The Only Limp Bizkit Song That Matters

In 2002, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and forever changed the relationship between video games and music. Video games could not only make artists like the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series did. It could make an entire era cool again. Bands like A Flock of Seagulls could never have a resurgence in the nu metal era if the entire eighties weren’t having a resurgence. It also helped their cool factor that their only hit song I Ran suddenly became the soundtrack to polygonal vehicular manslaughter and over-the-top gun violence. The song itself came to symbolize an era of excess and tragic sense of fashion.

What happened to A Flock of Seagulls wasn’t an isolated incident, though. Every two decades, the era from twenty or thirty years passed becomes cool again. Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin forged the sound of the 90s. Rockabilly had an inexplicable resurgence in popularity a couple years prior. It’s mostly because the people who were kids in an era become adults and tend to look back on their formative years in a fonder, less self-conscious way and grow a new, semi-ironic appreciation for it. It’s one of the weird caveats of emotional maturity. It helps you understand your own immaturity better.

Such resurgence is happening to Limp Bizkit, right now.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Limp Bizkit sucks. They always sucked and their cultural resurgence is either 99% ironic or fueled by the same people who unashamedly enjoy the music of Nickelback. They outrageously relied on turntable scratches to stretch out their songs, make disgusting sex innuendo and generally tend to whatever 14 year olds think is cool: sex, rolling with your homies, breaking shit and reacting way too fucking hard whenever someone disagrees with you. Break Stuff sounds like it was written by a narc for an educational show about managing your emotions.

The entire catalog of Limp Bizkit songs is boring and predictable except for one song: Re-Arranged, which doesn’t sounds like anything they did before or after. I want to tell you why I believe it’s awesome, different and it deserves to be on a video game soundtrack in 2028.

Reason #1 - It’s about adult problems

Re-Arranged is a break up song, a topic which Limp Bizkit never really explored all that deeply in their career. One would expect a Limp Bizkit breakup song would consist of Fred Durst cursing his ex for three minutes to power chords and turntable scratches, but he much more subdued and sophisticated about it than you’d expect. He’s expressing frustration and disappointment at not being listened to:

But you don't understand when I'm attempting to explain
Because you know it all and I guess things will never change

But you might need my hand when falling in your whole
Your disposition I'll remember when I'm letting go of

Durst is literally walking away from a relationship in Re-Arranged and he’s hurt. He’s showing vulnerability in a way that isn’t corny or juvenile. He’s not defeated or weepy, but he makes the ex feel like she’s not worth his time without actually saying it. It’s not super deep or anything, but it shows emotional growth without actually sacrificing the stupid, backwards hat tough guy image.

Re-Arranged is a song a 16 years old can listen to and feel sophisticated for liking. It helps him understand his own feelings in a more subdued way and it makes a 37 years old filter his own memories in a slightly more melodramatic fashion. And this is how you feel when you’re going through a breakup. Your emotions are amplified and melodramatic, but your actions are subdued.

Reason #2 - It’s about famous adults problems

Surprise, the breakup in Re-Arranged is a metaphor! The video sheds a little light on it. What the song is really about is the Woodstock ‘99 riots, which Limp Bizkit were accused of. That’s why they are put in prison and sentenced to death (by drowning in cum) in front of mildly pleased establishment figures in the video. This makes the lyrics of Re-Arranged somehow more sophisticated and heartfelt than I previously through. Because the only meaningful relationship Fred Durst ever entertained in his life is to his own celebrity.

Durst is not playing heartbroken in Re-Arranged. He IS heartbroken. He self-consciously recognizes that he got pigeonholed as a soulless troublemaker by the media and professes his disappointment at the breakdown in this otherwise fruitful relationship. He got genuinely fucked over by something he believed in. In many ways, Fred Durst peers into his own future in Re-Arranged and expressed his dread over the upcoming fallout. I’m reaching a little bit here, but look at the lyrics for yourself:

You make believe that nothing is wrong until you're cryin'
You make believe life is so long until you're dyin'

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I’m reading: I was the fucking king until I was not. It was going to last forever until it stopped. Maybe I’m crazy. But just the fact that Durst disguised his feelings with a metaphor and showed he could be more than the childish jerk persona that made him rich and famous. Re-Arranged was a crossroads moment for Limp Bizkit. Obviously, they didn’t choose the possibility they raised in the song, but that alone makes it deeper than the rest of their catalog.

Reason #3 - It has a killer bass line

The usual Limp Bizkit song features walls of guitar, nonsensical rapping and a predictable rock structure. Re-Arranged has none of these elements. Wes Borland’s guitar is spacey and minimalist. It’s almost inaudible behind the groovy, rolling bass line that dominated the song. I guess you could say Fred Durst raps on the song, but he really doesn’t. At least not in a conventional sense of the term. It’s halfway between singing and spoken word. When he sings the chorus, his voice echoes and disappears behind the instrumentation.

It’s very unlike them. I have no clue why they made these decision, but it was the most riveting moment of their career.

The final ramp up (where they drown in cum) is also quite peculiar, with walls of swirling guitars that are more akin to shoegaze song structures than rap rock. It crescendoes as Fred Durst reaffirms his disbelief in the media structures that turned against him and sealed his fate louder and louder before being drowned out. The story doesn’t explain the artistic choice of drowning in cum, but my best guess is that it exemplifies the lack of respect and also playfully winks at the band’s name. Limp Bizkit got limp biscuited by the media. Once again, the video showed to be prescient of what happened in real life.