YouLyric
Sign in
Sign up for free
Beowulf
Share
Baba Brinkman
What's this song about?
Generate meaning
1
Yo, listen up, I wanna say some things
2
About the days of ancient Danish kings
3
One of the first was a foundling
4
Who flourished called Shield Shaefing
5
Whose great grandson Hrothgar
6
Was in charge of the Danes when this tale is told
7
The tale of a mead hall harrowed
8
By a terror, and a hero called Beowulf
9
A massive mead hall "“ Heorot
10
Hrothgar had it built
11
And after he filled it with dancing and drinking
12
And laughter and singing, happy people
13
Yeah, but that was brief though
14
There was a monster prowling on the moors
15
Grendel, and for him the sound
16
Of carousing was just an obnoxious roar
17
Now Grendel's been called a fiend
18
Cursed by God, a powerful demon
19
Yeah, lots of awful things,
20
And it's true that the works that he wrought were fiendish
21
But these were superstitious folk,
22
And yes, I mean both the Christian poet
23
And the old pagan text he re-wrote
24
Grendel's flesh was physical
25
Now I've heard some outlandish conjectures
26
From critics about how Grendel's cannibalism
27
Was essentially different from the psychopathic
28
Pleasures of a man like Hannibal Lecter
29
One theory goes that he was the last
30
Of a band of Neanderthal wretches
31
Another says that he was an apparition
32
The province of psychoanalysis
33
Yeah, rabid secularists like me
34
Wanna cut to the heart of a story
35
Maybe he had some deformity
36
In his eardrums, now that would be parsimony
37
It doesn't matter "“ you know as well
38
As I do that there's no hell
39
No gods, no demons, no elves
40
Delivering gifts on Noel
41
And I say "Oh well"
42
So what if Grendel's nature isn't clear-cut?
43
All that matters here is the level
44
Of fear that he brought to Heorot
45
They say at night he snuck in
46
Greedy and grim, and murdered thirty men
47
But even if it was just three men
48
Would he be any less of a demon?
49
Grendel left the Spear-Danes screamin'
50
And they couldn't even deal him a cut
51
He just killed when he wanted and spilled so much blood
52
That it left a bit of a chill on their fun
53
So they prayed to their pagan gods for relief
54
If only they had Jesus!
55
If only they knew what we know now
56
How Jesus comes to your aid when he's needed!
57
Forgive me for being facetious
58
It's just that divine intervention
59
Was just as non-existent then
60
As now as a help in a time of oppression
61
What happened instead was
62
That word spread to the seven seas
63
To the friends and enemies of the Danes
64
That Hrothgar's hall stood empty
65
And it spread to the Geats, to Sweden
66
To the land of Beowulf
67
And him and his men donned their chain-mail coats
68
And sailed for the Danish coast
69
And it wasn't long before they stood
70
Sea-swept, and rain-soaked
71
In Hrothgar's great mead hall
72
And there Beowulf made his famous boast
73
He said: "Anyone who's ever seen me fight
74
Knows that I've never been the type to back down
75
I've suffered extremes defending the Geats
76
And I've never had a match "˜til now
77
But I've heard there's a fiend in your land
78
A demon who has no fear of reprisal
79
Who creeps in the night and eats you alive
80
And threatens your mere survival
81
So here's my boast: I've heard it said
82
That Grendel fights with no weapons
83
So I'll go toe to toe with no sword in my hand
84
And no shield by my side for protection
85
Yeah, hand-to-hand combat!
86
Just me and the fiend in a fight to the death
87
And if Grendel wins
88
Well then best believe he'll be feeding tonight on my flesh!"
89
Well, Hrothgrar was quite impressed
90
With the strong words of this conqueror
91
And he ordered a feast to be served to the Geats
92
And the mead hall was soon full of drunkards
93
But their comforts were soon disturbed
94
By a servant of the king called Unferth
95
A weaselly little flea who was eager to see
96
Beowulf's pride get punctured
97
"What vanity!" he cried to the crowd
98
"This man lives in a fantasy
99
If he thinks he can defeat
100
Such a powerful enemy single-handedly
101
His accomplishments are nothing
102
But narcissistic non-existent nonsense
103
How can you defeat a monster when you even lost to
104
Your friend Breca in a swimming contest?"
105
But Beowulf wasn't nonplussed
106
By this obnoxious onslaught, naw
107
He said: "You's a flea, and I'm the big dawg
108
I scratch you off my balls with my muthafuckin' paws
109
Besides, bitch, your information is wrong,
110
I beat Breca and cut off the python
111
Tentacles of every muthafuckin' leviathan
112
That tried it on up in that quiet storm
113
And anyway
114
If you had any skill
115
Then Grendel couldn't kill all your men
116
And still go back to his den at the end and chill!"
