Sunday Music: "It Was A Good Day" By Ice Cube

In an increasingly dark and pessimistic world, where wars, political divisions, and daily struggles dominate seemingly everyone’s thoughts, take a break with me for just a moment. Listen. See if you hear a faint, “Yeah, you are,” followed by,

This is the sound of hope.

It’s important to note how hope almost always starts with a mysterious rustle through rightfully skeptical feelings at first. You sense a disturbance in the force. The distinct sensation of a ray of warm light cutting its way through the cold darkness onto your skin.

You start to remember how you have to be broken first, because “it takes a crack for the light to get in.” You thank God (or fill in your blank) for the crack. You already know that any pinhole of hope can’t be pried open, since you’ve tried to force it before and you know it’s no use, but you’ve made your peace and are more than grateful to pray it open.

You never know. A prayer and some gratitude can’t hurt. Not worse than it hurts already anyway.

And this time something is different. Something is off. The pinhole of hope is turning into a full prism, white light into a rainbow, and the last thing you’re going to do is pray for it to stop.

No, you’re going to bask in the majesty of this miracle as it unfolds, noting every detail, certain only that it’s going to snap shut soon enough,

One day. A few moments. One day and a few moments is all you need to keep hope alive.

I talk to so many people who feel like it’s all darkness all the time lately, and despite the quantitative bright spots, they’re stuck on the qualitative darkness as they ask, “what is even going on here” about life writ large.

I don’t know what to tell them. So, I remind them that they always have a choice. I remind them “You’ll never walk alone,” unless, of course you choose to, and if my own history is any guide on that decision, let me plainly advise, “You don’t actually want to walk alone, I’ve tried it and and would advise against it. Instead, find your people, which may include un-finding/losing some people along the way, but it’ll be OK so long as you find your people, keep them close, and just keep walking forward.”

Not alone, and always moving, forward when you can. I’m not shifting the tactics when I say this. I’m keeping the attitude, but I’m extra focused on adding an empirical precedent these days too.

Because people have been in the bleak midwinter of humanity before. They’ve made all sorts of art about it. And one under-discussed poet stands out to me these days far more than most: Ice Cube.

Ice Cube? The rapper/actor/sometimes problematic personality?! Yes, that guy.

My friend Ben Hunt calls this current chapter in human history “The Great Ravine” for a good reason. Ice Cube is my antidote to surviving it. Let’s talk about why.

It’s the idea that we, as a society, as a combination of cultures at the global level, have entered a darker era than we’ve seen in any of our memory-banked lifetimes. And not go be all doomer about it, because you have to believe that we come out of it eventually, but as far as these generational quakes go - they can take a while to play themselves out.

Every tremor feel terrifying. Every time. Everybody just sits around wondering, “Is this it? Is this the big one? Can we we ever get back?”

Picture the mall map, find the star, and know “You Are Here.”

We’re all in the ever-growing darker depths of this rut, looking at each other and wondering how we got to be so distant, and occasionally realizing we know exactly what our neighbors are thinking and how their thoughts either make us deeply comforted or deeply unsettled.

And you know what this chasm in betwixt an ever widening social gyre reminds me of more than anything else (except maybe Three Body Problem and The Fourth Turning)?

Ice Cube’s lyrics.

The secret to life in challenging times is all in “It Was A Good Day.”

That song’s the anthem of reconnecting with hope whenever we find ourselves deep within The Great Ravine.

You are here, but the song reminds us there’s a there that we can find ourselves in too. It’s worth waiting for here to be there. Some of it we can hope for, the rest of it we can make.

One day at a time. One moment at a time. Walking forward, never alone, with your people.

Let’s go a little deeper.

Ice Cube’s life is so rough, so categorically and descriptively hard by any human measure, that this one particular day, a freak-weird-crazy-”is this the real life, is this just fantasy” day, offers him the most tangibly-real-yet-dreamlike-perfect respite that he could ever fathom. This is some Jacob’s ladder-level transcendent stuff. He knows it’s all fading by tomorrow. He never saw it coming, on it’s way in. But it’s sweet, sweet, perfect respite. And respite feels good.

On The Predator, the classic 1992 album on which “It Was A Good Day” appears, there are 16 tracks. #7 is the song in question. It’s not even halfway through the ravine. It’s the only bright spot in the ravine.

As far as songs go, because there are inserts/interludes too (it was 1992 remember), “When Will They Shoot?” precedes “Wicked,” followed by “Now I Gotta Wet ‘Cha” and “The Predator.”

If I can attempt to sum up the arc of the first half of the album, it’s everyone hates and wants to kill Ice Cube, specifically or culturally, and accepts the darkness by declaring war on the rest of the world, and/or life itself. If you don’t like it, you can new jack swing on his… yeah.

But then we hear our song. “It Was A Good Day.” I can’t emphasize the singularity of the word day in the song title enough.

Because once the song is over, the back half of the album runs like, “We Had to Tear This M*********a Up,” “Dirty Mack,” “Don’t Trust ‘Em”, “Gangsta’s Fairytale 2,” "Check Yo Self,” “Who Got the Camera?”, and “Say Hi to the Bad Guy” (a fittingly ironic goodbye/closer).

As Rob Harvilla put it in his 60 Songs That Explain the ‘90s episode discussing the song, “It was a good day is a song about one good day. The rest of Ice Cube's catalog is about every other day.”

The Great Ravine may be long and dark. But, keep the faith that there will be respite. Those cracks, where the light gets in, they will mean everything to get us through to the other side.

Be ready for them, because they’ll feel nothing short of glorious when they appear. You have to celebrate them. You have to make something of them—be it art, or a song, or just a general sense of appreciation.

The memory of past-good drives the imagination of future-good. Collecting memories is part of building the future we want. And, along the way, it’s essential that we collect both the good and the bad memories and convert them into meaning.*

Meaning is derived from mood about what mattered before, what will matter later, and most importantly, what matters right now.

Ice Cube is one of the all-time masters of this flavor of meaning-time traveling. Just go back and re-read the lyrics above. Actually, go read the lyrics to the entire song. Relish in the minuteness of each detail. Then read some of the other lyrics from other songs on the record.

Blind hope may very well be the thing that kills you, but it’s also the thing that gets us through. Hope tells us what’s worth working on. That takes reminders sometimes, and “It Was A Good Day” will always serve as one of those reminders to me, to keep your fighting spirit alive, and to appreciate the beauty of life whenever and however it’s revealed to you.

One day at a time, one moment at a time, with our people,

We’re going to be alright—

To the good days.

The Isley Brothers “Footsteps in the Dark,” with extra emphasis on walking through the darkness, ahem, is also obligatory listening.

*yes, collecting and reflecting is exactly why I think everybody needs a Personal Archive!

ps. Remember when Donovan Strain figured out the exact day Ice Cube wrote the song about? Makes me smile every time. Be sure to celebrate with me on 1/20 (and the OG date was 1/20/1992 in case you’re wondering).

pss. If you never read it, this older post of mine, “The Serendipity of Ice Cube” is very special to me (and it is SUCH a great story, about how some luck in high school shaped his life and career). If you step back and understand his creative work with the perspective outlined above… it’s a beautiful thing.

psss. Want to read more about capturing these moments from this era of history? Then you’ll really want to read Eric Harvey’s book, Who Got The Camera: A History of Rap and Reality. Highly recommended.