Over the course of his more than twenty years in hip-hop, American rapper and producer Aesop Rock has contained many references to other artists and creative works in the lyrics to his songs. Documented within these folders are an exhaustive list of such references, organized chronologically by the album in which they appeared.
open/close all folders
Main Discography
Music for Earthworms (1997)
- Abandon All Hope:It's like, sadly, my style spooks juveniles like Boo Radley
Radically weak assume the Colonel Kurtz in our platoon soon enough
...
And I live for the moment of truth when Big Willie rapper acknowledges failure and states, "God damn, my shit is trash, it's time to let go!"
Tin man bangin' upon his chest to hear the echo
Heartless, kid, hollow compartments
...
Abandon all hope, y'all, abandon all hope, it's like
Abandon all hope, y'all, abandon all hope... - Wake-Up Call (feat. Percee P):I played a part of Minesweeper, plunking sneakers in my sunken city defunct, and apparently examinin' famine
...
20,000 league nappers and the swelling increases
Once the mortar hit the pestle your whole vessel fell to pieces - Shere Kahn:My firm's radically piloted, dodging a fire swiftly
Yellow brick stalker walkin' shifty
Float (2000)
- Commencement at the Obedience Academy:Puts it down, down beneath your sappy sing-alongs
Let's take it further down, we'll let Dante decide which ring I'm on
...
Must not sleep, must warn others
Trust blocks creep where the dust storm hovers - Big Bang:But it's like, man, I can't afford the oxen fee-fi-et cetera
I smell the warm blood of the bill collector knockin'
...
I was up all night with a rusty hammer,
Trying to build a fence around these magic beans my dreams have gathered - Garbage:Wing of wax... or wing of gold leaf
Choose one, float or plummet
20,000 cold leagues
...
Let's salute the embraced pertinent generals
Who turned innocent hermits to burning spectacles
...
Snake bite, breath too heavy to hold
Caught up in the wake of the red witch tryna swim it
...
My sour patch institution slipped in amidst the invaders and,
Pardon my tone but this garden's grown fuckin' acres since my visit
...
And I'm a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas
Antifreeze to glacier, cookin' a look of fiery nature - I'll Be OK:I wanna lift every yellow brick
I've never felt pressured to have to justify my selfishness - Basic Cable:I love all advertisements
Though accused by robot newscasters who capture and pollute
Spoon-fed hazardous fog to Joy Luck Catholic squad
...
Blue be the propaganda banners, well, sure I'll be a Marine,
With a clean sword and blue uniform, "It only takes a dollar and a dream"
And I abide great idiot box power supply, fuzz vapor,
Blackout of New York, "Hey honey, get the generator"
I'm in a doom, doom generation pacin'
Ancient electric secret, never sleepin' to miss the AM oasis
...
Damn, it feels good, turn on, tune in,
Zoom in to hug the bug up in your family function,
But the children seem to love it
...
Channel zero addict, immaculate
It goes big screen, little screen, any screen'll do,
Just let me hold the controller and I won't have to murder you - Fascination:Shook to Casper, illustrate beautiful disaster
Flight of the mothership, lift to badger the malefactor - Spare A Match:Be wary when the stratosphere tints
I scout like Atticus Finch, inching up slow in the games of reconnaissance
Labor Days (2001)
- Save Yourself:I don't march like Beetle Bailey through a quick trend
- Coma:I elope with talent while they fidget
If the revolution ain't gon' be televised, then fuck, I'll probably miss it - 9-5ers Anthem:Under a dusted angel harp string, Big Brother is watching my odometer like buzzard to fallen elk, hawkin' stealth
...
It's on like it's never been
It's bleeding well
It's bigger than a breadbox
It corrodes my leaky finance
...
Fumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Daylight EP (2002)
- Nickel Plated Pockets:Robert Crumb ugly dumb image, barely sprung fairly numb grimace,
Nearly cut cherry blood spicket wrists back in high school
...