117
After that, Unferth, basically
118
Well, he just shut the fuck up
119
Maybe because of Beowulf's
120
Gratuitous use of the word "muthafucka"
121
Yeah, it's offensive language
122
But come on, this is Anglo-Saxon
123
You can't expect manners
124
From men of action, nah, that's a plain distraction
125
After his word-clash with Unferth
126
Beowulf went back to the feast
127
And kept on boasting out loud
128
About how he was gonna tackle the beast
129
And then Hrothgar went to bed
130
And left the guard to Beowulf and the rest of the Geats
131
And the fires burned low
132
And the mead hall was soon fast asleep
133
And that's when the shadow stalker
134
Grendel, came greedily loping
135
Down from the mountain and out of the mist
136
"˜Cause he could smell fresh human meat for the gulping
137
And the mead-hall was dozing
138
Every single person in the place was unconscious
139
Except for Beowulf
140
Who lay awake in the darkness waiting for the monster
141
The hall was erected as a fortress
142
But Grendel just smashed the doors in
143
With his massive hands and grabbed the first warrior
144
In sight and viciously slashed and gored him
145
Mmm, the taste of his flesh was gorgeous
146
And Grendel was ready for more, just
147
Itching to turn the rest of these poor
148
Wretches into a pile of dismembered corpses
149
So he moved like a phantom
150
Over to the next man's form on the floor
151
But that's when he felt a strong hand
152
Clamp on to his wrist and twist back his arm
153
Then Grendel felt a kind of pain
154
That he never in his life had to contemplate
155
Squeezed! Like by an anaconda snake
156
And only one thought in his mind: don't fight, run away!
157
But he was boa constricted
158
Beowulf had him in a death-grip
159
I mean, you know how much pain is inflicted
160
Right? When your arm gets twisted?
161
Well the intended victim was the predator now
162
And the hall filled with the most pitiful sound
163
This long, drawn-out, desperate howl
164
Like: "Aaaaooooooowww!"
165
And Geat warriors surrounded Grendel
166
With their swords drawn and tried to stab him
167
But none of them could get a blow past him
168
So they swore that his skin was enchanted
169
But some form of spell-casting
170
So that no physical weapon could scratch him
171
But what do you think the chances are
172
That they just chickened out and called it magic?
173
I mean, it does sound like one of those embellishments
174
Invented by storytellers just
175
To make Beowulf's belligerence
176
And bellicose rhetoric sound like prescience
177
Yeah, so his men were ineffective
178
But Grendel's howls were blended
179
Now with the sickening sound of ligaments
180
Twisting out of position and ripping tendons
181
Ow! Then his limb disconnected
182
And Grendel ran back out into the mist
183
And Beowulf raised the severed arm aloft
184
Still held in his fist
185
And the Geat warriors gathered "˜round
186
Eager to see the demon flesh
187
And they all agreed that, yes
188
Grendel was soon gonna bleed to death
189
Then they mounted the arm as a trophy
190
On the wall to inspire their fire-side boasting
191
And the troubadours immortalized
192
Beowulf's heroic deeds in their poetry
193
And I wish I could end this scene
194
With the Danes and Geats on easy street
195
But heroes fight demons in threes
196
So, enter Angelina Jolie
197
As Grendel's mother, a feminine killer
198
With collagen lips and swollen breasts-s-s
199
And when Beowulf confronted her
200
All he really wanted was sex
201
God damn it Robert Zemeckis
202
Your Hollywood epic with all of it
203
Marketing methods is confounding
204
My honest efforts to keep this poem authentic!
205
It's pathetic! All I see when I picture
206
Grendel's mother, instead of a hideous monster
207
Is Crispin Glover caressing his digitally-rendered
208
Mom like an incestuous lover
209
And I'll never recover, so forget it!
210
If you want to know her actual facial features
211
Ask your twelfth-grade teachers, or college professors
212
They're the last gate-keepers on tradition
213
Or read Seamus Heaney's version
214
His verse is amazing!
215
But any pop-culture interpretation
216
Is subject to virtually unlimited changes
217
"˜Cause if you try to please the tourists
218
Then the purists get Tourette's and curse you
219
And if you try to do the reverse
220
Well, the tourists are known for their lack of endurance
221
So who do I try to please first?
222
Myself, and it usually works
223
So instead of judging like jurists
224
Just sit back and enjoy the experience
225
And I'll go back to the story
226
Actually, forget it, I'd rather just leave it
227
If you really wanna know how it ends
228
Well then I guess you'd better just read it
Beowulf
2.3K views
1 meanings
Go Pro
Unlimited meanings · Priority generation
Upgrade
