All Childish Gambino edition. Been listening to this album the past two days driving between the houses moving stuff. All have lines and chorus' that already mean a lot to me and I feel have a bearing on my life. Not just that the lyrics are done well, the beats are amazing and they're just fantastic songs. Last year in November I couldn't wait for this album to drop. It took me a couple months to really get into this album, Camp, and I now adore it. Had it not been for Watch the Throne, this year and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy last year, Donald Glover would have my album of the year two years running now.
Childish Gambino- "Letter Home" from Camp
"You're the only girl that I have ever wanted
Every other girl is trying to be you
My mama says that I should write you letters
But I think you're with other dudes
Take my hand, you'll like it
You don't even have to call
Yes I've had some alcohol, I'm sorry
Take my hand
You don't even have to call
You're somewhere out there after all
You're all I ever wanted
You're all I ever wanted
You're all I ever wanted"
Childish Gambino- "Heartbeat" from Camp
"She ain't a killer, but she'd fucking blow your head off
I know he wondering, "What the fuck you hiding?"
That we dated like raps about Bin Laden
Ayo, fuck this
Are we dating? Are we fucking?
Are we best friends? Are we something in between that?"
Childish Gambino- "L.E.S." from Camp
"Baby, you're the baddest
Baby, you're the baddest girl and uh
Nobody else matters
Nobody else matters girl and uh
We're kissing in the bathroom
We're kissing in the bathroom girl and uh
I hope nobody catch us
But I kinda hope they catch us"
"When I'm depressed you're someone I run to"
"Ooh girl, I wanna know
Are you ready to cry, cause I'm no good, no good
Ooh girl, I wanna try
I'm an awful guy and I'm always away
And I'm tryin' to say
I'mma piece of shit
Believe in this
I'm tellin' you
Cause we barely knew, what we had
I'm not that bad, the fun we had
Ooh"
Childish Gambino- "Kids (Keep Up)" from Camp
"If we were kids
I'd want to give you everything that you would want
Those other boys
They gave you toys, but all they wanna do is
Keep up
Keep up, keep up, keep up
That's all I want, keep up
Keep up with me, keep up
Keep up
Keep up, keep up, keep up
That's all I want, keep up
Keep up with me, keep up"
"The chips are up and on my shoulder, you heard me?
Surprise, surprise, yet ANOTHER song off Childish Gambino's album Camp. This is actually the closer of the album, "That Power", and I've been listening to it more for the story Donald recites at the than the verses it's self though those are pretty great in their own right. The beat in the song and outro is good as well and that doesn't hurt this song in the least either.
Childish Gambino- "That Power" from Camp
"This is on a bus back from camp. I’m thirteen and so are you. Before I left for camp I imagined it would be me and three or four other dudes I hadn't met yet, running around all summer, getting into trouble. It turned out it would be me and just one girl. That’s you. And we’re still at camp as long as we’re on the bus and not at the pickup point where our parents would be waiting for us. We’re still wearing our orange camp t-shirts. We still smell like pine-needles. I like you and you like me and I more-than-like you, but I don’t know if you do or don’t more-than-like me. You’ve never said, so I haven’t been saying anything all summer, content to enjoy the small miracle of a girl choosing to talk to me and choosing to do so again the next day and so on. A girl who’s smart and funny and who, if I say something dumb for a laugh, is willing to say something two or three times as dumb to make me laugh, but who also gets weird and wise sometimes in a way I could never be. A girl who reads books that no one’s assigned to her, whose curly brown hair has a line running through it from where she put a tie to hold it up while it was still wet.
Back in the real world we don’t go to the same school, and unless one of our families moves to a dramatically different neighborhood, we won’t go to the same high school. So, this is kind of it for us. Unless I say something. And it might especially be it for us if I actually do say something. The sun’s gone down and the bus is quiet. A lot of kids are asleep. We’re talking in whispers about a tree we saw at a rest stop that looks like a kid we know. And then I’m like, “Can I tell you something?” And all of a sudden I’m telling you. And I keep telling you and it all comes out of me and it keeps coming and your face is there and gone and there and gone as we pass underneath the orange lamps that line the sides of the highway. And there’s no expression on it. And I think just after a point I’m just talking to lengthen the time where we live in a world where you haven’t said “yes” or “no” yet. And regrettably I end up using the word “destiny.” I don’t remember in what context. Doesn’t really matter. Before long I’m out of stuff to say and you smile and say, “okay.” I don’t know exactly what you mean by it, but it seems vaguely positive and I would leave in order not to spoil the moment, but there’s nowhere to go because we’re are on a bus. So I pretend like I’m asleep and before long, I really am.
