Ashnikko - Blow (Lyrical Breakdown)

The title of the song is a triple entendre - you'll see what I mean later.

Ashnikko is genderfluid and uses both she/her and they/them pronouns. I used they/them on this breakdown, those just felt right for this song (I can't explain it, there's no concrete reason).

Take it and off show 'em how much you want 'em

Take it and off show 'em how much you want it

I can make you all remember me

Speedwalk burning rubber on my enemies

I misstep, yeah we never see

A knife in my back but you never be the death of me

They're talking about their career - claiming they can outrun their enemies, beat them in the race for success.

"Burning rubber" usually refers to accelerating a car so fast some of the rubber from the tires burns and leaves marks on the road. So, Ash is implying they're walking so fast their shoes leave burn marks on the road.

But they misstep, they fail to outwalk the enemies.

Someone stabbed them in the back, figuratively. If someone literally stabs another person in the back, they might die, but Ash is saying the backstabber will never be the death of them, they'll get back up.

Little baby me tryna play with my dollies

Rip all their heads off, tell 'em I'm sorry

I'm not sure what Ash means by this, since hurting toys and animals as a child is a possible sign of psychopathy.

But they said "tryna play with my dollies" and "tell 'em I'm sorry", indicating that it might have been an accident. They're just playing a bit too rough.

Maybe they're saying they're a bit rough on the edges, but mean no harm?

I'm a Tesla, fuck a new Ferrari

I'm the best of, ride off on a Harley

Car metaphors... Tesla is new, it's modern and ecological, technologically advanced, it's reliable. Ferrari may be fast, but they're bad for the environment. Also, Tesla looks like a normal car you'd see on the road everyday. Ferrari is a show-off car, like you're trying too hard to prove you've made it and you're cool cause you drive a Ferrari.

Ash is saying they're the future of music, a modern and real alternative to the boisterous show-offs that many rap musicians are. So many of them make songs about coming from nothing and now having tons of success and money and sex, even though they had actually grown up middle class or even rich, or had not actually made it yet or getting laid as much as they say they are. It's a thing, like in metal "ooh, I'm scary, I worship the Satan and kill everyone" is a thing, when 99% of us are not scary, Satan worshippers or pagans, or murderers. It's just an image of a person we tend to find cool, like hiphop heads do with their rags to riches stories. But yeah, both of those are just a show, that's Ash's point. Ash is real, what they represent is not an act.

I'm not familiar with the image that Harvey Davidson represents. I know they're motorcycles, and people who ride motorcycles tend to 1) be cool loners, or 2) be cool people who hang around other cool biker people, or 3) be in motorcycle gangs, which are scary but can be wholesome, i.e. stand up against pedophiles.

Based on my knowledge, I think Ash is saying they're a cool loner, but if they encounter like-minded individuals, they connect with those people. And maybe (in theory, not in practise) beat up bad people together. Like Daisy, Ash's alter ego from a song they released a couple of years after this. Daisy is a serial killer who kills "rapists and other bad people".

This is my debut

A place I always knew

The reason I recommend this or Hi It's Me as one's first Ashnikko song (unless you want to intentionally show them Ash's metal influences or something).
This song is the first song from their second EP, also called Hi, It's Me.
I'm not sure how the record deal went down exactly, but I knew Ash's debut EP was a collab with the producer Raf Riley. The label specifically wanted them to make the EP together. So, Hi It's Me is Ash's debut solo EP, in a sense. And if they had already made some of the songs together before getting the record deal (as I think it went down, I think they released Krokodil before as independent artists on SoundCloud, then got the record deal and task to do an EP together, and then did the EP but ended up not using Krokodil on it after all).
My mind wants to get real poetic with deciphering "a place I always knew"... I'm struggling to find words to explain it, though (and I'm probably over-reading into things, but that's fine - art is in the eye of the beholder, it's always bigger than what the artist meant it to be anyways)... Like, I've struggled with depression since I was 7-10, right. And when I was teenager, and to some extent to this day, one of my coping mechanisms was "starting over" whenever I felt like I didn't have control over my life and wellbeing anymore. I used to be more extreme with it, trying to change EVERYTHING about myself to a new kind of life - my looks, my hobbies, my interests, sometimes even friends (if the need to start over was because of a friend betraying me or us having a major fight). I've gotten more methodical (=fast, efficient) and chill about over the decades, now I just think about what changes do I have to make in my life in order to be happier and more functioning as a human being. Mainly I just go back and forth between having a lot of structure and routines in my life, and going with the flow. At some point the structure becomes overwhelming, demanding and stressing, or the routine gets boring, and I need variation. And at some point, going with the flow results in me not achieving anything in life and becoming a slob and relying on substances for "fun" in my life. But at best, either way makes me feel energized and creative.
So, from my point of view, "this is my debut, a place I always knew" can be a person being used to starting their life over, over and over again. Ash's family moved from North Carolina, USA to Estonia when Ash was 13, and then to Latvia when Ash was 14. From there, Ash moved to London alone at the age of 18 and they still live there. This song was released in 2019, when they were 23. They're no stranger to new beginnings themselves.
I've also moved about a dozen times, but only around the Southern half of Finland. (And my first move was at 4 years old, but the 2nd wasn't until I was 19. = I've moved ~10 times in the past ~10 years of my life.)

