REN is simply mind blowing… the more I listen to his songs,the more depth I find in every song, word choice, music… his intelligence, emotion and story shines through in his entire compositions. The sick boi is true sick!
My heart hurts knowing the extreme pain that Ren went through. He is in a better place in health and will continue. His art is definitely like no other. Also I like how the album progressed. It started with his real struggle but as the album goes, it lightens.
The deep rest / depressed word play is genius. ❤ I'm not quite halfway through the reaction, but had to pause to say that. It really resonated, because I've felt like my bed was a tomb where I could never get deep rest, but I couldn't climb out of it because I was so exhausted...it hurts just remembering. And I wasn't plagued with Lyme. My mind really was making me sick. Glad Ren was able to climb out of that bed, and so was I.
Great reaction, this one is mind blowing, isn't it Cliff? IMHO the best song on the whole album - and I thought Lost All Faith will be unbeatable... always expect the unexpected with Ren.
This is one of my favourites musically but I say that after almost every track plays. He didn't "fill" the album with throw aways. They're all gold. In an interview he said he wrote a lot of songs that he hasn't performed. (he said probably a thousand). I can't even imagine the gems that have been buried and may never be heard.
The part you were having trouble hearing was Uruk Hai, referring to the Orcs from Lord of the Rings that wanted to purge Middle Earth. Love your reactions. Keep fighting and supporting others, brother.
Asking which songs you have to check out? It’s Ren. So all of them 😂 And Renegades have different favourites. This one is definitely brilliant though. Ren is such a clever man. Most of the songs on the album were written over the years before going to Canada and with the single releases leading up to the album release it became increasingly noticeable how he makes these internal references between songs across the album. By Lost All Faith it really felt like a RENiverse tapestry and I couldn’t wait to see how the entire album would work together as a whole. And then it starts out with this track that he wrote after blowing up while in Canada and it is just the perfect introduction to the album. So many little hints of what’s to come in the rest of the songs on the album while it’s still a completely separate and different song. The way this man’s brain pieces it all together is just incredible.
Love your reactions, Cliff!!! So happy they've not completely gotten to you, stay strong! 💚 You can't go wrong with ANY choice of tracks on this album. Wicked Ways is really great, but all are 🔥. Big love, man 💚
Some of Ren's genius is squeezing so much content into his lyrics, that one listen is never enough to know what's going on. Even after a hundred listens I still find new interpretations and meanings. Absolute genius. Loved your reaction - i could see your mind being blown by how epic this track is!!
He made his own layered vocals in the opening Welsh passage sound like a traditional Welsh male choir. Goosebumps! Plus, sonofabitch made the Welsh rhyme! Genius!
Liked, shared, subscribed. :) The first part where he was lying on the kitchen floor, "...clawing at the laminate..." is a description of what actually happened at the start of his psychotic break. He talks about it in his interview with Zach Sang and it is hard to listen to. It's so good that he's found a way to use that and to try to, in his words, justify all the suffering he's gone through. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AAIGsXEZ0WI.html
What an amazing unique human being we have amongst us! I saw earlier he has started really intense treatment beginning today and will have a low profile for a while, so like many sending him love and healing! Lovely reaction Cliff.
You are completely right. Noone sounds like Ren. He is the most profound and interesting musician I ’ve heard in decades As for what songs to react to, you can’t go wrong. Some are sad, some are angry, some are cheeky and funny. One thing connect them all. They are all beyond great.
Aside from Hi Ren, Sick Boy 1 & 2, this song is literally a map of Ren's experience with his illness! It is powerful, honest, masterfully crafted and produced and the music/singing/rapping accompanying is top notch! Love it and love your reaction ❤
I don't remember who noticed it, but in one of his songs I know he mentioned a bible passage which if you looked up said that the person in the bible had hot coals pressed to their face... so in their opinion, they felt his pain level was close to if not even with being pressed by hot coals. And you're not wrong, there's no one sounding like Ren. He's breaking the mold. I hate that you're fighting the Tubes of You, I look forward to your reactions! Keep fighting the good fight. We (reactor addiction humans) need & respect you!
I am so glad that some people have an outlet for such excruciating true pain. It helps me loads most of the time. Sometimes I just wallow in it, though.
This is my favorite Ren song now, and I got the album because I loved so many songs. I resonate with him and his struggles with death, health and pain. I'm so glad his struggles have made him such a beautiful person. It can so easily go the other way. Genesis is great, another favorite tho is Lost all faith❤
I can imagine some what, he went through pain wise I have fibromyalgia and its a chronic pain illness and when you do get so tires and week and in that much pain you really do feel like your dying slowly. I would suggest doing songs in order on album
Thanks for your reaction. I love this song and even more because he did this when he was so terribly sick. My favorite followed by Uninvited and lastly, all of them.
