Right on the heels of his resounding return to the limelight, singer Justin Bieber decided to open up his revival tour with his deepest song yet, “Yummy”. Despite having a staggering word count of 99 words for the 3 minute and 24 minute song, Bieber attributes the loquaciousness in the song in part due to the five writers in the song’s credits. As part of a special promotion, we’ve gotten exclusive access to the songwriting process behind Bieber’s brand new song: “Tummy”.
To start off here’s the song in its entirety, followed by a Q&A panel with the principle songwriters of the song (Flashley, Draniel, LaJason, Lion, & Boah):
Yes indeed, you acquired that tummy, tum
That tummy, tum
That tummy, tummy
Oh for sure, you received that tummy, tum
That tummy, tum
That tummy, tummy
Three syllables, that’s the play
No babe, yes babe, no babe
Maybe about 90% of the day
Adlib noise, pancake flip, chocolate cake
Perhaps babe, maybe babe, perchance babe
Even if you’re starting to gray
Drop a turd, on my face
Delicious chocolate milk
You ain’t in no carton, no, you stay on shelves
Ain’t 2% fat, you’re whole milk
Uh, every time breakfast comes, I fuck with it
Twenty-forty, the math is kinda sketchy
Abacus racks, help me spend it, babe
Get a calculator, solve with me, babe
Ohh, ahh, insert some words here, kinda, yea, yea
Gopher’s eyes, what we call my pops, yeah, yeah
By all means, you’ve attained that tummy, tum
fat tummy, tum
suck rummy, mummy
Of course, you got that sunny, sun
That bummy, bum
That funky, monkey
Three syllables, that’s the play
No babe, yes babe, no babe
Maybe about 90% of the day
Adlib noise, pancake flip, chocolate cake
Perhaps babe, maybe babe, perchance babe
Even if you’re starting to gray
Drop a turd, on my face
Standing up, now I’m sitting down
Maybe I’ll stand up again, I’m directional
You’re a damn compass, know where to fly
But this plane always lands on the ground
Twenty-forty, the math is kinda sketchy
Abacus racks, help me spend it, babe
Get a calculator, solve with me, babe
Ohh, ahh, insert some words here, kinda, yea, yea
Ate a pi, that was irrational, yeah, yeah
Yes indeed, you acquired that tummy, tum
That tummy, tum
That tummy, tummy
Oh for sure, you received that tummy, tum
That tummy, tum
That tummy, tummy
Three syllables, that’s the play
No babe, yes babe, no babe
Maybe about 90% of the day
Adlib noise, pancake flip, chocolate cake
Perhaps babe, maybe babe, perchance babe
Even if you’re starting to gray
Drop a turd, on my face
Hitting the accelerator, I’m moving it
Promoting my own merchandise to go sell it out
I should be berated, instead my ego inflated
You got the tums, tums, tums tums
You got the…the…the
Whoa-ooh (“ah fuck he’s gonna shit”)
Yes indeed, you acquired that tummy, tum
That tummy, tum
That tummy, tummy (“he’s got than runny bum”)
Oh for sure, you received that tummy, tum
That tummy, tum
That tummy, tummy
Three syllables, that’s the play
No babe, yes babe, no babe
Maybe about 90% of the day
Adlib noise, pancake flip, chocolate cake
Perhaps babe, maybe babe, perchance babe
Even if you’re starting to gray
Drop a turd, on my face
******************************************************************************
GM: Ok, so it is just me or does this song sound like it was written by a bunch of derelict two-year olds high off of some cocaine with loads of money to kill?
Draniel: Yes! Finally someone got our message. The song is intentionally meant to sound childish in order to represent the deep complexity of the issues plaguing modern day America. The innocence and stupidity contained within the song evoke a deep sense of unknowingness, and virginity that ultimately soils the children of this nation. Obesity is on the rise in this nation, as 39.6% of adults across this nation over 20 years of age are now considered overweight. We use the two-year old example to demonstrate that it is imperative to start early in terms of good diet and weight maintenance, and by moving forward with a healthy outlook on life, you can better maximize your prospects of living to see another day.
GM: And what part of the song exactly “evokes” this? Is it the line with the turd?
