➤︎ Ice Cube - It was a good day - Lyrics analysis, explanation & meaning (2024)

This page is an abstract of our analysis of gangsta-rap lyrics, with the help of the scenario concepts we teach in our courses.

Ice Cube – It was a good day – Lyrics

Verse 1

Just waking up in the morning gotta thank God
I don’t know but today seems kinda odd
No barking from the dog, no smog
And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog
I got my grub on, but didn’t pig out
Finally got a call from a girl I want to dig out
Hooked it up on later as I hit the do’
Thinking will I live another twenty fo’
I gotta go cause I got me a drop top
And if I hit the switch, I can make the ass drop
Had to stop at a red light
Looking in my mirror not a jacker in sight
And everything is alright
I got a beep from Kim and she can f*ck all night
Called up the homies and I’m askin’ y’all
Which park, are y’all playin’ basketball?
Get me on the court and I’m trouble
Last week f*cked around and got a triple double
Freaking brothers every way like M.J.
I can’t believe, today was a good day

Verse 2

Drove to the pad and hit the showers
Didn’t even get no static from the cowards
Cause just yesterday them fools tried to blast me
Saw the police and they rolled right past me
No flexin’, didn’t even look in a brothers direction as I ran the intersection
Went to $hort Dog’s house, they was watchin’ Yo! MTV Raps
What’s the haps on the craps
Shake ’em up, shake ’em up, shake ’em up, shake ’em
Roll ’em in a circle of nigg*z and watch me break ’em
With the seven, seven-eleven, seven-eleven
Seven even back do’ little Joe
I picked up the cash flow
Then we played bones, and I’m yellin’ domino
Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A.
Today was a good day

Verse 3

Left my homies house paid
Picked up a girl been tryin’ to f*ck since the twelfth grade
It’s ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic
The Lakers beat the Supersonics
I felt on the big fat fanny
Pulled out the jammy, and killed the punanny
And my Jimmy runs deep so deep so deep put her ass to sleep
Woke her up around one
She didn’t hesitate, to call Ice Cube the top gun
Drove her to the pad and I’m coasting
Took another sip of the potion hit the three-wheel motion
I was glad everything had worked out
Dropped her butt off, then I chirped out
Today was like one of those fly dreams
Didn’t even see a berry flashing those high beams
No helicopter looking for a murder
Two in the morning got the fat burger
Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read Ice Cube’s a pimp (yeah)
Drunk as hell but no throwing up
Half way home and my pager still blowing up
Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day

Ice Cube – It was a good day – Lyrics analysis, explanation & meanings

Note: we will use our usual analytical storytelling vocabulary to describe those lyrics.

Verse 1

Just waking up in the morning gotta thank God

This first lineexpresses twofeelings: the gratitude of being alive, and the faith in God.The audiencewho hears this tends toempathizedirectly with the speaker, because thesefeelingsare beautiful to live and to see.So we start on apositive noteand not on the usual “I’mma shoot you nigg*“.

Yet… this faith in God seems acceptable, but at the time, Ice Cube had just converted to Islam, which means this thanks goes to Allah, who is not the most appreciated God among Americans, on average… Islam is a protest faith, the one of rebels like theBlack Panthersand theNation of Islam.Themeaningof the linetherefore changes, depending on whether theaudienceknowsthat Ice Cube is talking about Allah, or that theyignore it.If they know it, they know it’s funny that others believe that Ice Cube is talking about the Catholic God. (About that point, see How to distribute information among characters)

As we will see, thesongwill benarrative, and consist of ataleof a common day gangster, from sunrise to the night.We thus attend from the firstlinethe beginning of this littlestory.

It is rare that a rapsongisnarrative, really rare.Most of the time, raplyricsare a montage ofinsults, assaults to theaudience,slogans, punchlines, shortscenes, but almost never a wholestory.Thissongdistinguishes itself by its ambitious choice to participate in the Americannarrative culturewithout being limited to a primitive style ofwritingcoming out of the illiterate ghetto.However, thissongdoes not betray the ghettocultureby this choice, since it keeps the gangster as athemeand maincharacter,Hero.It popularizes this gangster figure in a way themainstream audience can like,because narrativesongs, including ballads– as we will see it is one – are widespread in othergenres, including rock and pop.

I don’t know but today seems kinda odd

By showing his concern that something is odd, is not as usual, thislinegenerates asuspense: we want toknowwhat’s wrong, what’s not normal, and for that we needeventsto test,cluesto investigate.He will provide them in the next lines!

No barking from the dog, no smog

And then?This keeps thesuspense alive, feeding alistof things that make this day odd, and starts to develop a paralleldescriptionof this gangster’s day.

Those clueshave apositive meaning… whichhidessomenegativity:

• if the dog does not bark, it means that there were no intruders today, no thieves, no attackers, no VRPs, no Jehovah’s Witnesses, no jerk!– which assumes that they usually all come and make the dog bark…
• if there is nosmog– pollution-laden fog – then we can breathe healthy air – that assumes that we usually suffocate in this smog…

And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog

So, this is another good piece of news that makes the day strangely good and odd: mom cooked without pork, that’s good considering that Ice Cube can not eat pork since his conversion to Islam, so if she cooks some it means he doesn’t take breakfast.

I got my grub on, but didn’t pig out

It sounds good too: for once, he could eat normally.It’s likeself-mockery, which reveals a relaxed, likeable personality.So far, it seems like a good boy’s day, the morning of an old teenager who still lives with his mother.

Finally got a call from a girl I want to dig out

There, incontrastto the previousline, it gets tough.Theexpression“to dig out” to describe his desire for her soundsvulgar,provocativeand macho – the boy suddenly grows up in our eyes, suddenly appearing much less innocent.

Hooked it up on later as I hit the do’

This linegives twotemporal milestones: from there, the gangster leaves home and starts his day outside, goes to work;and he organizes his day by taking an appointment for later.

Thinking will I live another twenty fo’

Bam!This line withtragicresonance takes us by surprise, like an accident in daily life. Til then, it was only an ordinary day without danger, without smog, without pork… Thisparadox– death is there, but we can not see it – makes the strength of thisline.

This extreme and sudden existential anxiety echoesthe gratitude of the first line of theverse, about feeling thankful to God to be alive today.It is inevitably touching to see someone who believes his life expectancy will be so short.

I gotta go cause I got me a drop top

After thetragicthought about his precocious death, the gangster gotta go: this shows a beautiful, brave and voluntary attitude to face life as it is, dangerous and uncertain.

The line alsosoundscomical, because the alleged cause does not explain anything: in reality if he needs to go, it’s not because of thisdrop top, this car whose top can be dropped.But the expression is a little reminiscent of a woman who would remove her top, and the nextlinewill echo this possibledouble meaning.

And if I hit the switch, I can make the ass drop

As one of our readers said, this line “means the car’s got hydraulics and the bottom falls out when you hit the switch”.

So it’s finally clear that he’s talking about a car, without having uttered the word “car” at all.

I can make the ass dropsounds deliberatelyambiguousandsaucy.

So, we can understand synthetically,empathically: he just said he was not sure to finish the year, and here he is trying to make us understand that he has a nice car and he also wants to have sex, in short, that he intends to enjoy his life for the time remaining.

Had to stop at a red light

Which implies that the driver usually burns red lights, drives dangerously – or safely, since in the next line we understand drivers risk to get jacked if they stop.

Looking in my mirror not a jacker in sight

Another quirk: no one tries to steal his car at the crossroads.Unbelievable!One can imagine, suddenly, theordinarydangers of his neighborhood.

Note that this way of turning thenegativeintopositiveis precisely what makes thissong socharming.It speaks about hard things in such a light manner, evokes a wholeworldby subtleallusionstoimplicit facts, content tosaylittle toevoke alot.

And everything is alright

Not being assaulted… means that everything is alright.The degree of toxicity, of stress, of such an environment is measured by such an appreciation, if the mere extra-ordinary absence of ordinary dramatic facts is already a reason to find that all is well.

I got a beep from Kim and she can f*ck all night

This is excellent news, at least from thepoint of viewof thecharacter, given the previous conditioning.

Of course, we understand that this Kim is not the previous “girl I want to dig out” on the schedule that day, so we conclude that thenarratorpresents himself as a “player“, a seducer of women.

Theexpressionshe can f*ck all nightis obviously made toshockrepressive and politically-correct minds, to taunt the censorship of sex in the media.