Not sure if you caught the reference but he also called out tears of heaven from eric clapton. That could be a double or even a triple reference. Him crying the tears to heaven, the reference to the song itself and on top of that eric clapton wrote that song cause his son died by his hands like joe. 😢
Hi Cliff, you definitely need to listen to ‘Castles made of Sand’, although it’s only available on the deluxe digital download of the album. That and ‘Seven Sins’ are hands down my favourite tracks on the album. Enjoy!!
YOO.... This actually fucking breaks my heart, it just hit me. 1 SIN FOR EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK... 'GOD' MADE EARTH IN 7 DAYS... THIS MOFO WENT THROUGH ABSOLUTE HELL SO MUCH SO THAT HE BECAME THE CREATOR OF HELL.
The tYoube is sending me here again (been a minute. I've had to look you up for a couple weeks). Great reaction. I was in awe when I finished listening to Seven Sins the first time. An embarrassing number of listens later, and it wows me even more, because I grasp the nuances that we often miss on the first few listens. The entire verse about prophets getting dropped for imagining heaven is such an intricate body of art in and of itself that it just blows me away. The man is a true poet, but more than that, this song sets up the theme that runs through the whole album and even hearkens back to the themes in Hi Ren. This right here: Let it be, let it be; quote John Lennon. Click-clack, John got shot for attention. What does that tell you bout the good of intentions? Bitterness formed by a storm of aggression, Prophets get dropped Imagining Heaven: Martin Luther Mahatma--deadened. Six, six, followed by six and seven: Build em, praise em, bury em, dead em. I was born to be half a man with half a chance. My heart is in half: half righteous, half is damned... Brilliant. John Lennon Imagined Heaven (so did Jesus, in a more literal interpretation) Martin Luther had a dream of a better world, Mahatma Ghandi was an extreme pacifist (even if a bit of a cad)...all killed after being built up and praised. BUT The order of: Build em, praise em, bury em, dead em...is purposeful. Buried before they were dead, hearkens to "Sick Boi... tell me how it feels to be buried while you breathe," and this ties into his monolog on Hi Ren, "I shouted out into an empty room that I would defeat the forces of evil, and for the next 10 years, I suffered the consequences (as I see it right now, evil is the system of hierarchy where all Seven Sins cause us all to destroy each other and the earth by being slaves to a system that values profit over people)...but as soon as he decided to go up against evil, he was stricken by his illness ("hard to make a stand when you're crawling on your knees") which ties into the beginning of the track where he says, "there I lay, feeble and thin, Sick Boi, Sick Boi, seven, my sins," which alludes to the fact that his sickness is related to the "Seven whole sins for a self-made Armageddon," bringing us to "Jesus died at 33 and still, my sins are lurking." That's reinforced by, "I was born to be half a man with half a chance; my heart is in half: half, righteous, half is damned." (throw right back to the theme of duality in Hi Ren, in which "the more intensely the light shone, the darker the shadow it casts"...) This entire verse encapsulates his internal struggle, feeling that his illness is a consequnce of his determination to fight against an evil system that forces us to take part in the Seven Deadly Sins: "one sin for every one day of the week." Becuase often, "we (as a society) exhile the shepherds and follow the sheep" and "prophets get dropped imagining heaven. Heaven would be the utopia he speaks of in MG3 that we could build if only individuals were taught to use their brains instead of teaching them to "be sheep who put themselves before the herd if there's more money for me." These are the sheep we follow after we exile the shepherds who imagine heaven, or utopia or a better way, like Jesus, Lennon, Martin Luther, Mahatma Ghandi...Ren.
The lyrics here are just incredible. Ex: red-winged seraphim were God's fiery angels. In the book of Isaiah they brought live coals & touched them to Isaiah's lips to purify his sins by fire. Has Ren been purified by fire? Next, listen to a Ren who's healthy enough to be very cheeky! Uninvited.
Great reaction as always. This & uninvited my new favs, if there is such a thing with Ren. I think in his Knox interview post album he said this was in his top 5 ❤❤❤❤
It such an amazing song even if it is a hard listen. Definitely one of the best on the album. You definitely need to check out Uninvited, Loco and Sick Boi Pt 2
Was listening to BBC R3, a classical music station this afternoon. It occurred to me the vast range of genres that Ren draws on. What other rapper has a cello as a main instrument on a track. Love your reactions - you get art.