There's anthrax in our mailboxes and Xanax in my tummy
There's a single Spanish female out west traveling the country
Freak of Fantasia leak laser major, running bases
Neighborhood watch weasels pace in ugly acres more than often
...
It goes, back of the class, throwing pencils at professors
It made the Barbarellas giggle
...
Now if you gotta rock a gas mask outside of your own apartment,
You could pretty safely quote Shamar: "Life's ill,
Sometimes life might kill", sometimes prayers dwindle
Walk into the store with a pocket full of nickels
...
My boombox runs on a baboon heart transplant (This is hell!)
I got a poltergeist on a leash trained by Carol Ann herself - Maintenance:I'll keep my ghoul spirit concealed until the Warriors return to the Coney Isle Wonder Wheel
My mama told me there'd be days like this, days like this, days like this, days like this
Bazooka Tooth (2003)
- N.Y. Electric:Paxil Rose, Axl broke and butchered
Last catapult standing in a land of coke and hookers - No Jumper Cables:
- Cook It Up:Give her a month, Hyde heckles Jekyll and she makes Hitler look cuddly
- Babies with Guns:Harvest all Brand X Clark Kents to worm food
Carbon heart, buried his nozzle in fossil marker art
...
Bazooka Tooth zookeep the paper route with janky funds and favor, cradled by twelve empty Zelda heart containers
Man, it's freezing in this brick bitch, winter forever
Like Punxsutawney Phil found with his four furry wrists severed
I walk face-first through the sex, drugs, and church
With wild things that make Maurice Sendak question his early works - Frijoles:Park your bets, Sharks or Jets
His bark mark targets where the barnacles nest
Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives EP (2006)
- Winners Take All:Wake him with that blind military mechanism set to bludgeon
What is your major malfunction? - Facemelter:Smarter than the average bear, barter parts and gadgets
With battery-op enthusiasts, pardon the barking badgers
None Shall Pass (2007)
- Bring Back Pluto:Bloom County's homeless riot for home ownership
- Pigs:Final words for the finer birds taking notes:
I dig a chick in pigtails, that's all, folks
Skelethon (2012)
- Leisureforce:Grace of a misled teen who prefer his scenes with a little Wilhelm Scream
...
Part hatter-mad, part erratic habites
Dark matter harnessing his heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack - ZZZ Top:Somebody in a cultivated moment of distress composed themselves enough to artfully carve ZOSO in this desk
...
Like Crocea Mors in an arcade drop claw, gouging a valentine for Miss Othmar
...
That key to Shambala, planet-rocking Bambaataa
...
Burns urgently, offered through the circuits of an earlier plot
I'll see you at the bottom, ZZZ Top - Cycles To Gehenna:Knows no zen in the art of maintenance
Only as the orchestrated patron saint of changing lanes
...
This was less an act of hubris, more a Lonely Hearts Club at the helm of a magic bullet - Homemade Mummy:Cat skulls stacked to the black hole sunset
Olive on a toothpick, Dagwood Bumstead - Tetra:
- Gopher Guts:...bootleg Yukon Cornelius
Bestiary (feat. Rob Sonic as Hail Mary Mallon, 2014)
- Jonathan:"Hurt feelings are bound to happen. Just bliss out, and fantasize a lot and wear rainbows."
...
If the medicine chest temper like a towny come untethered
To a busker with a twenty minute "Downeaster Alexa"... cover
...
Man's worst friend, tragedy-prone
Skirting a never-ending exodus from Madame Tussauds
...
I play Defender at the center for the never enough
You call it losing my way, I call it leveling up
...
