Story to Tell
B. Frank Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Breaker, breaker, breaker, breaker, breaker one-nine
Breaker, breaker, breaker one-nine
Breaker, breaker, breaker one-nine

Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down

Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down

When the shit hit the fan, who gon' be your dog
Got a story I could tell, I done seen it all
Got family in my phone, I don't ever call
Got a brand new diamond bezel don't know what it's called
Story of my life trying to get this cheddar
Couple battle scars if you can't tell
Story of my life trying to get together
Ain't a thing changed still fuck the law

I hit the ground running
I hit the ground running
They feel the ground shaking
I got the town running
Give 'em a millimeter, they take a mile from it
They see you happy they wanna take your smile from ya
And I know and I know that I can't stop now
Better know, better know, that my chill ran out
And I know, and I know, that the path that I'm on
Isn't meant for the weak, only meant for the strong

Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down

When the shit hit the fan, who gon' be your dog
Got a story I could tell I done seen it all
Got family in my phone I don't ever call
Got a brand new diamond bezel don't know what it's called
Story of my life trying to get this cheddar
Couple battle scars if you can't tell
Story of my life trying to get together
Ain't a thing changed still fuck the law

I can tell, if you fake
I can tell, if that ass ain't real
I can tell, I can tell, I can tell
This year we ain't taking no L's
Blame my environment, blame where I've been
Blame my influences, blame all my friends
Too much desire, I can't be content
I'm a scorpio baby, I must get revenge
If you ain't caught on by now

Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down
Who gon' hold you down

When the shit hit the fan, who gon' be your dog
Got a story I could tell I done seen it all
Got family in my phone I don't ever call
Got a brand new diamond bezel don't know what it's called
Story of my life trying to get this cheddar
Couple battle scars if you can't tell
Story of my life trying to get together
Ain't a thing changed still fuck the law

Do too much
You ain't gotta do too much
Do too much
You ain't gotta do too much
Do too much
You ain't gotta do too much
Do too much
You ain't gotta do too much

I can tell, if you fake
I can tell, if that ass ain't real
I can tell, I can tell I can tell
This year we ain't taking no L's
I can tell, if you fake
I can tell, if that ass ain't real

I can tell, I can tell I can tell
This year we ain't taking no L's

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of B. Frank's song "Story to Tell" are about the struggles of trying to make it in life and the importance of having someone who has your back when times get tough. The repetition of "breaker, breaker, breaker one-nine" at the beginning of the song is a reference to CB radio lingo, which truckers use to communicate with each other. The line "Who gon' hold you down" is a question that emphasizes the importance of having someone who supports you during difficult times.

B. Frank talks about his experiences and how he has seen it all in the world, including friends who turn on you and family who don't show up when you need them the most. He also mentions his diamond bezel, which he doesn't even know the name of, showing the disconnect between material wealth and true happiness. B. Frank also mentions "taking no L's", meaning he will not accept any losses, indicating his determination to succeed despite the odds.

The chorus is repeated multiple times throughout the song, emphasizing the importance of having someone who can hold you down and support you when everything else fails. The line "still f*** the law" references B. Frank's rejection of societal norms and his desire to do things his way.

Overall, the lyrics of "Story to Tell" highlight the importance of having support and someone to rely on in tough times, as well as the struggles of trying to make it on your own.

Line by Line Meaning

Breaker, breaker, breaker, breaker, breaker one-nine
Calling out for attention, using CB radio slang to signify urgency.

Who gon' hold you down
Asking who will provide support and loyalty in difficult times.

When the shit hit the fan, who gon' be your dog
In times of trouble, who will remain loyal and by your side?

Got a story I could tell, I done seen it all
I have experienced many things and have a lot of tales to share.

Got family in my phone, I don't ever call
Although I have people close to me, I don't always reach out and stay connected.

Got a brand new diamond bezel don't know what it's called
I have acquired valuable possessions without necessarily understanding or appreciating their details.

Story of my life trying to get this cheddar
My life revolves around trying to make money and improve my financial situation.

Couple battle scars if you can't tell
I have endured hardships and have physical or emotional scars to show for it.

Ain't a thing changed still fuck the law
Despite any progress or achievements, I still reject authority and rules from the legal system.

They feel the ground shaking, I got the town running
I have a powerful presence and influence over the people around me.

Give 'em a millimeter, they take a mile from it
People will take advantage of any small opportunity given to them.

They see you happy they wanna take your smile from ya
Jealousy and envy are dangerous emotions that can cause harm and negativity towards happy individuals.