Great reaction, as always Cliff. This song is a masterpiece and Ren is for sure a one of a kind, no one sounds like him and he keeps elevating the bar like you said. I believe this was the song he wrote last on the album because he said in one of his streams it was meant to just be an intro but then grew into this entire song. Love it! Rens creativity knows no bounds it seems, only his treatment and sickness does sometimes get in his way. I feel truly blessed to be alive at the same time as this man and being able to experiance the art he creates ❤ Stay strong Cliff, you are a fighter and we are all on your side, so please do not feel like you are alone in this. Tell us where and we will follow you there. Your fans are here for you the same way you are always here for us ❤
You should know we want you to check out at the songs you haven't heard yet. 😂 It's Ren. We know your going to love it. Great reaction for a great song
hello, dear. stand tough with the tech overlords-those butt heads!! i have been stretching out this album, to make it last longer. so when i saw you had this reaction, i was all in. you are a lovely man!!! i'm here for your reactions. kathleen
This is my favourite song of his i suffer with intense pain for years i cried at this because of his pain was awful bless him sending hugs to you cliff 🤗 xx
so just totally realized something, maybe, possibly.....when Harry Mac did that shout out Ren.... did he hear this song first..... because on that drawing...... was the list.... of the Seven Sins.....
This was the last, most recent (2023)song Ren wrote for Sick Boi. And seeing him on social media you’d think he’d be on the other side of it, but he is not. The first verse describes the day his mother came home to find him crawling on the kitchen floor. But he’s still going through it, the pendulum swings, he’s still doing that eternal dance … “ Thirteen years and I've been feelin' so stuck Lucky number thirteen, just my luck … Thirty-three and hurting… and still (my sins are lurking ) Gears are turning, future stays uncertain… I just hope that as people listen to these tracks they keep in mind that HE IS STILL IN CANADA GETTING TREATMENT THAT BEGAN AS A 4 MONTH PROTOCOL. HE IS COMING UP ON A YEAR! Unlike most albums that are highly anticipated I didn’t, I couldn’t, just tear through each song one after another. Like Hi Ren and Sick Boi this doesn’t just speak to me, It speaks FOR me. I live with chronic pain and doctors are pretty useless. Ren is so good at being able to find the perfect words to describe whatever he’s conveying. So many lines stand out but the one that hits the bullseye is “ Pain condescending…” I LOVE this song and I love Ren .
He’s brilliant… every word, note, choice has meaning.. so complex. The more I listen to him the deeper I realize things go.. for example: 6, 6 followed by 6 & 7 (666 sign of the devil and 7 [in Bible over 700 times!] symbolizing completion of the crucifixon… not to mention god creating the world in 6 days and resting in the 7th.. more symbolism??? With Ren, anything is possible!)
Hi Cliff, always keepn it real, promoting, encouraging and understanding. Ren is Ren, his songs/music is inspiring. I like how hes able to pocket those crucial moments to capture the audience.2024 will be interesting...Peace☝️👍🤓
You gotta do 'Wicked Ways' next,my fav out of the unreleased songs from the album.Saw an interview where Ren said it was a toss up between this and 'Castles in the Sand' which made the album.I think he chose right but i would imagine as many ppl would choose Castle's.both bangers tbf and different(of course:)
This is my fav track on the album. Him telling his struggles in such a vulnerable and raw way, all the switches and bars and the religious subcontext is AMAZING
Morning Cliff! I just got an email saying my CDs were shipped!! I couldn't be more excited!! My favorite song is Castles made of sand, but unfortunately, it didn't make it to the album! But u should definitely react to that 1 too!
Cliff! You gotta check out this fan made visualizer I just watched. I don't know how to share it. I'm not the best with stuff like that but it should be easy to find. The gentleman's name was Mark Lalonde and it should be easy to find on his channel under fan-made seven sins visualizer. It would be cool to see you react to it, but you should definitely check it out. Either way. I was pretty skeptical but it's quite impressive and really adds something to the lyrics
This song has been in heavy HEAVY rotation since I hit play on the album on the 13th. Easily my fav song on the entire album and firmly planted as my 2nd fav ren song period, behind only Hi Ren. I can't believe it's the lead track.
Make sure to do the music videos for What You Want, Animal Flow, and Genesis! Also, Animal Flow and Genesis have acoustic versions and it would be super cool if you did them with the music videos. Wicked Ways, Loco, Uninvited, and Sick Boi 2 are the new ones that came out with the album.
