Throwback: Keith Sweat - Merry Go Round...

Keith Sweat is an anomaly...he is undoubtedly the most successful terrible singer ever.

It's mind boggling how this man managed to become such an iconic R&B figure in the late 80's and early 90's.

Despite the fact he sounded like a Llama taking a very painful shit while using auto-tune, Keith's love sick ballads and uptempo new jack songs propelled him to superstar status.

Keith is considered an R&B legend by many people because he (along with Teddy Riley who produced Keith's debut album) helped establish the New Jack Swing sound in the late 80's. All of Keith's songs were created using a complex mixture of beggin', cryin', whinin' and more beggin'. He's quite possibly the worlds greatest beggar...I pray that he never goes broke and becomes homeless. Could you imagine his ass singin' for change? He'd get rich real quick because most people would give him whatever they had on them just so he'd shut the fuck up.

Even with all of that said....I have damn near every Keith Sweat song ever made on my ipod. Okay not every song, more so his earlier stuff. Why? Well if you look and listen past the fact that he couldn't sing worth a shit, Keith Sweat wrote some of the realest R&B songs ever. Real in the sense that you knew he was feelin' every damn word he was singin'. Not to mention he revolutionized the art of beggin'. Dignity? Pride? Balls?.....all foreign words to Mr. Sweat. He simply didn't give a fuck about tellin' you how bad he was hurt...shit he has quite a few songs were I swear he had to be criying while he recorded them.

Most songwriters use their own personal experiences as a basis for their music and Keith was no exception. It's pretty easy to see that the majority of Keith Sweat's earlier songs were about one woman. I think she broke his heart so damn bad he used his first two albums (and lil' bit of the third) to cry about the shit. The title of Keith's songs pretty much spoke for themselves. If you take a look at some of songs off of Make It Last Forever and I'll Give All My Love To You, he pretty much chronicles his failed relationship from the beginning to the end...

The Beginning
He saw a very attractive woman and immediately thought to himself "I Want Her". He made several attempts to talk to her, using lame ass old man lines like "girl I bet I can 'Make You Sweat' ". To no one's surprise he got rejected in a friendly way every time, to which he responded by saying "There You Go Tellin' Me No Again". Eventually she decided to give him a chance because he wore a lot of leather, had some cool sweaters and he looked like he could be a model for Pro-Line Comb-Thru Texturizer hair products. She gave him some ass and it was nothing short of amazing....so he fell in love to the point where he felt like "Nobody" could compare to her and he just wanted to "Make It Last Forever". (Simp)

The Middle
They reached a point in the relationship where every few months they were breakin' up. It seemed like they weren't making any progress, just going in circles like a "Merry Go Round". He started to wonder if she was is in love with him, like he was with her.....then he finally asked her "How Deep Is Your Love?" She told him it was deep and he asked for specifics. So she told him it was kiddie pool deep, not ocean deep and he started to think "Something Just Ain't Right".

The End
He discovered that his suspicions were correct and told her I "Knew That You Were Cheatin'" on me. Then he started crying and whining uncontrollably and asked her "Why Me Baby?" She gave him the infamous line "it's not you, it's me" then left. They went their separate ways and despite the lyin' and the cheatin' he still wanted her to "Come Back". Time passed, he ran into her and realized that he wasn't as over her as he thought. He couldn't quite explain or understand why he felt the way he did, but he figured it was "Just One of Them Thangs" that he was gonna have to get use to.

See, I told his songs tell a story. Movin' on...

I have say that the director made it very apparent that this song was called "Merry Go Round". Unless you're a merry-go-round collector, I refuse to believe that anybody has that many just placed randomly throughout their home. Oh, and the sax playin' clown was just weird.

Keith Sweat - Merry Go Round

There's a breakdown at the end of this song (on the album version) that they didn't include in the video...

"Life is, Life is so, is so unfair
If you wanna play circus baby, I don`t wanna be your clown, girl
No, n-no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, baby
I don`t want the sideshow to begin,
cause I don`t want you to let me in
Baby, sometimes people don`t understand
what they have until it`s gone
Some people don`t know somebody loves them
until it`s too late, baby"

*sigh* That's some real ish right there...

Umm, btw no parts of this post were an autobiographical reference to any of my past, current or recent relationships. I mean why would I sit up here and turn a throwback Keith Sweat post into a heart wrenching, soul bearing, therapeutic blog session? It's not like I've been listening to any of these songs and thinking that one of my relationships were loosely based on Keith Sweat's greatest hits...that's just silly...........isn't it?

....now back to your regularly scheduled posts.