Fast food and sex. Yuck! Who thinks that take-out food is an aphrodisiac other than Timbaland and his pretty boy mouthpiece Justin Timberlake? In their latest overproduced, auto-tune dependent collaboration, they compare a woman’s body to fast food in an overwrought extended metaphor loaded with double entrendes, eighth grade horny boy humor and nonsensical lyrics that are crimes against the art of rhyming.
Sure, everyone likes a good sex metaphor in their music (i.e. Little Red Corvette or Prince’s less well-known but equally clever Tambourine). “Take my order cause your body like a carry-out,” (which pretty much means listen to my sexual instructions because your body is like a ton of carbs and fat, dripping with grease, and served hot in some cardboard and paper-wrappers) falls seriously short of a good sex metaphor. Women and grease--clearly male fantasies inspired this piece of art work.
And, it only gets worse with the ridiculous incorporation of fast-food slogans such as “I can tell the way you like it, baby, supersized,” and “Have it your way, foreplay.” Timbaland throws in a silly simile: “I’ll have you open all night like I-HOP.” Not really seeing much sexiness associated with blue-roofed restaurants that serve pancakes at all hours. And, really this line is just a less interesting version of Salt-N-Peppa’s line from Whatta Man: “From seven to seven he's got me open like Seven Eleven,” which is more imaginative and more beneficial to the woman.
Then, there is the bizarre rhyme, “Baby get my order right, no errors/Imma touch you in all the right areas.” Yes, Timbaland rhymed errors and areas. In the poetry world, near rhymes are pretty standard and sometimes make stanzas flow smoother than exact rhymes, but this rhyme is far from a near rhyme. In fact, the only way it works is for the pronunciation to be slaughtered with errors is pronounced eras, which is a different word with a totally different meaning.
Although not fantastic poetry the sexual locutions are somewhat coherent until the line: Now let me walk into your body until you hear me out. Ouch. Not too much eroticism associated with walking into a body, so that phrase means something totally different in the rap-world, or it was just a filler line to make the chorus work. Words have meaning and sentences have structure; they are not the breadcrumbs in your grandmother’s meatloaf.
It is a good thing that Timbaland and Timberlake have money because they ain’t gettin’ no carry-out with those lines.
