"Paul Revere" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Beastie Boys | ||||
from the album Licensed to Ill | ||||
Released | August 13, 1986 | |||
Format | 7" | |||
Recorded | Spring 1986 | |||
Genre | Hardcore hip hop | |||
Length | 3:41 | |||
Label | Def Jam/Columbia | |||
Songwriter(s) | Adam Horovitz, Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, Rick Rubin | |||
Producer(s) | Rick Rubin, Beastie Boys | |||
Beastie Boys singles chronology | ||||
|
"Paul Revere" is a song by American hip hop group Beastie Boys, released as the third single from their debut album Licensed to Ill (1986). It was written by Adam Horovitz, Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Rick Rubin. It was produced by Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys. The song tells a fictional story of how the Beastie Boys met.
Adam Horovitz told how the song evolved from an incident when the Beastie Boys were waiting outside a recording studio for Run-D.M.C., when Joseph Simmons ("Run") suddenly came running down the street screaming incoherently. When he reached the Beastie Boys, he said "Here's a little story I got to tell...". After much confusion, Simmons stated "THAT's the song". The band worked on it from there.
In 2007, an artist called Kia Shine released a single called "Krispy" with a similar beat, raising questions about copyright infringement.
Mike D remembered how the group played around with a 808 drum machine during the Ill sessions and Adam Yauch asked what the tracks would sound like if the beats were played backwards. “Run from Run-D.M.C. was there, and he was like, ’Man, this is crazy.’ But Yauch recorded this beat, bounced it to another tape, flipped it around — this is pre-digital sampling — and bounced it back to the multi-track tape,” he said. “The reversed beat basically became ’Paul Revere.’ Yauch saw this thing we couldn’t see — and he killed it.”
The song tells a fictional story of how Adrock, Mike D, and MCA first met. Adrock describes riding through the desert on a horse named Paul Revere, also the name of a horse in the musical Guys and Dolls, while he is on the run from the police. He runs into MCA, who asks him for a drink. When Adrock refuses, MCA pulls a gun on him and says, "You got two choices of what you can do...I can blow you away or you can ride with me." Adrock agrees, saying that he'll go if they can get to the border because "The sheriff's after me for what I did to his daughter".