Flashley: Actually, the turd line is more a metaphor for how the government is riddled with corruption. Our government continues to feed itself off of its own shit generated. You know our first president, General George Washington, once declared, “I cannot tell a lie.” These days, politicians continue to spout cries of acceptance and unity while acting in a most contrarian manner to these statements. The “turd”, if you will, represents the dark stain on the suits of every politician as they walk the streets of Washington D.C. They should never forget that they are representatives of the people. FIGHT THE POWER!
GM: But then… why put that after a line about graying? Let me guess, it’s a criticism of how old people are getting taken advantage of by the government, as 401k’s suck the life blood out of their savings and put it straight into the pockets of large corporations?
Boah: Can I answer than with another question… are you stupid? Who’d say something like that?
GM: Then what does it stand for?
Boah: It’s a critical analysis on the state of binary operations in the human society we live in today. There was a time when things used to be black and white, peanut butter (RIP Mr. Peanut) and jelly, day and night. Nobody had all these “in-betweens.” In keeping with the progressiveness of the 21st century, we really wanted to symbolize the growth of just how unpredictable life has become for every single American citizen. No one goes through life operating on two binaries; rather people choose value critera beneficiary for their own moral and personal guidelines. It’s a very individualistic process, meant to symbolize the disparity in experience between all humans, despite being of the same species. Justin understood that, and he was crucial in bringing this issue to the forefront of the song.
GM: This raises even more questions. Then why call the song “Tummy”? Isn’t that counter-intuitive?
Justin: Yo, when I was on hiatus, all my fans were like crying in the bathroom and shitting their pants. The love of their life was gone, and they didn’t know when I was gonna’ come back and release new music. I didn’t either. There was just too much pressure at that point in time for me, you know… what’s a guy to do with $285 million dollars. I knew their tummy was hurting for some more of my music, and I delivered. The title is for the fans. “Yummy” was meant to be a representation for how my music has satiated their thirst for a stand-in god, and “Tummy” is the continuation of that ideal. It’s the struggle of having a role model who may not release music all the time, and to just keep Beliebin’ in me. Swag. Swag. Swag. On You. I LOVE YOU SANTA BARBARA! (*There was no one there besides GM and Justin Bieber*)
GM: Isn’t “tummy” a bit premature though? Why not use something like “stomach”?
LaJason: When we were writing the song, “Stomach” definitely came up more than once as a legitimate title contender. However, the reason we settled on “Tummy” is because we wanted to make our music accessible to as many people as possible. You know how long it takes to say “Stomach” versus “Tummy”. It’s like a full three more seconds.
GM: They’re the exact same syllable count. What’s going on here?
LaJason: You didn’t let me finish you pretentious piece of shit. Using neuropathy developed by the scientists over at Gwyneth’s GOOP Lab, we’ve discovered that the human brain finds certain letters of the English alphabet more comforting than others. Surveys showed that the letter Y held high approval rates amongst all ages 1-69 due to being included in words like Monday, Tuesday, holiday, beignay (*He means beignet here, but GM does not mess with the delusional*), pay, lay, and play. Therefore, we knew we wanted our word to end with a Y. The double Ms are a staple of the music industry, just look at M&M the wrapper. This is the best candy on the market, and everybody loves it because nobody can resist a bargain. Why get one M when you can get two?
GM: You mean Eminem the rapper?
LaJason: There’s a rapper named Eminem? Maybe you’re also generating those alternative facts… Look, we have the experts, we have the knowledge, we have the monopoly on teenage girls from ages 10-15. You can say whatever you wanna’ say about the title, but the people flock to us.
GM: Yes… I suppose so. Another bold claim from a lot of critics about the song criticizes it for its repetitiveness and similarity to “Yummy.” What do you think about these concerns?
Lion: Here’s the breakdown my dude: repetitiveness is a fact of life. We wanted to emphasize the monotony of daily life. Every day, when the average Joe or Jane wakes up in the morning, drives in their car to another day at a fairly dubious deli in the downtown area, and serves up sandwiches to even more morally questionable males and females… such is the ups and downs of life. Our song is inevitable; it is a necessity. Without it, who will give these people hope in times of turbulence? Who will pacify their qualms about the stagnancy of their lives? Who let them suckle at the teat of bliss to quench their thirst for meaning? These people’s lives rarely change, though some might say otherwise, and our song is specifically designed to speak to that.
GM: Really? You really thought it only took 158 unique words to do that?
Lion: It’s a righteous number man. Add up those numbers, and you’ll realize they add to the number 14. Humans have two ears to listen to the music, so each ear receives exactly half the sum of the song’s innate numerical value, thus each song receives about 7.