Called up the homies and I’m askin’ y’all

Which park, are y’all playin’ basketball?

He suddenly changes topic, in afunnyway; apparently he is spending his day in pleasurable, hedonistic activities.

Get me on the court and I’m trouble

In fact this linehas two possiblemeanings, it is deliberatelyambiguous:

• get me on the basketball playground
• get me on the tribunal, where I’ll be judged.

Last week f*cked around and got a triple double

This linealso has two possiblemeanings:

• if it goes along with the basketball game, it means he played well, and obtained 3 double-digit match statistics
• if it goes along with the court case, and means he took 3 times 10 years sentence or more for 3 different crimes.

Freaking brothers every way like M.J.

So, according to themeaningwe retain, this linealso has two meanings: he freaks his brothers in basketball, or in life via some crimes that lead him to these double-digit penalties.

M.J. of course is Magic Johnson, the famous basketball player.So,freaking brothers every way like M.J., means ripping them off, bluffing, impressing, bursting his opponents like Magic Johnson. As if Ice Cube was saying “I am a champion of crime”. A kind of hyperbolic character as described in Linda Seger‘s book.

I can’t believe, today was a good day

Now, this linetends to extinguish the previous hypothesis about the possible meaning of the court as a tribunal, which still hung like a mean shadow… Today was a good day, also because only the basketball game mattered, not the court.

Thisconcluding lineof the versealso plays the role ofchorus.It’s very original and it’s also meaningful: this simple, banal statement comes as aclimax, full of emotion, to have already survived all that – we do not really know why, but we felt danger here and there.

Verse 2

Drove to the pad and hit the showers

It is coherent: the schedule of the day continues.We do not knowwhenwe are in the day, but those showers suggest that the gangster has found a way to get tired. Probably his basketball session?

Didn’t even get no static from the cowards

So, it’s still one of those strange non-events: no aggression today.

Cause just yesterday them fools tried to blast me

This lineis stronger than the others, because thisinfo suddenly revealswhat had beenhiddenuntil then: this man is a gangster, dedicated to killing or being killed.

Saw the police and they rolled right past me

Here, there is a niceeffect of meaning, thanks to alogicalplay with the expectations of theaudience.Indeed, the fact that the police is mentioned just after the evocation of the murder attempt, seemslogical, but it is afalse track:this police does not come therelogicallyto investigate this crime, whichthe gangster naturally prefers to keep secret, probably to manage it a more personal way… On the contrary, thesingeris happy to avoid the police, to pass for once unnoticed.

No flexin’, didn’t even look in a brothers direction as I ran the intersection

So, he is astonished: he was not racially profiled as usual by L.A. police.

Went to $hort Dog’s house, they was watchin’ Yo! MTV Raps

Another banal, harmless event, and a blinkto MTV, a possiblebroadcasterof thesong, which could make a funny fractaleffectin case thesongwas played on this channel.

What’s the haps on the craps

Craps is a dice game, to win one has to get some 7 and 11, which explains the nextlines.

We went in a few linesfrom the attempted murder to futile and harmless activities, so there is a bigthematic contrast, which represents the tops and downs of life.

Shake ’em up, shake ’em up, shake ’em up, shake ’em

He turns it in afunnyway, as previously we can see that his reaction to the eventuality of death is a kind of leap forward into the pleasures of life.

Roll ’em in a circle of nigg*z and watch me break ’em

This linesounds more disturbing, and suggests that he may be, rather than playing, scamming everyone.

With the seven, seven-eleven, seven-eleven

The songwriter rolls the words verbally, imitating the action he describes.

Seven even back do’ little Joe

Thisverseis difficult to understand.A Little Joe, at Craps, is when you get 2 times 2. Back do’, seems to refer to “back door”, as if the Little Joe was coming from the back door, which is perhaps a dishonest way to win.

I picked up the cash flow

In any case, he picked up the money, he won, it’s also what makes his day.

Then we played bones, and I’m yellin’ domino

The player changes game but keeps his greed to win…

Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A.

Niceeffect: thanks to the “Plus“, the relationship between futile and important matters gets reverted, the line presents futile matters first and adds important matters as a cherry on the cake.A possibletragedyis in the air, revealing the permanentanxiety of the character aboutlosing the people he knows.