I wake up, the bus isn’t moving anymore. The domed lights that line the center aisle are all on. I turn and you’re not there. Then again a lot of kids aren’t in their seats anymore. We’re parked at the pick-up point, which is in the parking lot of a Methodist church. The bus is half empty. You might be in your dad’s car by now, your bags and things piled high in the trunk. The girls in the back of the bus are shrieking and laughing and taking their sweet time disembarking as I swing my legs out into the aisle to get up off the bus, just as one of them reaches my row. It used to be our row, on our way off. It’s Michelle, a girl who got suspended from third grade for a week after throwing rocks at my head. Adolescence is doing her a ton of favors body-wise. She stops and looks down at me. And her head is blasted from behind by the dome light, so I can’t really see her face, but I can see her smile. And she says one word: “destiny.” Then her and the girls clogging the aisles behind her all laugh and then she turns and leads them off the bus. I didn’t know you were friends with them.
I find my dad in the parking lot. He drives me back to our house and camp is over. So is summer, even though there’s two weeks until school starts. This isn’t a story about how girls are evil or how love is bad, this is a story about how I learned something and I’m not saying this thing is true or not, I’m just saying it’s what I learned. I told you something. It was just for you and you told everybody. So I learned cut out the middle man, make it all for everybody, always. Everybody can’t turn around and tell everybody, everybody already knows, I told them. But this means there isn’t a place in my life for you or someone like you. Is it sad? Sure. But it’s a sadness I chose. I wish I could say this was a story about how I got on the bus a boy and got off a man more cynical, hardened, and mature and shit. But that’s not true. The truth is I got on the bus a boy. And I never got off the bus. I still haven’t."
As I'm typing this in the good ole Windows notepad while the internet is being a piece of shit at school, I occurs to me why I picked this Childish Gambino song as my song of the day. Ever since my dad passed away I'm feeling as if I've fallen into depression. Sleeping too much, loneliness, sadness, terrible thoughts, etc. I've built a cocoon around casting, football talk on Sundays/Mondays (and now Thursday's) and playing Minecraft and the like with everyone. While these times are helping me coupe, there's few genuine moments of joy and happiness in my life anymore. Not saying that if I've been hanging out with you lately it's for the worst, here's a quick that you to EVERYONE who's been there the past month and a half now. But this song, and I have no clue why, every time it comes on since I've gotten Camp, has made me smile, happy and go wow. Music is such a powerful thing. It's doesn't even have to be a song about anything going on, but can make you feel good.
Childish Gambino- "Kids (Keep Up)" from Camp
"If we were kids I wouldn’t act like this but we not"
"If we were kids
I'd want to give you everything that you would want
So on my way to school and in first period I listened to Childish Gambino's first official album release, Camp. With me being a pretty big Donald Glover fan, of course I loved it. On the way home I stopped at Target to grab the physical copy of the album ($8, not too shabby). But after the first three listens yesterday there were two songs (so far) that got stuck in my head. These are those two songs. On the album they're starting off the meat of the album itself. The beats are nice (especially the background to "Letter Home" which I already adore), the lyrics are real, and the rapping is on point. Not much more you can ask for me music-wise. *Nods head to the beats*
"You're the only girl that I have ever wanted
Every other girl is trying to be you
My mama says that I should write you letters
But I think you're with other dudes
Take my hand, you'll like it
You don't even have to call
Yes I've had some alcohol, I'm sorry
Take my hand
You don't even have to call
You're somewhere out there after all
You're all I ever wanted
You're all I ever wanted
You're all I ever wanted"
"She ain't a killer, but she'd fucking blow your head off
I know he wondering, "What the fuck you hiding?"
That we dated like raps about Bin Laden
Ayo, fuck this
Are we dating? Are we fucking?
Are we best friends? Are we something in between that?"
