Lyrical Content
A prominent theme in Slug's lyrics is his allegorical usage of women, especially in his earlier work. A notable use of women by Slug is in the song "Woman with the Tattooed Hands", which he has said is "a metaphor for that same old shit that everybody has already made songs about. Just trying to find your place within a belief and faith as well as people that you want to have sex with.". Further examples come in the song "Abusing of the Rib" from Headshots: SE7EN: it has been said that the "lover" Slug speaks of is actually an allegory for hip-hop. In the tour-only release Sad Clown Bad Dub II, Slug used a great degree of both symbolism and metaphor with notable references to nature and relationships throughout each song, culminating heavily in the album's penultimate track "The River".
A character whom Slug refers to as "Lucy", who has been purported to be a symbol of a range of different entities, is the most notable of these allegories. In earlier Atmosphere songs, it is believed that Slug used Lucy as a means of writing about ex-girlfriends. Lucy became so prominent that Atmosphere's 2001 album bore her name, Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EPs, with the record itself concentrating fairly heavily on women and relationships, in songs such as "Don't Ever Fucking Question That" and "Mama Had A Baby And His Head Popped Off". The song "Fuck You Lucy" from God Loves Ugly has been said to deal with Slug's dependency on alcohol. Slug himself has since said of Lucy that he originally believed "her" to be a representation of the dichotomy between himself and women. He acknowledges now that Lucy became a demonization ("Lucy Ford" being a play on words for Lucifer) of himself and his dependency on alcohol, drugs, sex and validation.
Slug raps in a very introspective style, as seen on the song "Little Man", in which he confronts the complaints that people have about him by looking at his relationship with his father and son. This introspective style became less prevalent with When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (2008) in which Slug navigates through other people's lives. When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold has been noted as more of a dark album than previous works. Slug maintains the allegorical stance from previous records in songs such as "Your Glasshouse" which deals with his emotions towards the war in Iraq using the guise of a person waking up from a hangover.
Slug also dislikes some of the songs that he wrote before and does not perform them live, such as "Vampires" from 2002 album God Loves Ugly. Daley has stated: " when I did get my phase of trying to figure myself out, there was a lot of tug-of-war inside of me between wanting to hate a particular woman and then feeling guilty about that. And there’s certain songs that I won’t perform anymore, because the game of tug-of-war is over and I know where I’m at. Furthermore, Slug has criticised Atmosphere's first album ,Overcast!, saying: "It's obvious that I’m trying so fucking hard on Overcast and you can see through it and tell it's not a person it's more of an attempt at trying to fill the niche, it was like I was trying to prove to myself that I was a rapper."
Read more about this topic: Atmosphere (music Group)
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