This lineobviouslyechoesthe question “will I live another 24” of the firstverse, evoking a precarious life, easily lost.

Today was a good day

We get used to thischorusat the end of theverse.

Verse 3

Left my homies house paid

We are probably continuing thelistof unusual things, and so, with a certain amount ofhumor, it consists of having paid the rent of the house of his friends.This seems to suggest a position of power and responsibility, like: he is the head of a gang, of dealers for example, and pays their rent to pay their work.

Picked up a girl been tryin’ to f*ck since the twelfth grade

It is thus the third sexual encounter mentioned since the beginning of the day, suggesting the character has big sexual needs.

It’s ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic

The brewis some beer, even if might also designate cannabis.And the chronicis a high quality weed, reknown in California.

Why does he find this ironic?Maybe he is a grass dealer, and usually he is the one who has the chronic?

The Lakers beat the Supersonics

It is possible the character is listening to the local radio, and enjoys the result of the local basketball team.

I felt on the big fat fanny

Fanny: slang term to say “ass”, or sometimes “puss*”.

The sudden jumps from theme tothemeshow a nice mental agility – with that and the fact that all theverbsof action are in the past, we canunderstandthat he is in his head, at night, recapitulating his good day, thinking byassociation of ideas.

But this time, he will stay on thisthemefor 5lines, proof of the importance of thescenein his eyes.

Pulled out the jammy, and killed the punanny

Fanny, jammy, punanny, and Jimmy in the following line: all these slangnicknames soundsaucy,erotic.

Theactions“pull out” then “kill” are what a man who lives dangerously does with his gun, but metaphorically they designate what this man does with his penis.It is as if one dimension of the identity of thesinger(the gangster) had contaminated the other one (the lover).

And my Jimmy runs deep so deep so deep put her ass to sleep

Deep, so deep so deep: we find averbal gameas with the line aboutthe dice, “shake ’em up” and then with “seven-eleven“.

There is also a form of play onmeaning with thesoundsdeep, deep, deep, thensleep, that implicitly mimic theaction of f*cking, ina kind offunnylogic.

Woke her up around one

Note how the brevity of the linecontinues to imitate theaction: theactionof waking up is necessarily brief, andlogically, the line is brief.

She didn’t hesitate, to call Ice Cube the top gun

Another little subtleeffect: thesingertakes a little pause after the word “hesitate“, which leaves asuspense: she didn’t hesitate… to do what?Then we give theanswer, and it iscomicalandmetaphorical.

The top gun, allusion to the famous movie with Tom Cruise, TOP GUN, continues to play on theambiguitybetween the gangster, armed with a gun, and the lover, endowed with a penis.

Drove her to the pad and I’m coasting

The expression“drove her to the pad” echoes the expression“Drove to the pad“.

Took another sip of the potion hit the three-wheel motion

This lineprobably contains adouble meaning.

• It seems to mean that thesingerdrank some alcohol – and then happily made a turn.
• But we can also understand that they have had sex in the car again – the “potion” would then be sex, and the “three-wheel motion” could be an acrobatic sex position.

I was glad everything had worked out

Everything, so it’s everything that happened since the beginning of the day and the song, : the fact no one died, the relationships with women, the games.

Thisline soundsconclusive, yet the samescenegoes on just after.

Dropped her butt off, then I chirped out

Indeed this lineis once again ambiguous: he speaks about the woman with whom he has just slept, one can think that he pulled out of her body, or rather, because he was driving her home, that she just left the car and he went off.

Today was like one of those fly dreams

This kind and naive line contrastswith what took place previously, morevulgaranderotic, and what follows, darker and more violent.

Didn’t even see a berry flashing those high beams

The linein English is difficult tounderstandbecause it is poeticslang. The “berry” refers to the red lamps on the top of old police cars, which in the night could look like two red berries;and the “high beams” designate the headlights of police cars.

No helicopter looking for a murder

Bigthematic contrastafter the soft words at therhymetwolines ago,“fly dreams“.

Two in the morning got the fat burger

Anotherthemeechoingthe “breakfast” of the firstverse, being back to the ordinary events just after the mention of a possibility that sounded spectacular and extraordinary, the flight of a helicopter over the city.

Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp

Echoingthefly dreams, thismagical appearance of a blimp looks trivially commercial.It’s like a littleironiccommentabout America obsessed with money and brands, since this brand, with its blimp in the sky, means “Happy New Year” and appears at the end of a good day, like a lucky star… prompting people to buy new tires…

And it read Ice Cube’s a pimp (yeah)

lol ? The vision grows up to the hallucination, to make an obviouscomic effect, but also to reveal a strange psychological fault, a form of guilt fought byself-derision…

Drunk as hell but no throwing up

This linemodifies themeaningof the preceding ones, since from there the audiencecan interpret the hallucination of the previous lineas being due to the effects of a strong dose of alcohol – or magic “potion“.

The fact that he can be very drunk without vomiting also indicates that he is used to drinking, that it is his daily life, which contributes to thecharacterizationof thecharacter.

Half way home and my pager still blowing up

Themysteryis kept on the content of these messages, leaving theaudience tomakeassumptions: it can be women, knowing the habits of this man, or customers, if he is a dealer, or “homies”.

Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K.

Thisinfoto thenegativeweighs heavily and contaminate everything else, revealing in the end what we had to guess all along: finally, nothing was clearly said, but we understood that we were not following the life of someone normal, but the life of a thug who, some other days, needs to use his AK to liquidate his enemies.

I got to say it was a good day

The insistentformulation,I got to say, reinforces theconclusive effectof thechorus lineby enriching it: if he recognizes that he has got to say, it’s because of this hidden butimplicitfeeling: that even after having played again in his mind the film of the day, he can’t believe it could have been so good, which suggests the ton of misfortune that thischaracterusually has to cope with…

SYNTHESIS

If we summarize it, thesongtells aplotwithoutdrama, the ordinary day of a man who is suspected all along to be a thug:

• he gets up, takes his breakfast, leaves,
• drives, communicates with women and friends,
• meets cops,
• visits friends, plays dice and dominoes,
• has an erotic date,
• eats a burger, sees a blimp, ends up drunk,
• and goes home in the middle of the night.

The charm of thesongcomes from its surprising characteristics:

• Released in 1992, it is theoppositeof what the gangsta-rap tradition had begun to do, namely to make songs telling murders and other crimescenarios.Unlike them, IT WAS A GOOD DAY sounds happy, cool, relaxed, celebrating a kind of gangster’s Dolce vita.In contrast, Coolio’s songGANGSTA’S PARADISEwill later reveal the less fortunate side of the gangster’s lifestyle, when death anxiety invades and spoils the entire experience.
• Yet the extreme violence which is typical of gangsta-rap lyrics is always around- and this atmosphere of potential danger, which can come from anywhere, anytime, contributes to feed a constantdramatic tension, even though noAntagonisthas been met.
• It is strangely well-written, mixing the crude and trivial slanglanguageof the street with some more familiar, more mainstream, more established and moreliteraryelements – an evolution that will be confirmed over time in raplyrics, which will seek to take their share ofstylisticexcellence.
• Those lyricsbelong indeed to the old tradition of thepoetic ballad: according to Wikipedia, “Aballadis a form of verse, often anarrativeset tomusic. Ballads derive from the medievalFrenchchanson balladéeorballade, which were originally “danced songs”. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of the British Isles from the latermedievalperiod until the 19th century. They were widely used acrossEurope, and later inAustralia,North Africa,North AmericaandSouth America“. Usually made of three and a half verses, this form of theballadhas influenced modernmusical songwriting, through the traditions offolkandpop.Here, we have several typical features of a ballad: 3verses, a subjective,poetic, andsomehowmagico-religiousvision of life, since this good day is presented a bit like some supernatural miracle.
• It also participates in aparadoxicalway to a well establishedgenreinsongwriting: thelove song… thought it is by antithesis, since it replaces any lovefeelingby the mere desire and sexual pleasure, in a raw, hedonist way, totally opposed to thestyleof all the conformist “I love you so…” songs. In fact,IT WAS A GOOD DAYstands as a rap version of thelove song, which celebrates sexual freedom instead of hiding desire under honeyed feelings.

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This analysis of Ice Cube It was a good day song lyrics meaning was an abstract of Gangsta-rap songwriting. Wanna read more? About Eminem’s Stan or Coolio’s Gangster’s Paradise lyrics meaning?