The Insane Genius of Wesley Willis

Background

My own history with Wesley Willis traces back to my freshman year of college.  My friends and I would spend hours sitting around and listening to every one of his songs we could find on Napster, laughing until we were sick and doing our best imitations of Wesley's delivery*.  Why yes, I was smoking a couple buttloads of pot at the time, why do you ask?

*Oh, and to anyone who wants to jump in the comments and crap on my cupcakes about how Wesley's fame was predicated on people exploiting someone who was mentally disturbed -- save it.  Yes, he had serious mental issues.  And the rambling, nonsensical results of those issues were the things that made him popular.  But he also spent most of his adult life doing something he truly loved and getting paid handsomely for doing so.  That's more than the majority of us can say about our own lives.  So why don't you drink a tall glass of buzz-the-eff-off and ruin someone else's day by condemning a playground or something.

Today, on the other hand, I have a different relationship with Wesley's lyrics.  I was listening to some songs of his with an old college friend of mine, and instead of just finding his turns of phrase funny, I actually found myself becoming jealous of them.  As a blogger and commenter, I'm frequently trying to string together words in a way to produce something unexpected or funny.  It's not as easy as people make it look.  Yet Wesley's lyrics are littered with phrases and sentences that are mind blowing in their creativity.  So, what I'd like to do is present some examples of his work, along with a snippet of lyrics from each that make me kind of upset I don't have the debilitating mental issues it took to craft them.

Note: All the songs are extremely NSFW and I wouldn't have it any other way.... Continue For the videos.

"Britney Spears"

About: Wesley's love of the pop starlet.

Sample lyric that I'm jealous of: The entire second verse. "You are so pretty in Jesus' name / You are so hot in Jesus Christ / You are a pretty woman in the Holy Ghost / I would do you like a taxi driver."

Reason: That, ladies and gentleman, is what we call a twist ending. Take note, Shyamalan. Also, until provided with evidence in the alternative, I'm going to assume "I would do you like a taxi driver" was the original line K-Fed used to pick her up. Admit it, it sounds plausible.

"Suck a Cheetah's D-ck"

About: Wesley's desire that you perform fellatio on a large cross section of the animal kingdom.

Lyric I'm most jealous of: "Suck a male camel's d-ck with Hoisen sauce."

Reason: I'm not a music historian, but I've got to believe this is the cheeriest song ever made about telling someone to go and blow animals.  Top five at least.  The collection of animals and condiments he uses in this song would impress both a zookeeper and the chef of a three star restaurant.  Also, nice of him to specify which which gender of camel to fellate -- could have been confusing.

These five songs are just a sampling of what Wesley Willis brought to the table.  They might not be his funniest or your personal favorites, but they give you a good cross section to jump off from.  Go to YouTube and see for yourself -- there are tons of songs, clips, and interviews, each wilder than the last*.

*Every now and again, an interview he did with Howard Stern in the late 90s pops up on the Internet.  I can't stress strongly enough to you how important it is you listen to that before it gets taken down.  It's a special kind of wonderful, like a man who will hold his girlfriend's hair back when she's sick after drinking too much, or a girl who doesn't end up kneeling in front of the toilet EVERY SINGLE TIME WE GO OUT DRINKING, SARAH!  GOD!

Listening to all these songs makes me miss Wesley a lot.  Like one of my other favorite deceased crazy people, Ol' Dirty Bastard, I can lose hours trying to track down every clip I can find of him on the Internet.  (I love ODB so much that I recently put together this very NSFW video of him discussing his love of women.  It's my Citizen Kane.)  Even though Wesley's gone, the music is still there to entertain us.  It guarantees that no matter how far we are removed from his death, you can still feel the awkward stares from people in the elevator just as you realize you've been quietly singing the chorus of "Suck A Cheetah's D-ck" since you got on at the lobby.  That's a tremendous legacy.