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Chris Daly has not enough young in his lung for the water wings
Only Aesop Rock, the veteran “underground” spitter officially clocked with the deepest vocabulary in all of rap, could pen something as simple and silly as “Long Legged Larry” and still make it work. Written for World Frog Day because of course that’s a thing, aka Ian Bavitz quickly demonstrates that flow, personality and charisma over a lazy funk guitar line can go a long fucking way.
The plot line, such as it is, details the adventures of a frog who jumps. While jumping, he does a bunch of shit, from helping a cat stuck in a tree to growing a beard to rescuing a princess in a high tower to saving a unicycle riding poodle about to fall during a high wire act. The actions are broken up by the high school auditorium chant of “Go Larry! Go Larry! Go! Go! Go!” In other words, while Larry clearly is one hell of a nice frog, this is some pretty goofy shit.
While the track retains a similar, laid back approach evidenced in earlier career tracks like, “Miss By Mile,” he pivots from the word dense, far more vivid imagery of recent project Malibu Ken. While there’s some occasional (and impressive as only Aesop can be) internal rhyme schemes scattered throughout, for the most part, the song largely employs an end rhyme scheme which would simply fail in lesser hands. And yet, I have not felt this immediately invested in leaping amphibians since Mark Twain dropped, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” You simply will not find a funkier frog this side of Sesame Street, full stop.
