Adam Yauch, also known as MCA of The Beastie Boys, died on 4 May. Jon Pareles’ obituary in the New York Times is here, and C.J. Hughes’ NYT report from the Lower East Side and East Village of Manhattan about mourning Yauch on the streets is here. Oliver Wang at NPR has a thoughtful piece on Yauch here.

I first listened to the Beastie Boys around 1986 or so, when a high school friend played his Licensed to Ill cassette over and over, and our group of Risk-playing ne’er-do-wells quickly memorized the whole album. Thus began the peppering of everyday speech with Beastie Boys lyrics, many decanted from the mouth of Yauch, whose scratchy throat always made him sound like the scruffiest of the three. Well into the 90s, part of the bond I had with that group of men from high school had to do with the ability to drop Beastie lyrics into ordinary scenarios like ordering fast food at the drive-through, playing basketball, or competing in video games.

Yauch and the other Beastie Boys, just a few years older than me and my friends, seemed to grow through their 20s, 30s, and 40s in ways that kept making sense, while never letting go of their adolescent insouciance. Licensed to Ill is a ready-made soundtrack for a punk rock frat party – or suburban fantasies of same. But Yauch was instrumental in shaping the band’s later lyrical maturity and public presence in the direction of political and spiritual engagement. Yauch took up Buddhism, and penned a song for the Beastie Boys, “Bodhisattva Vow.” Here are the lyrics (courtesy of lyricsdepot.com, with some of my editing):

(more…)