And I know and I know that I can't stop now
I am aware that I must continue moving forward and working towards success.

Better know, better know, that my chill ran out
I have lost my patience or tolerance for certain situations or people.

And I know, and I know, that the path that I'm on isn't meant for the weak, only meant for the strong
The road to success and achieving my goals will not be easy, only those who are resilient and strong can make it.

I can tell, if you fake
I can detect insincerity and false behavior.

I can tell, if that ass ain't real
I can discern if someone has had cosmetic surgery or has natural physical attributes.

This year we ain't taking no L's
This year we will not experience losses or defeats.

Blame my environment, blame where I've been
I attribute my upbringing and surroundings as contributing factors to my current situation and behavior.

Blame my influences, blame all my friends
The people I socialize with or am influenced by also impact my actions and choices.

Too much desire, I can't be content
I constantly have a hunger for more, and am never fully satisfied or content.

I'm a scorpio baby, I must get revenge
As a member of the Scorpio astrological sign, I have a reputation for seeking revenge and holding grudges.

Do too much, you ain't gotta do too much
One does not need to overdo things to achieve success or happiness.

Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Bobby Ray Simmons

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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Comments from YouTube:

@ryanfarnsworth6782

4y↑35

Frank was my favorite professor at UC Irvine. His positions on Afro/White relations literally changed ENTIRELY how I think. His teaching are more relevant now than ever, and my thanks to him cannot be quantified.

@omalone1169

4y↑8

Just give us your money

@adminw4p171

4y↑11

GREAT TALK! I’m looking forward to buying this book.

@omalone1169

Slaves are implements of other people's need
Not agents of their own will and volition

@iancaldeian

4y↑10

Accessing his ideas through his speech (vocabulary etc) is tough. I love the though of creating the foundation for a paradigm shift for people of African descent.

@stoplayin21

4y↑2

It’s tough, however it slow down my attention towards his words.

@omalone1169

@@stoplayin21 the politics of difficulty
Judith Butler
These are questions of access

@uranasshat

2y↑2

@@omalone1169 If you like obscurantism masquerading as profundity, then Judith Butler is for you.

@stoplayin21

4y↑8

I’m reading this book now and its definitely game changer and your life is so interesting.

@omalone1169

What page you on ? Have you read Tommy Curry?

@nykballaz

3y↑9

The explanation of the difference between the worker vs the capitalist and the slave vs the human is so thorough. While the worker has opportunity to resume his position the slave is innately trapped in that status

@alessandrarosales7174

4y↑18

The fact that the facilitator asked about redemption shows he lied about following along

@omalone1169

In terms of when Wilderson claims around 30 that the slave cannot be redeemed

@estebanb7166

3y↑1

Maybe he feels differently and wants to explore that issue, they greater length. People often express themselves poorly. I'd bet you excuse minor communication errors in those you agree with and respect.

@Mars-cs5dp

3y↑4

frank has aged so well!

@in.der.welt.sein.

27w

Good point around 47:00 about the way in which explanations and critiques are de facto dismissed if they aren't "constructive" i.e. positive recommendations about how the socio-economic system could solve the problems it creates in the first place. Everyone knows the constant refrain: "what's your alternative? What's your solution?" Essentially most people approach criticism as if they are voters being solicited to pick a new set of rulers who will tell them how to live, or a consumer picking a commodity from a shop rack. All respectable social commentary sees itself that way: as constructive advice about how rule can better itself.

@omalone1169

4y↑8

07:52 The act of violence constitutes the prehistory of all stratified societies
08:25 violence to transform peasantry to proletariat

Once they are inculcated as workers don't want violence constituting paradigm to resurface unless it is the slave

Also the concurrent history of the lived experience of the paradigm
It does not transform to hegemony when you acquiesce
It is always there

@johnstewart7025

1y↑1

If not for fall of Soviet Union, South Africa would be more like Zimbabwe, Angola or Cuba?

@omalone1169

4y↑12

35:00 anti black violence is necessary for the psyche of the World

@SpaceDaddy69

4y↑9

From an anthropological perspective the only criticism I would have with this idea is that it is too close to other ideas which have a logical base that rests on ethnocentrism, in fact, it seems to base itself off of the negative effects that have resulted from colonial as well as other variations of ethnocentrism across history. The issue with ethnocentrism being that one thinks one’s cultural view or perspective is the only correct/valid one given one’s narrative of events, such as how European colonizers saw natives of the America’s as “savages” and “beasts”. Ethnocentric ideas aren’t fully objective and create narratives that don’t often align with true objective observation/analysis. The social issues he brings up, however, are all very much valid. They are issues that themselves arise from the historical ethnocentrism of America.

