TRACK #200

Born on Halloween by V. Ice (feat. Violent J)

V. Ice, as the horror-core iteration of Robert Van Winkle (aka Vanilla Ice) refers to himself, was actually born on Halloween. October 31st 1967,  to be precise. That’s pretty awesome as far as The Shindig is concerned. What’s more? He cut a referential Halloween track about it.

Double bonus.

Depending on your perspective that is.

From The Shindig’s perspective, it’s an all around winner. First and foremost, its a Referential Halloween Monster Rap. That’s pretty special. Referential Halloween tracks are a rarity, and the few others that appear on this playlist are weakly included in either direction. Not V. Ice’s jam though. Born On Halloween a card-carrying referential Halloween Monster Rap.

This is not a good song though. I love it. At times it fills me with Halloween joy. At other times it makes me laugh. I rock out to it in my car. Genuinely. I don’t change it at red lights when cute girls or tough guys pull up next to me.

It’s on The Shindig, hands down, no question, but it can’t really be called good. I love a lot of things genuinely that are not objectively good. Go scrolling randomly through this playlist; the evidence to that fact is compelling. Many things about this song are not good.

Starting with it’s absolutely ridiculous chorus. Random weirdo’s chant “Born On Halloween” in a manner that sounds suspiciously like This Is Halloween from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Fitting then, 100 songs after posting that track, we’ve finally decided to post this one.

Add to that some of the weakest referential rhymes to hit The Shindig since The Maniac Cop Rap, and it’s hard to make a strong case for the quality of this song.

“Some call him Psycho
the Norman Bates of Hip-Hop.
The ladies call him Alfred
Cause they’re all over his Hitchcock”

Wow.

No one calls V. Ice that, full stop. I doubt anyone calls him V. Ice for that matter, but hey.

I’ll also set my watch and warrant that no woman anywhere has ever referred to Vanilla Ice as “Alfred” for the sole purpose of alluding to his cock.

There’s no fucking way that’s mathematically possible. The amount of cognition involved in devising such a reference, divided by the relevance and knowledge of Alfred Hitchcock to any ladies within shouting distance of Robert Van Winkle on any given night, produces a probability that could only be visible through a high powered telescope, so fucking insane is it.

The kicker is that this incredibly juvenile rhyme…doesn’t even rhyme!

All of the above would be completely forgivable (as with most ridiculous rap boastings) if the lyric was actually clever. This one is not. And I fucking love it for that.

Violent J (not in fact born on Halloween, as he [perhaps] suggests) shows up to add some much needed street cred to the whole affair. I’m sorry, what?

When a rapping Clown from the Posse Insane is noticeably stepping up your track’s game, something is fucking broke. J quite honestly puts V. Ice to shame on this song with better rhymes, better rhythm and a tone becoming of the subject matter. It’s a breath of fresh air when J steps up to the mic. And that’s not a joke, either. That’s my sincere assessment.

The weirdos will intermittently spout off  “With my mask I trick or treat, spooks and freaks all over your street” and “born on Halloween” to everyone’s delight, giving the song it’s air of Halloween spirit.

My research suggests that most listeners will find that all of this nonsense adds up to about 4 minutes of Halloween torture they’d rather have no part of. Can’t blame them for that. The more masochistic audiophiles however or any undercover Juggalos in your crowd might actually enjoy this business. Can’t blame them either, except maybe the undercover Juggalos, for well,…being fucking Juggalos.

I’ve been hard here on V.Ice here, as has the world as a whole for the last 25 years or so. Most of that is completely reasonable considering the seemingly disingenuous output of Robert’s career.

But seriously V.Ice, if you’ve somehow miraculously stumbled across this blog and are reading this, The Shindig loves this song, both genuinely and ironically, all at the same time. It loves that it exists and hoists it proudly among the ranks of Halloween rockdom. We wouldn’t change a thing about it. Your references, as weakly constructed as they are, jam-pack the front end of this track and the Halloween quotient is undeniable, right down to the cribbing of Danny Elfman and the good people of Halloweentown.

Please accept my apologies if I have made you feel, through any of the above criticism, that I am anything less than a fan of this track. There’s a lot of Halloween music I hate (there’s a few ICP songs that come to mind here) that I roundly refuse to include on this playlist. Born On Halloween is not one of those tracks. Born On Halloween is a Halloween song for the ages.