Hi Jonathan, meet the amazing Hollow Man
Turn a snow globe into a lava lamp - Krill:Borderline Voorhees, porridge line, more, please
Pull up like a hundred flying Dorothys
Incorigible, undermine authorities enormously, SIR! - The Soup:
- Kiln:Sidewinders wind through fried wires
In a room of higher primates climbing on typewriters
Lice (feat. Homeboy Sandman, 2015)
- Feels So Strange:The very soil where he learned to conquer Mario 3
The Impossible Kid (2016)
- Mystery Fish:In the warehouse air where his dairy curdles,
St. Vincent de Paul trying to square the circle
Circle the source of his power
Foresight born at the corner of Howard on sale
...
Adopt no Xerxes, fear no Moon Man
Stay true like a wolf wearing wolf pants
...
Still hear an ex in his head yelling "kiss the ring"
From a fortune to Fisher King
...
I said hello to Marshall every morn for 6,
He yelled at me every time, "That's amore, bitch"
It only took one tooth to crack the bug juice and chug,
Turn a bum to a Sun Tzu, it's bug
...
A cold meal with the ghosts of friends
A whole host of meds, a deal on a Tone Lōc cassette - Rings:Pinhead kids of the minute
Drank Kool-Aid from a tube of acrylic
...
Aligning with the trials of the anti-Midas
Nap on the back lawn, look up in the sky, it's... - Blood Sandwich:Got a homie, little rodent, head and shoulders out his hovel
No baseball in the bubble, ruh-roh - Shrunk:Nervous in the service still, I'm burger meat and purple pills,
Here, "Thank you, I'll call your name," sure you will - Defender:New Salem, Brave new voodoo
Wave a witch hammer in a haven for the woo-woo
...
Meh
Loser in the sky with more diamonds than the carpet from The Shining, part riot, part Orion
...
Fried while the pipes froze, life goes Lovecraft
Christ-pose, sittin' on invisible hubcaps, up
Call Alex back, daggers in the basil patch,
Tell him maybe less badminton, more Scrabble Dash
Less jarts, more Rummikub, whatever keep the scallywags wrapped up in the subterfuge
...
I could drive into a lake of fire, pay the piper COD,
Aware the pot and kettle shop for little toxin equally at least
Lice 2: Still Buggin' (feat. Homeboy Sandman, 2016)
- Pizza and Burgers:Even though I'm Shakespeare on paper, in person I'm Beavis
- Mud:Yeah, time to make the donuts
Eat, drink, annihilate the bogus
Hot Dogs (non-album single, 2017)
- Raised on dirty hot dog water and popcorn butter
EPMD tellin' me every popstar a sucker
...
My attitude is ghastly, any gallantry been going gone
I think I'm probably a lot like dating Mola Ram
...
This is GNR announcing Jesus Christ on lead guitar
Finding Heather Hunter still inside your college VCR
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I feel like a fucking dog,
Something this depraved is not a product of a loving God
...
Special is as special does, you aren't special just because
Yes your mother said you was, that's pretty much what mothers does
Cat Food EP (2018)
- Cat Food:He got the rad moves, catty alpha, rat-proof, wait
Twenty-sided die at the crapshoot, wait
...
Unfrozen part of his new J-O
Face of divine evil, heart of Camu Tao
...
Some people find the daylight to be oddly alluring;
I was in the dark dodging and burning
Maybe 'cause I look like an Uglydoll
...
Riding down the block, scooping Bobby in a boogie-down
Tony told me tell 'em, "Hello, 7:30 noodle-town"
Klutz (non-album single, 2018)
- Shriek into the vacuum if in spite of your accomplishments
You wake up feeling empty like Houdini's grave probably is
...
Puppy chow and Bitches Brew, it's not exactly chicken soup
...
Older Yeller, never knew a no-kill shelter in his doggy days
Now I draw my neighbors over Kouign-amanns and coffee stains
...
For a gallery of grifters channeling Sid's action figures
Grafted with his little sister's after marker, glue, and scissors
...
Your music makes the motherfucker want to move to Elm Street
Malibu Ken (feat. TOBACCO as Malibu Ken, 2019)
- Corn Maze:I'm the World Weekly News Batchild
Beelining ash pile to ash pile to ash pile
...
