Mind Playing Tricks On Me

I can see that perhaps the narrative is from the perspective of a dealer who has started snorting his profits (and he's in deep guano now), which doubtless could bring on such paranoia. But then again there could be a million reasons a dealer/gangster/whatever would be paranoid and anxious. The Geto Boys don't say, and that's smart. The best way to ruin any character is to get too much into "the story behind it all."

While this whole song kicks fucking ass, the first and last verses stand out to me. Consider the first verse. It all takes place in the consciousness of the speaker while he's "staring at a woman on the corner." He's lying awake at night, all alone, and he's confronted with the gravity of his own being. Like whenever you're a child and you were put to bed early, and it was dark and you tried to make yourself go to sleep, but you can never do that. It is inescapable and horrible insomnia. That is what this character (as well as Richard III and Macbeth, I might add) experience.

More generally, this song isn't about addiction as such. It just isn't. That might play a part in it, but there is something far deeper at work. It's about a gangster (or three different ones - the fourth is a Geto Boy, I assume) who is coming to terms with his lifestyle. All the people he's beat the shit out of ("thought he had cane, but it was Gold Medal flour"), killed, or left (the woman who he realizes he loves). And the narrator knows he is more and more alone, with more and more enemies each day. I don't know much about this lifestyle. But the Geto Boys have, intentionally or otherwise, incorporated the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Henri Bergson, as well as the stunning psychological realism of Shakespearean tragedy.

So, to me, this song is the major esthetic achievement of rap, and indeed, songwriting in general. The beat is sick. The narrative is amazing. Nuff said.

I think this is a GREAT song!

But in the Second Verse shouldn't the lyrics be: ..is it the move that I ran up the block.. ..Reached under my seat, grabbed my pump'r for the suckers Ain't no use to be lying, I was mo' scared than a motherfucker Pulled a left in the Pow Pine’s and better die quick..

The Kottonmouth Kings cover is my favorite, but this is damn good as well.

pop eyes is a place for fried chicken. it would make sense that willie d, a black male from texas, would pull into popeyes and say he was doing so in a rap song because a lot of people can relate to popeyes who listen to rap... not to be stereotypical hehe but black people have been known to enjoy fried chicken

this is called song meanings,post some meanings,alot of people i know say this is about meth,a dealer and a dude on it,makes sense

Sounds like coke to me. Blood starts coming from my nose. But meth could probably do that to you to. The specific drug doesn't really matter though, It's an awsome song either way.

This and other songs in the nineties were the unheeded warning to our white community of the trouble to come especially in LA (though these lads are from the "bloody fifth" of Dallas). Police brutality no opportunities and the drug war. And under Son of a Bush it's happening all over again.

If Shakespeare was an Elizabethan Rapper, Macbeth would sound like THIS song.

The hesitation before killing King Duncan, the whacking of his former friend Banquo (and being haunted by his ghost)

it's all THERE, folks.

Of course Lady Macbeth actually led him down the garden path and there is no Macduff in the rap.

"Life's a Jungle" by the Furious Five and Eminem's "Nathan" are in the pantheon of Great Rap, too but THIS track belongs at Numero UNO

RKLeng gives the most cogent explanation of this song. Bottom line, the narrator(s) is haunted by his own conscience.

I think the person trying to kill him is himself.

"He owns a black hat like I own A black suit and a cane like my own"

If that wasn't enough evidence, this just about confirms it.

"I often drift when I drive Having fatal thoughts of suicide"