As part of Rolling Stone‘s “Song Breakdown” series, the media outlet has released a brand-new video featuring comedian and The Late Show host Stephen Colbert. In this new video, Colbert analyzes Chance The Rapper‘s “Favorite Song” featuring Childish Gambino, which was released back in 2013 on Chance’s sophomore mixtape, Acid Rap, which was given away for free and helped catapult him into stardom. In the video, Colbert breaks down a verse of the song, analyzing the rhythm pattern of one of the verses and drawing on unexpected references to the Victorian-era playwright duo, Gilbert and Sullivan as well as the iconic fantasy series, Lord Of The Rings.
After singing some of the lyrics from memory (starting off with “Bang bang bang, skeet skeet skeet/She do that thing for three re-tweets”), Colbert first notes that “that rhythm right there, that was just like a worm in my brain. I couldn’t stop listening to that song, and it’s something about the rhythm of that second verse, which repeats again two verses later.” He continues, “I didn’t know what it was until I was like, ‘Oh wait, that’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s rhythm,'” moving on to show how both mirror one another.
Talking about the relative rarity of the rhyme scheme used “because it’s got a lot of internal rhymes within the line,” Colbert adds “The only other place I know besides ‘My Favorite Song’ and Gilbert and Sullivan, habitually, is—and this is because I link everything back to J.R.R. Tolkein—it’s actually from the ‘Song of Eärendil’.” With Colbert diving on his apparently encyclopedic knowledge of Lord Of The Rings, the famed comedian offers context on the little-known poem that influences Tolkein’s Middle Earth universe.
You can watch Stephen Colbert’s song breakdown of Chance The Rapper’s “Favorite Song” featuring Childish Gambino for Rolling Stone below.
[Video: Rolling Stone]