I'll fix a bitch like glue

You cut me down, I grew

Ash being 'the bitch'. They put themselves together after being stabbed in the back, cut down. If an object breaks, you can fix it with glue.
Some plants grow better after they've been cut. (The same has been said about hair, but that's a myth.)
The figurative stabbing in the back made Ash stronger as a person than what they were before.

I'ma blow up on 'em

Blow up on 'em

Blow a kiss to your girl

I'ma blow up on 'em

Blow up on 'em

Blow up on 'em

Blow a kiss to your girl

I'ma blow up on 'em

Blow up on 'em

Blow up on 'em

Put my name on the world

I'ma blow up on 'em

The chorus, with the triple "blow".
1) Blow up on someone, like explode, be very angry and lose your shit. 
2) Blow up, like become famous, "put [your] name on the world"
3) Blow a kiss, Ash is blowing a kiss to your girl. Ash is being gay (well, pan, but anyway). And stealing your girl.

Some say tiptoe

Some say drop

Some say cutthroat

Some say stop

To figuratively "tiptoe" is to be very cautious. To "drop" something is to stop doing whatever it is that you were doing. To be "cutthroat" means to be ruthless, have no mercy.
Ash is getting all these outside opinions on how they should behave and present themselves. Be a "lady" or to be a badass, etc...  

I just wanna push you to the edge now

Can be taken in multiple ways:
1) Ash wants to push someone off a cliff.
2) Edging, the sexual act. Pushing someone close to an orgasm and backing down, repeatedly.
3) Ash feels like they're edgy, like they're rough around the edges (like the kids who accidentally "kill" their dolls) or a badass biker.

Maybe we can love until we're dead now

Self-explanatory. 

Maybe I'm a threat, maybe off with my head

Possibly some of the outside opinions telling Ash to tiptoe, to drop it or to downright stop are expressed because those people are intimidated by Ash. 

Catch you in my web, you can pick a blue or red

 Like the web of a spider, a predator, a threat. Or web like the internet.

Blue and red pills from the scifi movie The Matrix. The main character Neo learns that the world humans see around themselves is actually called the matrix, it's a colorful and loud façade created to hide the real world, which is all grey and dead and miserable. Neo is then offered two pills: a red one and a blue one. The red pill would show him the miserable truth, and the blue pill would erase his memory of learning about the matrix and he could go back to his happy, but fake life.

This ties into the previous bar with the car metaphors in the sense that it's another duality between something that's loud and colorful and fun (Ferrari), and between something more attainable and down-to-earth (Tesla).

Glossy, glossy, who's gonna stop me?

There's something to be said for a bitch who can top me

There's something in their head honey munching the poppies

S on my chest but my baby call me bossy

I think the "glossy, glossy" refers to the matrix, the Ferraris of this world. The shiny, fancy things people want but that are fake/unattainable.

If someone ("a bitch", but they/them pronouns in the next bar = could be a person of any gender) can beat Ash, that person's high on something, some kind of pills.

Bitches are female dogs. If someone's the "top dog", they're the boss, the alpha, whatever you wanna call them. 

Because the next bar is about a romantic partner, these two bars could also have a sexual double. A person "topping" another person, being on top.

"S on my chest" like Superman or Superwoman, a superhero. Ash is a hero, but their partner calls them bossy. They're trying to do the right thing, something that's good for everyone, but get shit for it. I think this is still the time when Ash was dating their boyfriend, of which all those later disses in Ash's songs are about...

Bossy by Kelis is Ash's favorite song. I haven't heard it so I don't know if it's relevant, but probably yes.

[Repeats pre-chorus, chorus and post-chorus]

Fake it to the top 'cause they smell the fear

I'ma shine like a gem in the chandelier

I'ma blow like a fuse so they know I'm here

I'ma shine like a gem in the chandelier

Fake it to the top 'cause they smell the fear

I'ma shine like a gem in the chandelier

I'ma blow like a fuse so they know I'm here

I'ma shine like a gem in the chandelier

This takes kind of a sad turn here. Earlier Ash said they're real while others are fake, but here Ash seems to come to the conclusion they have to fake it to make it.

Ash feels like they have to also be shiny like a gem in a chandelier or draw attention to themselves like a fuse when it blows.

So Ash blows like a fuse, tying this back to the lyrics of the chorus and the song title (blowing up like being very angry and losing your shit, but also, blowing up like making it, becoming successful). 

Gems in a chandelier are shiny, pretty things people look at for two seconds and go "ooh, that's pretty" and then look away. But if a fuse blows, it usually means one of your electrical devices stops working or the lights or power go out completely. You forget fuses are even there until one of them blows. And when they do blow, they sort of cause a disturbance in your matrix - suddenly you lose something (temporarily) that you're used to having, and if it's a tv or a computer or something, it's probably distracting you from the real world right when the fuse blows, and then when it's suddenly gone, when you're not yet ready to get back into the real world... It does stop you for a second, when your mind tries to suddenly get back into this world and then you realize "oh, it's probably a fuse".

[Repeats chorus and post-chorus]