Next in our series of songs you need is “Type” by Living Colour. I was really surprised to find out that this is the band’s highest-charting single, because I grew up hearing “Cult of Personality” on the radio all the time and I hadn’t heard this song until about a month ago.
But I quickly learned why this one is so popular. It starts with a ferocious guitar and a list of “types,” as you’ll see below, then goes into a melodic, unforgettable chorus. But the best part is yet to come: the sweet melding at the end that’s like saving the cherry for last after you eat the ice cream sundae.
Living Colour is another one of those bands that should have gotten more credit — their lyrics and music were powerfully charged, but this song, especially, counterbalances the rage with a smoothness and a reminder that “everything that goes around, comes around….”
And I’m happy to report that the band is set to release an album late this year or early next.
Stereotype
Monotype
Blood type
Are you my type?
Minimalism
Abstract expressionism
Postmodernism
Is it?
We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where the truth is concealed
This is the time when the lie is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real
Corporate religion
Televangahypnotism
Suffer till you die
For the sweet-bye-and-bye
Science and technology, the new mythology
Look deep inside
Empty
We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where the truth is concealed
This is the time when the lie is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real
Everything that goes around
Comes around
Hypothetical
Theoretical
Circumstantial evidence
Irrelevance
Don’t think twice
Just roll the dice
Pay the price
Snake eyes
We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where the truth is concealed
This is the time when the lie is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real
We are the children of concrete and steel
This is the place where your fate has been sealed
This is the time when your life is revealed
Everything is possible, but nothing is real
Everything that goes around
Comes around…
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See also: Living Colour’s “Open Letter to a Landlord”
Type Writing 