California Rodeo
By: Beck Hansen, Kool Keith

Written by: Beck Hansen, Kool Keith

Versions:
  1. California Rodeo
    Credits
    DJ Swamp: Scratching
    Beck Hansen: Vocals
    Kool Keith: Vocals
 
Lyrics:
California Rodeo [Version (a)]:

Kool Keith: Everybody fasten your seat belts. In 30 minutes, we'll be serving orange juice and peanuts. Make yourself comfortable, we'll be going through a little turbulence.

Beck: City of cash
Latex ass
Miracle Mile
High profile
Holiday Inn (In my room)
Where you been? (On my mind)
Try to be slick (Bring me food)
Just a hick

Automatic computers read
You focus on texture
Plain justification overlaps perhaps
The over-average vocalist that's popular
Visual monopoly
No galactic machine on earth smarter than me
Built by Rolex, Virginese Technology
Running through my stomach
Aluminum die-cast metal kneecaps
With see-thru plexiglass thighs
You can't believe your eyes
Arms from General Motors
With fingers from Ford that you can't afford
On the cellular phone man talkin to Oscar Goldman
With Rolls Royce on the conference line
To give my shoulders, aerodynamic wings
Rockets under my ribcage to give my bodyframe a new design
2000 Turbo Man with insurance and turbo plan
With United Parcel sending me special future food
From Afghanistan


California Rodeo
Push and pull and make it gold
Body thoughts of flesh and lights
Make the music go all night
Alligator shoes (Turn it up)
Hill Street Blues (On my mind)
Touch you like this (Freak me up)
Make you AAH! (Oh my my!)
Out of state plates
Norman Bates
Thug gets wrecked
We eject

Extra ceramic polyphonic material round my feet
Unique sweet beats alternate around my ear area
Bought by air carrier magnolia
Gastric juice getting me charged under the disco lights
Legs and shoes built by Hummer Trucking Company
Created only one of me
Not the spaceship in front of me
Revolving armpits and torsos purchased from the government also
3 million dollar spinal cord broken down by Mustang and Ford
Easily assembled and put together the first robot in America
And music worn in leather
Titanium steel box neck sponsored by Gillette
Palmolive gold bought me on solid gold
With a wide connection, a mechanical computer
With a futuristic mouth walking next to Beck
With a psychedelic equalizer hooked up to my neck
Like a JVC tape deck
Lights on my eyebrows
Speakers on my back make you react
Watch my feet glow


California Rodeo
Push and pull and make it gold
Body thoughts of flesh and lights
Make the music go all night

Chemical texture
Chemical texture
Chemical texture


Kool Keith please report to the ladies room...

Captain affirmative, General Corporal Macintosh
7-stripe Sharpie with a major detonator
Walking up the street with plaid pants and alligators
With a sandwich from Granada in the bar
Watchin' the Oakland Raiders with a straw hat from the Barbados
Pickin' tomatoes, bakin' potatoes with a mask on like Kato
Looking at a girl with a ring in her navel
In a wheelchair disabled with Swamp on the turntables


California Rodeo (California Rodeo)
Push and pull and make it gold (Push and pull and make it gold)
Body thoughts of flesh and lights (Body thoughts of flesh and lights)
Make the music go all night (Make the music go all night)

California Rodeo (California Rodeo)
Push and pull and make it gold (Push and pull and make it gold)
Body thoughts of flesh and lights (Body thoughts of flesh and lights)
Make the music go all night (Make the music go all night)

Everybody please prepare for landing, as we get off the exit, straight 44 levels deep, 7 decibels. Red Ranger, come in. Coming through. Warp 3. Magnolia 2000
 
The Song:

Sometime during the Midnite Vultures recording sessions in 1998-1999, Beck hooked up with rapper Kool Keith and recorded a couple of tracks. As he recalled in NME, "When we hooked up, we immediately wrote three songs together. We were completely on the same wavelength. Whatever our music planets, we're definitely on the same orbit."

"California Rodeo" is the name of one of these recordings. In July 2003, the lyrics showed up on Beck.com, and the song began to circulate among Beck fans in 2006. The song is indicative of when it was recorded, and has the full-on Vultures sound. Kool Keith gives shouts out to Beck and DJ Swamp (who was also on the track) in his long freestyles. Beck does the chorus part.

 
Notes: