Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe/Rap Meanings

Edgar Allan Poe:
 Once upon a midnight dreary, as I spit this weak and weary, 

("Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered weak and weary" is the first sentence in The Raven, a famous poem written by Poe. Poe says he's spitting, or rapping, against King, who he then calls weak and weary.)

I will choke this joker with a trochee till his cheeks are teary (ahh!)

(A trochee is defined as "a foot consisting of one long or stressed syllable followed by one short or unstressed syllable", and one of the most prominent examples of trochees is The Raven, by Poe. Poe also uses trochees in his rapping. In short, Poe will strangle King until he cries.)

But y'all don't hear me, all should fear me.

(Poe is showing off and saying that anyone who crosses him should fear him. King seems to be ignoring the taunt.)

I'll forever be better, you'll never be near me, your books are as eerie as Beverly Cleary!

(Poe says he'll always be better than King and that King will never even get close to Poe's greatness. Beverly Cleary is an author of books for children and young adults. Poe insults King's ability to write scary stories by comparing them as if King is writing them for young children, which would mean they're not scary at all.)

You're a faux Bram Stoker, so scram, the show's over

("Faux" is a French loanword that can mean false, fake, or phony, meaning that something is made to resemble the original item as closely as possible, but isn't quite the real thing. Bram Stoker was an author known for his stories in the horror genre, including the novel Dracula, one of the most famous horror stories in history. Poe claims that King just tries to copy Bram Stoker and then tells him to get out because the battle is already about to be over.) 

Your flow's so-so, Poe's poems pwn posers

(Poe first says that King's flow is so-so or okay. He continues, saying that his poems beat the ones written by posers, or people who copy him, which he claims King is one of.)

I wrote 'em locked in a cave, while I sobbed in a rage

(Poe wrote most of his works when he was alone and in places that, for lack of a better phrase, would make a man think too much, such as during his 1830 court-martial at West Point, or during times of great stress like his brother's death. That he was "locked in a cage" may simply be an urban legend.)

 Th e Tell-Tale Heart beats soft in its grave 

("The Tell-Tale Heart" is a story by Poe. It tells of a murderer hearing the sound of his victim's dead heart beat.)

While this jerk just beats off on a page!

(Continuation: Meanwhile, Poe claims that King will just be masturbating and ejaculating in one of his own books.)

Stephen King:
''' Oh, you want to talk shop, you gothed-out fop? '''

(Talking shop means to discuss work, especially of a technical, jargon-filled nature. A fop is a man who is concerned with their clothes and appearance, and Poe's dark, gloomy, dreary style is seen as gothic.)

Go back to Hot Topic and shop for a top

(Hot Topic is a clothing store that sells dark goth-like clothing. Edgar Allan Poe's black outfit is considered quite a distinguishing piece of clothing. King is telling Poe that the way he dresses is dark and gothic.)

There's a melancholy alcoholic laughingstock

(Melancholy means moody and depressing. Poe had alcohol problems towards the end of his life and this was widely believed to be the cause of his death. A laughingstock is someone that everybody mocks so King is calling Poe and his works laughable. In essence he is saying Poe is a depressing and drunk idiot. He could also be pointing Poe out to a stock of clothing in Hot Topic as a continuation of the previous line.)

In the King's house, now watch the Castle Rock

(A pun on King's name. Castle Rock was the fictional setting of some of his books, taken from the mountain fort in the famous William Golding novel Lord of the Flies. Kings stereotypically live in castles.)

Pouty little poet with an opiate affliction

(Pouting is when someone has a sulky facial expression. It is also something babies can do a lot. King may be saying Poe's fiction is whiny and sulky. Edgar Allan Poe had problems with opium which people also believe may have been the cause of his death. An affliction is a problem or illness.)

I'm a workaholic with a fiction addiction

(Stephen has said he writes every day so could be considered a workaholic and having an addiction to producing fiction. He could also be comparing his addiction to writing to Poe's addiction to drugs and alcohol.)

I'm making dedicated readers shivery and jittery

(King says that his books make the reader shake with fright and anticipation as well as saying that he has many die-hard fans that read his novels.)

Feel that Rage and Misery

(Triple meaning: he is saying that his books have many levels of emotion in them as well as telling Poe that he should be feeling angry and glum because he is getting beaten by Stephen. Misery and Rage are also books by King. However, Rage was written under King's psudonym Richard Bachman.)

You better start Running Man, you're in deep poo, Poe

(Running Man is a novel written by King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. He is telling Poe to flee because he is "in deep shit" meaning in trouble. This line also references a part in The Shawshank Redemption where the main protagonist Andy crawls through excrement. He also references the similarites in sound between poo and Poe.)

I'm a mad dog, fangs Shining, Cujo

(The Shining was a novel by King which was turned into a film and properly established him as an author of the horror genre. Cujo was another Stephen King novel about a rabid dog. He is saying he is wild and will rip apart Poe like Cujo did to his victims.)

Tommyknock you down till you can't Stand up

(Tommyknockers was yet another book by King. He makes a pun on the book's title by saying he will knock Poe to the ground.)

You're as soft as Po, the Kung Fu Panda

(Kung Fu Panda was a Dreamworks movie about a fat and mild-mannered panda who is chosen as "The Dragon Warrior" to fight off the main antagonist. Another pun on Poe's name, saying that his fiction is mild compared to King's thrillers. Also, pandas are known for being soft and fluffy.)

Racks on racks cause I pen fat stacks of frightening writing, have you seen the pile?

(King is bragging about all the books that he has written with racks probably referencing book store racks. He is asking Poe whether he has seen all the novels of his.)

I can even take a break from my routine style

(He says while he is a horror writer he can show diversity in his work and make novels with alternate genres)

Crank out a Shawshank or a Green Mile

(Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile are stories by King that were both had film adaptations. The Shawshank Redemption is even considered by many to be the best film of all time. The two books, unlike the majority of his novels, are not a part of the horror genre. King is saying, that like this slight change in genre, he is taking a break from his routine raps, and cranking out a new style.)

Masque of the Red Death, barely blood curdling

(Masque of the Red Death was a short story by Poe in which a strange creature who appears to be a victim of a new plague kills the main protagonist and the other supporting characters. King sarcastically calls it blood curdling.)

Pit and the Pendulum, not even unnerving

(The Pit and the Pendulum was another short story by Poe, which describes a narrator's experience of being tortured during the Spanish Inquisition. King unsarcastically calls it boring.)

''' Perving on your first cousin when she's thirteen years old? Now that's disturbing  '''

(At the age of 27, Poe married Virginia Clemm, his first cousin, who was thirteen years old at the time. After King calls "The Pit and the Pendulum", a story which can be considered disturbing for some people, boring, he says that the only thing that's actually disturbing about Poe is how he married such a young member of the family.)

Edgar Allan Poe
 Stephen, you pretend to do it 

(Poe is stating that King doesn't actually know what it's like to live through difficulty, which he follows up on in the next line.)

 I've been really living through it 

(Poe makes the point that he's actually lived through extremely harsh trials in his life, meaning that his issues reflect in the quality of his work, unlike King.)

Like misery and poverty and family woes

(Poe is said to have suffered much throughout his life. He was generally miserable and depressed, and was rarely paid a living wage for any of the jobs he took on. He also had a history of issues with family; his adoptive father disowned him, his brother died, his cousin was consumed by TB, and he had poor relations with most of the women in his life.)

I see through you like pantyhose, doing Chappelle and Simpsons cameos (ahh!)

(An insult towards King for "selling out" in his work, which Poe had an extreme hatred towards.)

Even if you're gripping on a weapon then you better get to stepping if you're messing with the horror lord

(Poe is stating that, even if King had a physical weapon to use against Poe, he would need to still put and extreme amount of effort to defeat him.)

In a minute maybe, I'mma hit him, cut him into itty bitty bits and I'mma stick him in the floorboards

(This is a reference to The Tell-Tale Heart where a man murders someone and hides him under the floorboards.)

Stephen King:
Speaking of bored, you're the worst

(Referring to the floorboard line, King uses wordplay to demonstrate how boring and poorly written Poe's works are. It also works with the next lines as Poe dropped out of boarding school.)

Dropped out of school but you can't drop a verse

(In 1820, Poe attended the University of Virginia, but had to leave school due to gambling debts. King says that, although Poe can drop out of school, he can't drop, or rap, a good verse.)

I could have spent that time better

(King thinks rapping against Poe was a waste of his time and he could have spent the time in a better way, which he'll explain in his following line.)

In eight bars I can write a whole best seller

(King's second verse, which he is currently rapping, consists of eight lines or bars. Many of the books which King wrote became best-sellers and King is considered one of the best-selling authors in the world. He says that, instead of using these eight lines for battling Poe, which he said was a waste of his time, he could have used them to write a whole best-seller in just eight sentences, since he's so good at writing them. A popular joke about King is that he manages to write stories very quickly, and some believe he can write a novel in seconds.)

I'm so prolific, this sickly goblin won't be bothering me, I'm on a clobbering spree

(King is calling Poe a sickly goblin, a goblin being a popular horror creature, subtly mentioning that Poe's appearance is scarier than his stories.)

And I'll be smacking you with any of the big thick books in my big dick bibliography

(King has written many books, with his bibliography being his full list of them. Dick is a nickname for Richard, so King's big dick bibliography is his books under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. King is also stating that he will slap Poe with his genitals.)

See, I'm the author with the blood and gore lore galore that'll horrify a reader to the core

(Stephen King is often titled 'The King of Horror', as he makes a galore, or a lot, of horrifying fictional stories. Many of these stories are so chilling that they terrify the reader.)

'''Fame? Money? Talent? Success? You'll always have less, never more!'''

(King simply names up some things he has a lot of and says that Poe will always have less of these things than King has; King is much more well known than Poe is. King is a multimillionaire, whereas Poe died without a penny to his name. King brags about his diversity in his literature, and how much more successful he is than Poe. Also, in Poe's The Raven, "nevermore" was the raven's response to the main protagonist's comments. Here, King is using it to say Poe will never have more compared to him.)