GM: 7 what?
Lion: If you don’t know, you don’t know. Only the chosen know. But you know what, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Know what else has the number 7? THE DAYS OF THE WEEK! THE AMOUNT OF DEADLY SINS CONJURED FROM WEARING AIRPODS! THE MOTHERFUDGING RAINBOW! THE AMOUNT OF VIRGINS IT TOOK TO LIGHT THE OLYMPIC FLAME! THE NUMBER OF CONTINENTS ON THIS WASTELAND WE CALL EARTH! THE NUMBER OF SEAS POLLUTED WITH TRASH! AND IN CERTAIN PARTS OF EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY, IS SAID TO BE EMBLEMATIC OF ETERNAL LIFE! Each ear receives the boon fitting of legendary proportion. In fact, I argue that what me do goes far beyond simply supplying music to our listeners, but rather, we fully immerse them and briefly transform them into nothing short of gods of a new world, champions of a new dawn, and victors set forth to burn this world to the ground and rebuild it in their own image.
Draniel: I don’t think he’s slept in a long time…
GM: You can say that agai—
Draniel: I don’t think he’s slept in a long time.
GM: Well, I guess this is a good segue into another one of the more enigmatic parts of this new song. Why the references to math? Is it another cryptic hit at an archaic institution that should cease to exist?
Justin: So basically, we was writing the song, and I knew I wanted something super deep. None of that superficial shit that takes like 2 seconds to make. Me, Draniel, and Flashley were trying to draw from my life experiences, and I remembered this one time, where I was humiliated in math class.
GM: What happened? Were you emotionally scarred from this encounter?
Justin: Some might say I was defined by this incident. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
GM: But you didn’t even describe i—
Justin: All right you got me. It all happened back in the sixth grade. Mr. Granger called me up to the front of the room to do a problem I’d never done before. It involved a lot of letters, and you had to find the meaning of the whole equation. It was one of the hardest problems I’d ever seen in my entire life.
GM: Oh? Can you describe the problem if it’s not too painful to remember?
Justin: They called it, the To Kill a Mockingbird problem. Apparently it’s pretty famous, written by some dude named Harper Lee.
GM: Wait, what?! You mean you tell me you tried solving a book… as a math equation?
Justin: Oh shit, maybe it was a book… damn… did not see that coming… uh… lucky that’s not the meaning of the lines though. Boah, tell ‘em what it’s all about.
Boah: Sure, it’s math really. Goddam simple math. We knew that our audience was going to be full of math whizzes, so we wanted to add a special surprise for them. The use of the words “twenty-forty” is designed to show the income gap between male and female workers. You might be wondering, “Doesn’t twenty and forty only add up to sixty?” And that’s precisely the point, where does the rest of the money go? It goes into corporations that take advantage of labor systems in China. It goes to governments that slaughter their people by the thousands. It goes to billionaires that play a different set of rules in a system designed by their hand. An abacus, one of the simplest calculators invented during the Mesopotamian times, symbolized a return to the basics, or fundamentals if you will. It’s time to take this top-bottom dialectic and flip it on its head. We must re-evaluate the needs of both genders equally and immediately commence with the redistribution of wages, and the restoring of power to its rightful heirs.
Justin: (*On parabolic microphone*) That’s some good shit Boah, I lost track of what you were saying about halfway through, but I liked those words you used, especially that big one.
GM: And the reference to pi? Does that also mean something?
Flashley: Yea, we all had an irrational lust for pie after finishing taping. It consumed us so much to consume pie that we decided it had to be included in the song.
GM: But you said “pi” not “pie”, as it 3.14159265…
Flashley: It’s a commentary on the duality of hunger. What do we do with our mouths almost every single time we consume food. We “eat”. And what letter of the alphabet does “eat” start with, the letter e. e mathematically also represents the base for the natural logarithm, in which the natural log of e is one. This is because the natural state of order is oneness with everything around us. To eat is to be natural. To consume natural food ultimately nourishes the entire body. When we rid ourselves of e, what is left: pi. It’s irrational, unfathomably long, and extremely tiresome to deal with. It clutters up our life, and deprives us of key nutrients necessary to balance our hormonal scales. We want shepherds to listen to our music, not sheep. Our music is the star that shines in the field to guide them to salvation. And let’s just say it’s no coincidence that “eternal” starts with an “e”.
