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  1. Tracks
  2. Danny Brown
  3. Old
  4. Float On

TRACK

Danny Brown

Float On

Release date: 4th August 2013

From Old
ElectronicMusic
Spotify More on Danny Brown

About This Track

Danny Brown's closing statement on 'Old' arrives as a portrait of chemically managed survival. Over production that swings between trap percussion and Charli XCX's looped vocal hook, he maps the distance between childhood ambition and present-day exhaustion: the jump from wanting to rap to his brothers to having "the whole world listening" has left him trapped in a cycle of substance use and sleepless creative labour. The pressure is material and specific. Xanax, Vicodin, lean, Adderall, syrup. Each drug named as a tool for coping, for numbing, for staying awake enough to write the next line. What makes the song move beyond confession is its refusal of redemption. Brown doesn't overcome the weight he describes; he floats on it, stays level with it. Charli XCX's presence softens nothing. Her repetition of the title becomes a mantra, a way of keeping afloat when the alternative is sinking. The verses accumulate detail without resolution: childhood violence, insomnia, the knowledge that most of what he writes will be discarded. By the end, the only prayer left is to live long enough to see his influence take hold. It is survival framed as ambition, and ambition framed as the only thing keeping him alive.

"Float On" is a track by Danny Brown, from the album Old, released 4th August 2013. It's filed under Electronic. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 9 articles about Danny Brown.

About the Artist

Danny Brown

Danny Brown

Lyrics

Float On

[Verse 1: Danny Brown]

Backwood of that good to the pain for the brain

A cup of lean for me to sleep, see I be going through thangs

Music business got me stressed, Xanax to maintain

Waking up on wrong sides got me writing in vain

Vicodin to numb me up, help me cope with the struggle

Remember praying to get in there, saying rap to my brothers

And now I, got the whole world listening

Give your ear for a second, a life changing decision

Every other minute, thoughts run through my mind

'bout how bad I wanted this but I cannot waste time

So I'm trapped in the beat, stuck on every line

Nothing else matters, except my next rhyme

You can never understand all the pressure I'm against

Getting high, thinking how to make it better than your last shit

[Pre-Chorus: Danny Brown, Danny Brown & Charli XCX, Charli XCX]

Might have a mental breakdown

If it wasn't for these pills here now

And no matter how it gets, I hold on

Rolling up this dope to cope, I float on, nigga, float on, oh

I Float on

Uh

[Chorus: Danny Brown & Charli XCX]

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

I float on

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

I float on

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

I float on

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

[Verse 2: Danny Brown]

Remember back when mommy sent me for the Wonder Bread

And niggas jumped me, stomped on my fucking head

It's like I learned right then, you either sink or you swim

And to beat your enemy you gotta think like them

So I was up late, breaking day with the gremlins

Music in my heart but my thoughts wouldn't listen

Hood outta bye-bye 'cause rap shit was sci-fi

So I'm tormented with the things I seen with these eyes

Can't get a wink 'less I'm leaning off of syrup

Dreaming of my past like a nightmare so I wake up

Staring at the ceiling with this feeling that won't go away

Until the verse is done, wrote all day but them shit's throwaway

So I'm breaking day, sniffing Adderall writing

And not for the money, for the life after dying

Pray I get old just to hear I been the future

Just to see my influence in this genre of music

[Pre-Chorus: Danny Brown, Danny Brown & Charli XCX, Charli XCX]

And might make it to see somehow

If it wasn't for these pills here now

And no matter how it gets, I hold on

Rolling up this dope to cope, I float on, nigga, float on, oh

I keep floatin' on, I float on

[Chorus: Danny Brown & Charli XCX, Charli XCX]

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

I float on

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

I float on

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

I float on

Let's go, hop up in the Chevy four-door, let's roll

I keep on floatin' o-o-on

Lyrics provided by LRCLIB

View full lyrics page →

Track details

From Old

2013
Listen
Album
Old
Old
Danny Brown
8th October 2013
Release year
2013
  1. 1Side a [Old]
    2:23
  2. 2The Return (feat. Freddie Gibbs)
    3:10
  3. 325 Bucks (feat. Purity Ring)
    3:31
  4. 4Wonderbread
    1:58
  5. 5Gremlins
    2:06
  6. 6Dope Fiend Rental (feat. Schoolboy Q)
    2:55
  7. 7Torture
    3:46
  8. 8Lonely
    2:20
  9. 9Clean Up
    3:02
  10. 10Red 2 Go
    3:19
  11. 11Side B [Dope Song]
    2:37
  12. 12Dubstep (feat. Scrufizzer)
    2:16
  13. 13Dip
    3:32
  14. 14Smokin & Drinkin
    2:53
  15. 15Break It [Go]
    3:13
  16. 16Handstand
    2:55
  17. 17Way up Here (feat. Ab - Soul)
    2:37
  18. 18Kush Coma (feat. a$Ap Rocky & Zelooperz)
    4:41
  19. 19Float on (feat. Charli Xcx)
    3:31
  20. —Dubstep
  21. —Way Up Here
  22. —Float On
  23. —Dope Fiend Rental
  24. —Kush Coma
  25. —Smokin' and Drinkin'
  26. —The Return

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Hot Soup - Instrumentals
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Explore

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  1. Lift You Up
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  2. Lift You Up - Baauer Remix
    3:25
  3. 1999Stardust
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  4. 1l0v3myl1f3!Stardust
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  5. 64
  6. Ain't My ConcernQuaranta
    2:51
  7. All4uStardust
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  9. Bass JamQuaranta
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  10. Bird W/O Nest

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Credits

Production & Engineering

Writer
Alex Sowinski, Charli xcx, Chester Hansen, Danny Brown, Ging, Matthew Tavares
Composer
Alex Sowinski, Chester Hansen, Ging, Matthew Tavares
Producer
BADBADNOTGOOD, Ging
Guitar
Matthew Tavares
Mastering Engineer
Tatsuya Sato
Mixing Engineer
Ging, Matthew Tavares
Recording Engineer
Matthew Tavares, Witt
READ MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWNREAD MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWNREAD MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWNREAD MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWN
READ MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWNREAD MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWNREAD MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWNREAD MORE ABOUT DANNY BROWN
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