Criminy, ya killin' me, Smalls, the fist balls up
I put my hood down, I got some walls up
...
Every day I wake up in a gallon of sweat
Puke blood, hit the shower, turn to Malibu Ken
...
Are we Donatello's David or delicate Frozen Charlottes?
Even Davids know in art there often will be no catharsis - Tuesday:I can't even keep a cactus alive when I'm present, when I'm gone, it's a groundbreaking botanical epic
From desolate to Little Shop of Horrors in a second, it's weird knowing life thrives more when you exit - Save Our Ship:I'm in the basement, mixing up the medicine with The Wizard of Id
...
And it's Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde,
The only goal is split the chrysalis wide,
I'm only in it to hide, come on - Acid King:
, which raised intense panic across America about alleged Satanist aspects of the murder. Rogue Wave (non-album single, 2020)
- All work, no play
Dull boys rotate
Oldboy, Ghostface, Tolstoy, Coltrane
...
But supposedly awoke and down to mobilize whenever
You're pretty much a Gomer Pyle to pester, remember
...
Tea with the dark side, Slimer on speed dial
Sleep on a couch or a street or a leaf pile
...
Mi casa like I'm Oscar, hot and poppin' out a flipped lid
Eyepatch, Prince wig, disappearing grid blip
...
Dirtbag Don, don't provoke him to act up
I'm golden doing donuts in the Totoro Catbus
...
We take it where the warlocks lock horns, soda pop, popcorn
Top-notch gore set to Bach over foghorns
...
I could pick a pin and tumbler right in front of the guard
Out the front with another Picasso under his arm
Hit the city limit still exhibiting his inner Caulfield, baby
I'm H-E-double-hockey-sticks on wheels
Freedom Finger: Music From The Game EP (2020)
- KOWP:I could drive a car through a fence
Bonnie sitting shotty, not Barbie and Ken
...
From the unrelenting filigree of digital Rome,
I throw a signal fit to eclipse Videodrome
...
I've rid stones of the most stuck swords
"Go back" signage over the front door
...
Not in the race to pass GO,
I'm a lone photon escapin' a black hole
Spirit World Field Guide (2020)
- The Gates:Drumroll, I might piss straight, loose tooth in my spit shake
Every possible Futurama come trooping out of his pill case - Button Masher:His helmet is a case of Bud, he factor in the paper cuts
Corrugated cockpit, I'm not exactly Major Tom
Buzzed Aldrin, I can't count backwards
Ten, one, someone get this buzzard to the Matmos - Pizza Alley:Where shaman opt to zombify undocumented expats
High and writing ayahuasca letters back to Melmac
Dear friends, send help yesterday
Yours true, condor, puma, serpiente
Talk rap albums with alpaca medallions
And metalheads who traffic magic flowers from the mountains
To the Houses of the Holy
A token of that sacred valley balance so you don't expel omega fatty acids
The strays in the plaza look happier than my neighbors
They answer to Paddington Bear in waders
It's amazers
...
Throw a couple logs on the fire,
There's a chimney in San Blas where you can hear Baby Dayliner
Bouncing softly off the navy blue
April showers, Paper Moon
Run the light and beat the drum and smoke the dope and raid the tomb
...
Ooh, it's a strange bouquet, not today, Supay
Rubber boots and tumbo juice and tarantula toupee
Canopy going ham over camp in a feuding biome,
Os Mutantes row-row-rowing the wrong way into the diode
...
On a screen porch pimpled after dark with frogs and lizards,
When high as hell they might as well be Mothras and Godzillas
...
We traded numbers and made off into the pond scum
Humming Muddy Waters, motherfucker, I am on one
Earth, wind, fire and papaya
We fly with the poison arrow, we dive with the arapaima
...
"When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid on the spirit, aching for the light
And when embracing the horizon, it pours on us a black day which is sadder than any night." - Boot Soup:Know the fee, the fi, the fo, the fum
Notice a bouquet of bone and blood
...
