Even though we don't have the album in full yet, Kanye West is giving us the next best thing by releasing the tracklist for Swish . Kind of hard to be annoyed that Kanye hasn't been putting a new song out every Friday, like he promised, when it's so clear that he's working hard on getting us a killer finished product by Feb. 11, the new release date. In the wee hours of Jan. 25, Kanye uploaded a photo to his Twitter of a handwritten list of all 10 tracks on Swish, with a little note at the bottom saying "KYLIE WAS HERE," for authenticity, I guess. And there's a lot we can learn from this one little sheet of legal pad paper, so let's take a look.
First of all, apologies to Beyoncé, I guess, for the phrasing — Kanye referred to Swish as "the best album of all time," an honor you'll remember he previously bestowed on Beyoncé's I Am...Sasha Fierce. (You know, during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech. You remember.) But apparently it's a brave new world and there's a new Best Album Ever in town, and West is pretty sure it's his, which I guess means that we should be taking it pretty seriously, and the best place to start with that is by analyzing the track names he's revealed to us to take some guesses as to what the songs might be about.
Now bear in mind, the only tracks we have the first inkling about are the songs Kanye has actually released, because the dude is notoriously close-lipped when it comes to discussing the inspiration for his songs before the fact. So this is going be a lot of speculation on my part. Luckily, I was built in a lab to do this sort of thing, so you're in excellent hands.
1. "Nina Chop"
Do you have any idea how delighted I would be if this is a new character that Kanye is working on, a la Beyoncé and Sasha Fierce? I could honestly die happy.
2. "Father Stretch My Hands"
Fingers crossed that this is about playing the "pull-my-finger" fart game with Nori and Saint.
3. "Waves"
The immediate place my brain went is "making waves," so my honest guess is that this is about how Kanye got his start in the industry and attention paid to him. Would listen.
4. "Highlights"
Maybe this will be West finally coming clean about whether he likes Kim Kardashian West's hair darker or lighter? I kind of miss the blond, but I'm so interested to hear where he falls on the issue. Or maybe it's about the kids' magazine Highlights? Will be equally delighted either way.
5. "30 Hours"
I Googled "what takes 30 hours to do?" and the answers were mostly beating a video game and driving places that are many miles apart, so probably this will either be a look at Kanye's domestic life, or a very artistic look at the first 30 hours of that James Franco movie 127 Hours, obviously.
6. "No More Parties In LA"
Kanye has released this baby already, so we know it's about the fake-ass rich person lifestyle in Los Angeles. Which is weird because I would've guessed it was about getting invited to too many kids' birthday parties because all the Kardashian-Jenner grandbabies are so popular. The Disicks and the Wests are starting a baby empire of their own.
7. "Fade"
This one's tough, Kanye, you aren't giving me much to go on. But probably it's about all the different haircuts we saw on six-season MTV masterpiece Jersey Shore? That's gotta be it.
8. "FML"
Have never heard of this acronym; assume it stands for "Family Means Love," and is about how awesome Kanye's life is these days.
9. "Real Friends"
West promised he'd put a song about me and our friendship on the album, so even though I haven't listened to this one yet, I'm assuming this is it. Look for lots of lyrics about working on late night jigsaw puzzles and teaching each other to knit.
10. "Wolves"
Can't imagine there's any way this isn't about the paparazzi and the media. West is such a private person, and we're always trying to claw our way into his personal life, like, speculating on what all his track titles might mean. Just as, um... a hypothetical.
So that's it, everybody. Feel free to listen to the album once it's out if you want, but I'm pretty sure I have it all figured out right here.
Images: giphy (10)
