One of my favorite songs, Jailhouse, by Sublime, starts out with these four very cryptic lines:
Jailhouse gets empty
Rudy gets plenty
Baton stick gets shorter
Rudy gets taller
What the hell is this? Is “Rudy” Rudy Gulianni? Is this some kind of veiled reference to prison rape? What does the “Baton stick” mean - is that supposed to be a symbol for something?
Does anyone have ANY idea what’s going on here? Sublime’s lyrics are usually very clear. What gives?
Only cryptic if you don’t know what a rude-boy is.
A rude-boy (“Rudie”) is a Jamaican/British ska fan basically (that’s a very simple and narrow definition. It can more or less be applied to any ska, punk, or mod in any part of the world today.)
So,
Jailhouse gets empty (Rudie got out)
Rudie gets plenty (he’s doing good!)
Baton stick gets shorter (That’s the police nightstick. It’s a metaphor for the police losing power/high-ground)
Rudie gets taller (metaphor for rudie getting more power/gaining high-ground)
Any questions?
I also wondered if it was a reference to the ska song by the Specials, “Rude Boy’s Out Of Jail,” or perhaps “A Message To You, Rudy,” also by them.
Really? I must get my mind out of the gutter. I’ve never heard the song, but upon reading the OP I immediately thought of that story in NYC where the cops sodomized a prisoner with a plunger…