"Earthquake Weather" (Beck)

Maybe it's because I'm an East Coast guy.  But the term "earthquake weather" never meant anything to me.  I'd never heard the phrase before this song.  But apparently, it is a longstanding belief (dating to the Ancient Greeks) that long periods of hot, dry weather always precede seismic activity.  
Umm.  Yyyyyeah.
(Research has debunked this myth, by the way.)
As with 95% of his songs, Beck's lyrics are pretty abstract on this track, too.  My best guess is that he was probably commenting on the state of politics and the world in 2005 when Guero was released.  The words have an air of uncertainty and worry about them.  The chorus seems to be a sly reference to the old macabre joke about California tumbling into the ocean when the "big one" strikes, with the notion that small-minded people would see this type of event as an easy "cure" for anyone who dares question the status quo.
I believe this fits with the whole myth versus fact/truth versus perception vibe of the lyrics.
But enough literary analysis.
You couldn't ask for a better bedrock foundation to build a groove upon than the drum/soul clapping break from The Temptations' "What It Is."  (Yeah, Kimye West used it for Common's "The Corner," too, around the same time.  And, no, I'm not sure who used it first.  And, yeah, Common spits raw fire on his track.  But since West is a puffed up asshat with dueling Napoleon and God complexes, I'm gonna award this one to the Dust Brothers and move on.)  Then when you mix in seemingly disparate elements, like Beck's Delta blues-style riff on his busted-ass acoustic guitar and a 70s cop show clavinet, it becomes this funky cocktail that's not-quite-alternative/not-quite-hip hop.  Actually, that's kind of the recipe (I won't call it a "formula," because Beck is anything but formulaic) of Beck's best songs.  The Dust Brothers', too, for that matter.