chorus goes hard, it's loud and it's abrasive and it's heavy but the lyrics are so sad. It expresses Ride's exhaustion with life, even the good parts of life he's tired of. The last two lines of the chorus are really sad though, Ride essentially says that when he dies, nobody's gonna know and they're gonna call his cell and it's gonna ring and ring and ring and he won't pick up and that's just so sad, please, Ride, don't kill yourself!!!

My absolute favorite part of the song is the first verse. This part of the song has so much depth and so much to analyze. 

"I live down the street from you've noticed me, I've never seen you

Wonder what the fuck I do

Listen up, you nosy bitch, listen close"

Some people interpret this as Ride's obsessive fans prying into his personal life. Then they don't listen to the lyrics of his songs and I'm not obsessed with him but I am guilty of that, I'm currently going back and listening to the lyrics of these songs. I have a much more whole interpretation though so listen close. Zach Hill is the second member of Death Grips and it's rumored that they were neighbors so I see this as kind of like a friendship origin between the two of them. Zach moves in to the neighborhood and notices his strange neighbor making stranger purchases so he begins to enquire and that "listen up, you nosy bitch" is Ride about to tell Zach everything.

"My most recent purchase, old black rope

Gonna learn how to tie it, hang it in my chamber

Perfect reminder occult I'm made of

Come try it out whenever you wanna"

Here's the other interpretation before I carry on with mine, according to some fans, Ride is telling his nosy fans that he's going to kill himself and warning them not to be like him, I interpret this part as him telling Zach about his plans to kill himself and warning Zach to keep his distance but there's also an offer with "come try it out whenever you wanna" which I see as Ride offering a friendship between them. This song is about suicide so it's a little weird for a method of suicide to be a metaphor for something completely different but it's my interpretation so I make the rules. I like this interpretation though, it's the birth of a beautiful friendship and it makes a part later on in the song worm better for me personally. Again, you can make your own interpretations, this is just mine. 

Last night, three thirty in the morning, Death on my front porch

Can feel him itching to take me with him, hail Death, fuck you waiting for?

Like a question no one mention, he turns around, hands me his weapon

He slurs, "use at your discretion, it's been a pleasure, Stefan"

This part! THIS PART!!! It gets me! Especially that last line. These thoughts of death plague him is what it seems but that "fuck you waiting for?" Tells us that they don't necessarily plague him, he's completely accepted death to the point where Death in this song even warns him. The line that gets me though, that really gets to me is "it's been a pleasure, Stefan" this is the first time that Ride refers to himself by his real name, Stefan. Not only that but when I listened to this song while reading the lyrics for the first time and heard "it's been a pleasure, stefan" that was the nail in the coffin and I felt so incredibly sad, like he's just completely accepted Death, I saw this as a deal between them, he shakes hands with Death and he says "it's been a pleasure, Stefan" as in its been a pleasure conducting business. This was like Ride has his mind set on death and he is going to die by his own hands.

"Death in your way, not in my way, I got my way

I was in my way, crept out my way, kept out my way

I'm on one like bae you're on your way, way, way, way"

This part just sounds good when it's sung, like all the words just roll of off Ride's tongue. It's pretty obvious that he's saying he's not afraid of death anymore but what stands out to me is him referring to death as Bae, going from such a formal tone to referring to Death with something you'd call your partner. He's become so familiar with it since he was on Ride's porch. 

Chorus again! I forgot to say something about the chorus.

"I'm fucking tired of all the perks

I've tried nothing, everything works

For less I'm worth, I've served my bid

All fuck life wasn't what it is

All fuck life was just a bridge

I seen some free landed some tricks

Far I see high time man quit

Won't let you know when I get goin'

Phone ring too long"

He's tired of the advantages of fame, life doesn't appeal to him anymore like it does to other people. I believe Ride said in an interview that he isn't inspired by human achievement, he pulls from something bigger than that so naturally what appeals to other celebrities just doesn't do it for him and he acknowledges that he had some good times but he wants out. The last two lines are really sad, he says he won't tell anyone when he decides to go through with his suicide and I think I've already typed this, Im so sorry, reader, let's continue! Home stretch!

"This body by my own hands

My friends and family won't understand

So I stay in the end, don't make none to me

If wasn't for them, I'd make that decision on GP

Had to do it all again, I'd make that decision on GP

All the nights I don't die for you

Wouldn't believe how many nights I ain't died for you on GP

Not that I care, I'd be a liar if I sat here claiming I'd exit in a minute

But I can't say I wouldn't I have my limits"

This isn't the entirety of the final verse but I think that this part in specific says so much. His friends and family don't understand how he feels and neither do i, I wouldn't want Ride to kill himself, I love him and I don't even know him so imagine how those close to him must feel. GP stands for general principle. He believes that he shouldn't kill himself as long as he has his friends and family! That's so sweet. He has his limits and he wants to kill himself but he won't as long as he has these people who care about him. But again, even someone like Ride can only take so much of life. 

I feel like Ride gets this reputation of this hard-ass, angry man but actually he's only human like the rest of us, he aims for something farther beyond but for now he's like the rest of us, he has his days, he has his ups and downs, his friends and family, he has this life and while it doesn't mean anything to him, the people in it do. That's evident now more than ever, there was a concert recently and people were terrible, they were peeing at the venue, throwing stuff at Ride and he had to cancel, he has his limits he's human, I don't see why people who love him so much would treat him so poorly after he bares his soul for the world to see and he's treated like garbage at his own shows. He doesn't have to do that either, he could just say "Death Grips over" and leave. 

I think if I could meet one musician it would be Ride and Zach Hill, they are two of the greatest minds in music and Death Grips is a very important group to me, also Andy is there too, the dude doesn't get enough credit. Anyway, Death Grips means so much to me, I can't even describe what this band means and I don't want it to come off as me romanticizing Ride's potential suicide or anything, I want to understand this song and through interviews and discord discussions and my own media literacy skills, this is my understanding of On GP...

Will I make more song analysis, I don't have plans to but and it's a massive but, there are a lot of songs that I feel I understand on this level, most of them being Pink Floyd songs and being on The Wall. I don't really know how to speak about music too well and i need to become really familiar with a song to be able to write something like this and the reason why I could do something like this with The Wall by Pink Floyd is because I used to listen to that album twice every week. Also music is so abstract and it's easier to discuss movies, I guess I have a few Elliott Smith songs I could discuss but I don't plan on it, I'm not listening to him atm. Anyway, as Elliott Smith has said in Heatmiser, see you later!