@smokegoodeatgoodlivegood6505

4y↑14

that's a reach no? european notions of ethnocentrism embedded/embodied in colonisation in comparison to what you just listened to. can your anthropological perspective can be taken seriously?

@SpaceDaddy69

4y↑2

Smokegood, Eatgood, Livegood not european notions of ethnocentrism, ethnocentrism itself is a universally observed and noted concept.

@SpaceDaddy69

4y↑2

Smokegood, Eatgood, Livegood to clarify, I’m comparing some of the ideas presented to ethnocentrism, not colonial european ethnocentrism, the example itself was meant to convey the backwardness of subscribing to ethnocentrically based ideas.

@sennecawise7899

3y↑5

Yes and it seems a lot like black nationalism refashioned into a generic theory for all black people. It also provides no insight that black americans for example are prodcut of so many cultures and histories, and relies on keeping the colonial idea of the black frozen

@jeanettesdaughter

2y↑1

So what are you saying that Black resistance is not valid unless it is not Black⁉️ I know from the weight of history, all that has happened and continues to happen: no one else can alleviate our suffering; no one else has the experience. That centers the human being, that we are human and completely unwilling to be enslaved. Completely.

5 More Replies...

@rickeyt423

4y↑5

I'd love for him to talk in laymen terms lol.

@omalone1169

4y↑2

Listen to his interview on the COWS

@Aritul

I agree. I got lost a few times.

@johnstewart7025

Wilderson: The Afropessimist being is situated by violence, not by discourse, as with being in gender, class, race etc.

@user-ru1qk4qq1u

3y↑1

Pure ideology must be what makes the paper of his book so weighty.

@victoryyates

3y↑10

Cant get over the fact that he is married to a white woman

@keithhunt5328

3y↑2

Lol

@dimitrij8669

2y↑1

exactly. It’s disgusting

@estebanmunoz7486

Classic.... 😂😂😂😂

@in.der.welt.sein.

27w↑1

Miscegenation is a European-colonialist concept.

@raymondhoward7164

3y↑5

I really want to like this guy, but he's already made 2 false statements and 1 very troubling assertion in the first 8 minutes.

1. His description of how he's done his footnotes is what's known as an index. Most serious non-fiction books used to have this and some still do. It does not substitute for footnoting.

2. It was NOT necessary to repeat the act of reducing free men to slavery repeatedly in America. This gives the almost comedic impression that there were slaves being freed who, as they left the plantation to take their first free breath, were met by men with chains and whips, who, perhaps even apologetically, informed the new citizen that he was being enslaved again and would he please place his hands in the cuffs. Manumitted slaves were converted to serfs - both in the U.S. and in the British Caribbean.

3. The first slaves in the New World were natives. Even after Africans had become the large majority of slaves in the U.S., there were still substantial numbers of natives enslaved. Beyond that horror was that of attempted genocide, being driven off their land, death marches, starvation, etc. Anyone who says this sort of pogrom isn't comparable to Black slavery and its aftermath, that Black slavery is uniquely bad or peculiar is creating intellectual castles in the air. Each Colored race's experience of White supremacy is different, of course, but each has suffered, banning, forced relocation, extended imprisonment without charge, lynching, and legal decisions reducing their status officially to less than that of Whites.

@armonnewsom1187

3y↑17

On your second point, you can compare forced sharecropping as serfdom however the immediate use of of the 13th amendments loophole in conjunction with vagrancy laws, hyperciminalization, overpolicing, black codes, etc. Did indeed effectively re-enslave many black people. On the 3rd point yes indigenous people were enslaved but we must also examine the social and political views of the time. For example the noble and ignoble savage. Even as both groups were being violently oppressed distinctions were made between them placing one below the other. Indigenous communities being posed as the noble savage that is knowledgable of the land and agriculture vs the black ignoble savage that is dumb, brutish, wild, dangerous, violent etc. And not to mention the fact that some indigenous tribes also held black slaves that they treat as second class right now. In fact they were just denying vaccines to black tribesmen on their reservations. Hes not saying other groups dont face violence. However racism is a hierarchy. Different groups are perceived very differently. There are creations of model minorities and things like that. Looking at "Beyond The Binary" (BTB) Critical race theory you see coalitions being formed between nonblack groups even though the claim for the creation of BTB was that they need their own specific spaces because black theory was taking up to much. Theres also a lot of anti black language within BTB Theory that paints black americans as entitled and nativistic people who simply dont work as hard as immigrants which is why many immigrants have more wealth and access. Increasing data is showing that racial hierarchy isn't white vs. Poc but instead a more important distinction or color line is between nonblack vs black. An example of this is in housing where Non Black People of Color integrate into white neighborhoods as they ascend in class, however, even as black people ascend in class they still retain high levels of segregation. There is a long history of immigrants working towards and in some cases into whiteness through their weaponization against blackness which Wilderson even touches on here. The need to feel superior over black people still persists even in groups who are simultaneously oppressed. Groups can be oppressed but still wield power of black people. A personal anecdote of this is a friend who is an indigenous mexican oxacan migrant laborer told me his mother told him not to talk to black people. In when in a position in society where she doesn't even have citizenship and can be exploited and paid almost nothing, she maintained her feeling of superiority over black americans. And this isnt to bash non black people of color, this is to say that antiblackness is one hell of a drug. Anti blackness is prevalent everywhere.