GM: Okay, I’m pretty sure you’re just fucking with me at this point. Why the fuck would you dedicate an entire verse to sitting down and standing up?
Draniel: Let me hit you up with some facts:
And just for the record, allow me to slap yo’ face with some more facts:
Draniel: Long story short, it’s not math, it’s graphs.
GM: Oh dear…
Draniel: As the graphs CLEARLY illustrate, American citizens spend far too much time making contact with planar surfaces than they should. The molecular ions in their gluteus maximus will begin to corrode as the telomeres start to fade away in the presence of the planar ions from chairs, couches, etc. The World Health Organization has called this disease “rest.” But we say no rest for the sick! It’s a call to arms, literally, for Americans everywhere to get up and move around. If they just continue to rest all day, they will have nothing to break their fall in the future. Butt, you may ask, what about that other chart? Well, the exponential growth symbolized in the quantum vector subplot underlying the informatics governing the subsidiary, ultimately defines the relatively infinite temporal spheres influencing the concave concurrency of a diatomic heliocentricity, where binomial cofactors repress operatory catalysts to unintentionally sublimate critical angsts held in the Lockean labor theory of the fundamental theorem of L’Hopital. When you triangulate the axial ventricle upon inspecting the aortic partition, you’ll deduce a significant reduction in the array of data sets circumventing the categorical imperative, only to bind a binary matrix onto an infinitesimal macroscale of cosmic entities, in which primordial phytochromes elucidate the pancreatic monotheism, which, AS EVERYONE KNOWS, operates the psilocarphus brevissimus lodged in the hippocampus of the antebellum in a phase known as reconstruction. Post-traumatic solar flares cause aerial ruptures to bend space-time creatively, until microfungi impregnate a baby whale.
GM: That sounded real smart, but what does it all mean?
LaJason: It means nothing. At least not to the average person. If you read our lyrics carefully, you’ll notice we only use a four-syllable word once, calculator, and that’s done to purposefully draw attention to how the brain has to calculate the enormous length of the word. The reason we stick to the three-syllable rule, and even why we subliminally inserted it into the song, is to allow people to easily retain the information given to them. While Draniel has, suffice to say, brilliantly and concisely summarized the main points about the facts used as the underlying basis for the song, not every American will get how deep our lyrics go.
GM: So you’re telling me you wanted this song to be superficial, but also not superficial?
Boah: Like my colleagues have said in the past, it’s all about the idea of “grayness”, as we blur the lines between reality and fiction. You’re attributing imaginary titles to a song you barely register as real. We seek to infantilize the market and restore global order through this song, neither through this or that.
GM: What’s “this” or “that”?
Lion: Why must things be defined as “this” or “that”? It’s arbitrarily determined in the spontaneity of the moment, irrelative of any past or future. Don’t believe me, look to the line “adlib noise, pancake flip, chocolate cake.” What do you think this line means?
GM: I see what you’re saying. Let me see… I’m guessing the adlib noise demonstrates how low expectations have fallen for music in general. You’re pointing out how lazy artists can be when it comes to writing music, and how little people care for any substance anymore. You’re explicitly defining where the adlib starts and ends, only to have it fade into a backdrop of absurdity. The pancake flip represents the chance of life. It’s like flipping a soft, buttery coin on its head. Do we know whether that pancake will land heads or tails? In fact, do pancakes even have a heads or tails? I think that’s another critique of the binary system regulating the world we live in. We simply cannot accept that those pancakes may not have one of two options, yet we unintentionally assign values to them otherwise. And the chocolate cake, is likely, again quite literally, the icing on the cake. It’s the confectioner’s sugar reminder to all of us about just how addicted we are to these ideals, and on a more tangible note, it’s a humbling alarm to notice how much sugar we all intake. Chocolate, once revered more its many health benefits, has been abused by the healthcare industry. Different percentages of cacao in dark, milk, and white chocolate have subconsciously made people forget what it means to be free. We don’t need all these labels for us, we simply must exist. You used cake because it’s a representation of commonality and brotherhood amongst all men on earth. We all share a slice of life, and have our cake together. It’s the rise against tyranny that we must stand up for; the seeds of discord run rampant in the alleys. Such is the way of the cake. You end the line on an “e” to once again return the world back to the natural, the oneness everyone seems to have forgotten.
LaJason: Wow, maybe you should write for us. Man, we could’ve used that during the Genius interview last week.
