Brad Nowell Analysis

"Lovin' is what I got." Simple words written by a simple man. A simple man who was not a poet, or a master lyricist for that matter. The front man for Sublime. Brad Nowell was a happy go lucky soul with a rock star attitude. He first laid his fingers on the wood and wire at the age of thirteen and immediately began to develop his own niche in the music world. Inspired by reggae and his Southern Californian upbringing, his unique guitar playing burnt up auditions and shows alike and would eventually propel him to a record deal. However, Nowell was never anything extraordinary. His melodies were catchy and his upbeat ska sound made feet tap yet Nowell never had the essence of Dylan or the soul of Hendrix. By the time he died in May of 1996, Brad
A little over a month after Nowell passed away, his final album with Sublime was released. One song in particular stood out and would later come to define Sublime and their recordings. That song was Santeria, and although it would become the defining work of Nowell, it was nothing like anything that had ever come before it. The poetry in the lyrics was nothing like the early and quite often meaningless ballads written by Nowell and the accompanying music was slower and full of soul unlike the hard hitting roughness of the reggae that had come to be expected from Sublime. A perfect example of one such meaningless Nowell ballad was Date Rape. The song drags on for over three and a half minutes as Nowell recounts in an almost monotone fashion a story of what seems to be irony. He tells of a man, who after raping a woman, ends up behind bars and is now occasionally raped himself by fellow inmates. The story is somewhat repulsive and the accompanying music is repetitive and quite obnoxious. Comparing such ballads that were the standard of Nowell to Santeria is nearly impossible because of the outstanding
He exclaims at the beginning of the second verse that, "My soul will have to wait 'til I get back, find a "hienna" of my own." What Nowell truly wants more than anything is not simply revenge, but to find a faithful woman that will not leave him for another man. By saying his soul will have to wait he introduces the idea that even though he suffers greatly, spiritually he must hold out because he knows deep down that mere revenge is nothing compared to escaping his pain with love for another. Nowell says in each verse, it is the only line that he repeats throughout the entire song, that, "What I really want to know, is my baby." He doesn't say he wants to know revenge, he says he wants to know his baby, a woman who is not the "hienna" but instead one he can affectionately refer to. He also says that, "What I really want to say is I've got mine," and "that there's just one." He doesn't say that what he wants to say is I killed Sancho or that I'm going to kill Sancho, he truly wants to say that he has a faithful woman and she's the only one for