Bino’s Bouts With Love

A compare and contrast essay between “Telegraph Ave.” and “Redbone” by Childish Gambino.

Love is music’s most common theme. Romance and rancor, lust and loss; music always gravitates toward humanity’s strongest and most cherished emotion. Like many artists, much of Donald Glover’s work centers around the complexity of love. Whether it be his stand-ups, his movies, his TV show Atlanta, or the music created under his alias “Childish Gambino”, Glover －or Gambino－ dissects how love, or the lack thereof, puppeteers the human psyche. Though every one of Gambino’s albums explores love, two particular songs show his anxiety when it decays.

Released in 2013 on his second album Because the Internet, “Telegraph Ave. (Oakland by Lloyd)” is a glimpse at Gambino’s drive on California’s I-5 to Oakland, where the girl he’s conflicted with resides. The song opens with subtle sounds of Bino starting his car. The radio wakes, and Yesi Ortiz introduces a song titled Oakland by Lloyd[1]. Gambino softly sings to a few lines of Lloyd’s first verse, but when it gives to the hook, Bino alone erupts. The emotions Bino feels for this girl are on a pendulum, swinging between positive and negative as he weaves through the interstate’s lanes to Oakland. The hook, the song’s thesis, illustrates this pendulum — first positive:

Foot on the gas

I’m just trying to pass

All the red lights

And the stop signs

I’m ready to go

Bino is ready to face this girl and finally drain the anxiety that engulfs him. However, the next moment is contradictory, as the last four lines of the hook reveal:

Before I get to The Bay

Babe, that’s a problem

Because I’m way too scared to call

And you might get me to stay

Though Bino wants to solve this relationship, he’s not yet to Oakland, and he’s afraid to call her. She may break it off before he arrives, or convince him to stay, despite his hesitation. What does he do instead? He sings along to the radio, telling us how he feels, picturing what he’ll say, fighting his fate.

Three years after Because the Internet, Gambino released “Awaken, My Love!”, featuring “Redbone”, now his most popular song. “Redbone” is the anchor of the album; a funkier, more poetic display of Gambino’s new R&B/Soul-bound direction from rap. In the first verse, Bino elaborates his situation:

Daylight

I wake up feeling like you won’t play right

I used to know, but now that shit don’t feel right

It made me put away my pride

He’s worried his girl is being unfaithful, that she’s not “playing right”. He thought she was the one, but now questions her loyalty to him. Infidelity is diminishing, and being cheated on dwindles Bino’s confidence and pride. His affection for this woman has grown to more than just lust, and he asks himself if the pain is worth it. It is, he declares in the pre-chorus:

If you want it

You can have it

If you need it

We can make it

He wants this girl, but he continues with caution, and insists we should do the same in the chorus:

But stay woke

N****s creepin’

They gon’ find you

Gon’ catch you sleepin’

Now stay woke

N****s creepin’

Now don’t you close your eyes

Bino wants to make this work, but stays alert. He’s afraid of the emotional wreckage, and is aware other men will find his girl desirable. So, he preserves himself. He won’t become vulnerable. He keeps his eyes peeled and his guard risen. He stays woke.

“Redbone” is a concise take on Bino’s worry, composed of tight stanzas and quick lines. He doesn’t reveal much of the situation or his perception of it, giving us only two short verses weaved between bridges and choruses. Adversely, “Telegraph Ave.” is anecdotal and specific, Bino working three verses of action and an outro of reflection separated by Lloyd’s hooks.

There’s a common theme between these two works: Gambino’s feelings are tangled with women. He wants to hold on, but is afraid it’s unhealthy. He contemplates aborting the relationships, but doesn’t want to face the sadness that follows. We hear his thoughts tug back and forth, in most cases abruptly, such as these lines in the second verses of “Telegraph Ave.”:

Can we just roll with the feeling?

Can we just roll for a minute?

Wait a minute

And “Redbone”, with a line of lust sandwiched between two that convey the opposite:

Too late

You wanna make it right, but now it’s too late

My peanut butter chocolate cake with Kool-Aid[2]

I’m trying not to waste my time

We witness Bino’s bouts with love, jumping and receding like waves in the Bay. Strangely enough, the word ‘love’ is never used in either song. Instead, he alludes to love with different situations and phrases. In “Telegraph Ave.” he speaks of sharing marriage, parenthood, travel, and aging with this woman; milestones usually associated with love. In “Redbone”, he repeats the phrases “I’m wishing I could make this mine.” and “You can have it… We can make it,” throughout the song, signifying his affection has moved past simple attraction. The lack of “love” in these songs signifies his fear and shielding to it, since the consequences of misusing it can be destructive.

The first two verses of each song are similar. Bino describes the conflict and introduces his unease toward them. But unlike “Redbone”, he includes a third verse on “Telegraph Ave.”. Because the Internet is the transition from “Rap” Gambino to “Soul” Gambino, and after three minutes of hearing the latter, Bino returns to his musical beginning, giving us a specific, connotative record with his quick tongue and creative language. During the last half of this verse, Bino tells us the story behind the drama, and for the only time in either song, he admits he’s partially at fault for the issues:

And you wanna be mom and I wasn’t mad at it

I was thinking bout’ me, I’d be really bad at it

Cause I’m thinking ‘bout me, weeks in Dubai

Fourth of July, house in Kauai, yeah we can try

So let’s try

Bino admits he’s been selfish. His girl wants children, but he doesn’t, not because she’d be a bad mother, but because he’s not ready for fatherhood. Instead, he gives her a decision: start a family and grow together or travel the world and consume their remaining youth. He cares for her more than himself, so he’s willing to do what she wants, even if it’s not ideal for him.

Gambino gives both songs respective outros, but not conclusions. He doesn’t tell us how these stories end, but instead asks a final question. The last line of “Telegraph Ave.” reads:

The only one I know is you, so the fuck I’m supposed to do?

In Oakland, in Oakland

Similarly, in “Redbone”, Bino asks “How’d we get so scandalous?” as the song fades out.

The outros of these songs don’t serve as resolutions, but Bino asking his girl “What do you say?” Soon after, the instrumental wraps up, and for two seconds of silence betwixt songs, we wonder what came of Gambino’s narratives.

For centuries, man has tried to describe love. The written word, poems, theatricals, music, and teenage Twitter try their best to match a definition to the term. But it’s not that simple, because love is not that simple. That’s what Gambino expresses in this pair of songs. Love is dangerous; it tempts, and it pulverizes. Our pendulum swings to one side. But we as humans are incomplete in its absence, so we search to fill the void. Our pendulum swings back. “Telegraph Ave.” and “Redbone” are Gambino’s view on the middle of this swing, the potential and kinetic energies that flow through the brain and stir its emotional complexions. Gambino allows us to observe and understand his internal struggles with love. And if we look close enough, we can see our own.

[1] The full version of Oakland hasn’t been released. Gambino and Lloyd may have created a song to place within a song, most notably the hook. It’s like the musical version of Inception. The last words of the song read: “The only one I know is you so the fuck I’m supposed to do / In Oakland, In Oakland”. Saying this, Oakland may be a syndoche for this girl, since she’s his only tie to the city.

[2] The term ‘Redbone’ is slang for a light-skinned woman. In this line, Gambino describes her skin tone — peanut butter chocolate — and her sweet impression — cake with Kool-Aid.

Cover photo courtesy of Lyfstylmusic.com