Sing Me A Story> Bust A Move

I like looking at songs that have a story, a through narrative you can follow. Well, this one has four short stories, but how good is it? Marvin Young, better known as Young MC, released “Bust A Move” as a single off his 1989 album Stone Cold Rhythm is his only US hit, if that tells you anything. With Crystal Blake providing the female voice in the chorus, and one of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on base, “Bust A Move” is pop version of a rap song, a sort of gateway into rap. Like a drug, but the song is surprisingly clean for a song about hooking up. What did you think he meant?

The song contains four stories as our narrator tries to encourage either the same or four different guys to get over their insecurities and make a move on a girl who is clearly into him. The music video actually matches the song well, but with a few minor differences. That’s why I prefer to go with song lyric videos instead of the official music video.

The question I’m asking is whether or not the song, using the bass from the Ballin’ Jack song “Found A Child”, actually works as good advice and whether or not the scenarios are even possible. That’s all I have for intro, so let’s get into the song.

Not the best video I could find, but it didn’t cut the song off before the final story and embedding is allowed, so it won.

American Songwriter has a good breakdown of the four verses, thus four stories, that make up Young MC’s advice. In the actual video, the couple in the movie theater takes turns being more interested in the movie than the makeshift date, while at the wedding a limited number of actors may be why the bride leaves her groom at the altar to run off with our protagonist. The first scenario seems to have two different guys, making “Poindexter” (who is also the jilted groom later, so the dude is getting no breaks) and “fatso” into different guys. (Also, the fat guy’s “high class luncheon” looks like the high school cafeteria, maybe college unless Young MC is telling teens to get busy.) We never get a beach scene, probably because of the budget again.

All four stories kind of suffer from being the same general situation. Dude is convinced the girls aren’t coming, then all of a sudden a girl shows up wanting to hook up, MC says “go for it”, cue Crystal Blake. There’s no variety to the situations. It also requires the girl to make the first move just as the guy is giving up each time. At the high-class function a girl comes up to a guy who just ate and wants to “dance”. At the theater the girl in yellow, probably to get a rhyme with “hello”, calls him over to sit with her…in what I’m assuming is a public theater and not an adult cinema but I could be wrong. Don’t really care. At the beach he’s convinced they only want a dude with money, then a girl walks up and just wants to get down out of nowhere. At least at the wedding the bridesmaid thinks he’s winking at her and winks back, with the possibility they’re meeting at the ceremony later and not immediately hitting the closet or something. They’re also both in the wedding party, but there’s no indication who if any of them made the first move. Also, I’m assuming that being your best friend’s brother’s best man is also to get a rhyme and not that their parents made a big mistake calling one kid Harry and the other Larry.

If the song is about giving the protagonist a pep talk, this isn’t a good one. First of all, in at least three if not four cases the girl is coming out of nowhere and making the first move. This has only happened to me when the girl is drunk, and that’s not what I go for. I may not have been the type of guy to meet women at nightclubs, but that’s another discussion. In the video, poor “Poindexter” is really out of luck twice. So the scenario is basically “you want to get laid, wait for a girl to come up to you when you’re sure they won’t and just get over yourself”. That’s not very good advice, is it? If I’m already convinced a woman isn’t coming along who will be into me, you’re telling me to do a reverse Snow White and wait for my princess to come. And now I want to test my applesauce for poison.

On the other hand, the song is catchy and I do like the video. So good song, terrible advice.