Justin: Yea, LOL. That was the one line of the song where we were like, “Fuck it, no one’s gonna care, so let’s just put some shit down and walk away.” We were making breakfast for dinner, which is where the pancakes came from, and Boah had just finished baking a massive chocolate cake.
GM: So, the chocolate milk line has some significance?
Flashley: Yes, it always has a meaning. In Hinduism, the cow is often a sacred animal, and all cows produce milk. And milk is one of the healthiest things a human can put into their body, there’s only 2% of fat in that entire gallon of milk, right? And so—
GM: The 2% is in relation to the weight of the milk, not in terms of pure nutritional value.
Flashley: Um, precisely, which is why we wanted to clear up this common misconception for people. Tomorrow, millions of Americans will use some sort of milk to pour into their cereals, into their mouths, or into other various parts of the body. And they’ll all do it with the naïveté of believing this phony lie. As trendsetters for the public, we have to do our part to keep the public informed about what’s happening. We ran with the holy trio of milk: whole, 2% fat, and chocolate milk. This was for consistency, as you’ll note it perfectly matches the number of syllables we typically liked to use in the song, three. Whole milk reinforces that concept of oneness.
Draniel: ONENESS!
Flashley: That’s right, oneness, that pervades the material universe around us. It’s whole because it’s pure, and that’s one reason people find themselves inextricably drawn towards it. 2% Fat, as we’ve already laid out before you, stands as a placeholder for the manifestation of corporate greed in America. They twist and bend the words on the label of each jug in every store across America. Idiots flocks to the markets in droves to drink the milk, but fail to realize that they’re consuming far more fat in their milk than they anticipate, and that makes them even fatter. And a glass of milk also has like 18 grams of carbs, Jeepers Christ. It’s like a pig being groomed for slaughter, if that pig was being fed the byproduct of a cow who’d later be slaughtered, only to be eaten by the pig. The pig is a human in this case, because we all know that humans also eat pigs… or maybe it’s the other way around. Anyways, the chocolate milk is a nod to several notions. The color brown is a blend of blue and orange, both colors which end in the letter “e”, the universal symbol of unity. The second thing to note is that chocolate milk is unmistakably better than just regular milk as it adds a layer of pizzazz unique to chocolate milk itself. In a world full of mystery, and even as we continue to obscure the lines of reality and fiction further, we decided to present on single, inarguable fact: Chocolate milk is the best.
GM: If that’s the case, why does it sound like Justin had to go take a shit in that verse about selling his own merchandise?
Justin: Aw shucks, that’s just because I didn’t have my Tums, my Tums, my Tums, my Tums for my tummy. I recently finished doing a black bean cleanse, where all I did was eat black beans every single day of the hour. I thought I was losing my mind, but it turns out I just had to empty my bowels about 30 times a day and I was good as new. Unfortunately, brown objects trigger a post-traumatic-bean-disorder in my bowel, and I really had to go in the middle of taping. My manager thought it had a lot of flair to it so he decided to keep it.
GM: Uh huh…
Draniel: That janitor certainly thought your shit lacked flair…
Justin: Shut Up! Bless Up! Stay Up! (*He made some prayer hands and pointed to the sky*)
GM: Well, I guess we can’t cover every line in the song, and my editor expects the transcript for this interview by tonight or tomorrow morning, so let’s wrap this thing up. To all of you, what are your next steps moving forward.
Boah: I’ll be working on Justin’s next new single “Mummy”, it’s a deep retroactive look at Freudian psychoanalysis.
Flashley: Backpack Kid called me to help write his next big single, “Kid with a Backpack.” It’s about balancing social and private expectations of oneself in the context of self-love.
Lion: I go sleep. Write song make brain hurt bad. Too much, hard speak, say slow.
LaJason: I will be listening to this “Eminem” you speak of. One can only hope his lyrics are half as deep as this song’s.
Draniel: As the great philosopher and scientist Erwin Schrödinger once sai-
GM: And we’ve run out of time for you Draniel. Justin?
Justin: Spread that peace, love, and positivity. Never say never, baby, or there’ll be one less lonely girl under the mistletoe in my world 2.0. As long as you love me, I’ll be your boyfriend, until I’m sorry, and then I’ll say, “Where are you now?” And when you say you love me, I’ll ask what do you mean? I’ll show you that I’m confident, mark my words, I don’t care. Stay yummy in my tummy America!
Gaucho Marks 