Rag-tag rad to the last Boo Radley - Coveralls:Over the Garden Wall when your Rover was playing dead
Arm-and-arm with a Melancholia, roses and baby's breath
...
Most of my visitors request that I be tied to a chair
I wear the skin of my detractors, maybe try not to stare, yeah
...
I buy a second seat for my extraordinary piss and moan,
Feet up while the fleet assemble, keep the devil in the hole
With several yelling "Sparta",
You were yelling "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha"
Only one'll read the chapter after larva, it's a good one - Jumping Coffin:I don't coexist, I don't exist
Even JC messin' with the loaves and fish - Attaboy:Insulated slicker dripping, winter like, "It's Britney, bitch"
Crops wither, docks splinter into popsicle sticks
Beyond the hissy fit, he ain't but a hound dog,
I'm Bamm-Bamm, pianos fall on me and bounce off
...
Last-minute mohawk, eyes closed,
Ear to the road salt, all I hear is Mozart - Marble Cake:I'm broken, fuck a focus group
Fuck your folk and Toto too
The produce of a pencil-neck who never met a social cue
...
No displayed blasonry, unmistakably mutinous
The mood is disillusionment, shit, even Cindy Lou-Who quit
...
Nan under the bandages, examine 'til he vanishes
I don't feel a social pull to show the wolves where Grandma lives
...
The moat's supposed to keep the rivals out
The calls are coming from inside the house
Ask Anyone (non-album single feat. Homeboy Sandman, 2020)
Garbology (with Blockhead, 2021)
- Jazz Hands:Flame to the fuse to the barrel
I step into the room, split an arrow with an arrow
The first trickshot is just to show 'em that I dabble
I will not be aiming for the apple
...
Get your whole road map Pac-Man'd
Black mask, snack on whatever's in the dash cam
It's not an ad, hashtag, or a tap dance
Patsy, the revolution will not have jazz hands - Abandoned Malls:Commotion froze in time with no sign of your Lamb of God
It's a Land of the Lost, scrambling for canned applause
...
Light sleeper, I'm a fighter, I'm a feeder
Earth, wind, fire, water, ether
Catfish (non-album single feat. Homeboy Sandman, 2022)
- I wake up every day and move different than I used to
Smarter than whichever bear's assumin' that you do, too
Integrated Tech Solutions (2023)
- Mindful Solutionism:Plane, train, auto, haulin' space-age cargo
Bizarro technology, every day is tomorrow! - Time Moves Differently Here:Artificial char-lines, orange chicken, large fries
Large milkshake, not the boys-to-the-yard kind - Vititus:Cheers, two foot of fresh powdered sugar on the mountain
We opted out for Morton Downey Jr.
Other Discography
Tags of the Times 3 (with various other artists, 2001)
- Wise Up:You see, my version of ruler don't include underlings thumbing through Yellow Pages for a future
Today I strike a match, adapt tragedy
Tomorrow humankind's logic pistons crash and burn
The next day procreation becomes annual formality
I guess it's once a kid, always a kid, it's just some kids'll never learn
Other (album/chronology unknown)
- Dead Pan:I'm here to break apart a Bic's piston,
Plus my "straight and narrows" got more curves than a Russ Meyer vixen - Happy Pillz (feat. Murs):See me in hell cashing in on that see-you-in-hell thing
Decompose like Dorothy water bucket plus witch equals melting - Shut Down:So I twitch every time the feed-me-Seymour farmers plant one
- Sinister (feat. Vast Aire and Yeshua Da Poed):"Do you know what Nemesis means?
A righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent
Personified in this case, by me!"
...
Influence is shark-biting the fuck out of your brother
Friendship is Professor Plum rattin' on Colonel Mustard
...
"You can tell the angels in heaven you've never seen an evil so singularly personified as you being hit in the face by the man who killed you."