@armonnewsom1187

3y↑15

Also his explanation on how antiblack violence functions differently than violence against other groups. For example Clare Jean Kim who's an asian critical race theorist said herself that Anti Asian violence differs from Anti black violence because it flares up depending on social and economic events. She cites as examples the spike in violence due to covid, Japan and U.S
Trade tension, tension caused during WW2, and economic depressions. She then says that Antiblack violence is constant. There need not be a reason it's just ingrained in society as Wilderson said as well. For example we saw a spike in Anti Asian hate crimes recently but there are thousands of hate crimes against black people every year not to mention police brutality and incarceration. All communities face violence but antiblack violence does have a uniqueness to it.

@raymondhoward7164

@@armonnewsom1187 I was specifically responding to the idea that only Black people had suffered the terrors of slavery.

As far as the rest, I stand by my slavery to serfdom remarks. As terrible as the Jim Crow era was, it wasn't as bad as slavery. Almost all of the forced labor was directed at Black men. Right there that should tell you this situation was partly a Black population control measure. In contrast, slave owners encouraged their slaves to have lots of children because it increased their capital. Slave children were tradable property. I've read the average was 10 children per slave woman in the South. As soon as Black people weren't an asset, they became a liability.

I simply don't agree that anti-E. Asian violence is dependent on economic conditions. What's happening in my city right now (N.Y.C.) is the atrocious spectacle of Black people attacking E. Asians. That's due to the bullshit surrounding Covid 19, not economics. Whether it's assaulting Hispanic migrants, homosexuals, or - wait for it - African immigrants, Black New Yorkers are distinguishing themselves in the race for honorary White supremacists.

@armonnewsom1187

3y↑14

@@raymondhoward7164 In regards to your comment on east asian violence. Anti East Asian violence is be spurred on by Bs surrounding Covid which as I said is both a Social AND Economic event. You conveniently ignored where I said both SOCIAL and ECONOMIC events and are also ignoring the fact that black people are most affected economically and are dying the most. People cite the 1900% increase in hate crimes but also dont acknowledge that that percentage is so high because precovid there was only 1 that year. There is also a conflation of issues in the media as people will see black people committing a robbery or burglary or see a black person in a subway commit a crime against an asian person and immediately label it a hate crime. But as Clare Jean Kim who is an Asian critical race theorist has gone on record that is not an accurate depiction of a hate crime. Robberies and burglaries are up In general across the country due to the crumbling economy and experts also cite that there are far more mentally ill homeless people roaming around again due to crumbling economy. SOME of the these labeled hate crimes when you actually read into them are actually more class based and that also brings me to the fact that you must acknowledge class differences between blacks and asians. HOWEVER, do not mince my words again and reply saying I'm calling this all a farce. There DEFINITELY has been an increase I'm Anti Asian violence but these conversations lack nuance. Furthermore, as for your comments on jim Crow. Once again the use of vagrancy laws and etc. to lock black men up and force them to work for free is flat out reenslavement. It does not matter whether they have the intention of producing more bodies or not. That is enslavement. However I agree that sharecropping is akin to serfdom. Lastly, NOBODY EVER SAID OTHER GROUPS OF PEOPLE HAVE NOT SUFFERED. But even with indigenous people being enslaved they were made to feel superior to black people and this constant need of others to feel superior to black people WAS THE POINT WE WERE DISCUSSING. The enslavement of blacks I'm the transatlantic slavery trade was a unique occurrence in history and if you need explaining on why then you really dont need to be having this conversation with me. I had to do a lot of repeating that I will not do again.

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