People usually never notice that sometimes their favorite songs have a much deeper meaning than they’d expect. You can be listening to a song that has an upbeat rhythm and little do you know the lyrics behind it hold such a stronger and deeper message. This is something that can be seen when closely analyzing the song “3005” by artist Donald Glover who is better well known by his stage name, Childish Gambino. While many speculate the song to be about falling madly in love with someone and vowing to stick by that person no matter what, Glover says otherwise. In an interview, he stated:
“Everybody’s like, ‘It’s a love song,’ it’s kind of an existential thing. I’m just really scared of being alone...”
Now it might just be because I have an open mind, but I fully agree with his statement. To me, behind all of the catchy beats and even the hook of the song which will forever be engraved in my brain, I think the song is a perfect example of growing out of your adolescence and learning on how to navigate in the real world by yourself, all alone.
I feel as though we cannot get to the core of the song without dissecting the song’s official music video. In the beginning of the video, we see Glover’s character “The Boy” get onto a ferris wheel with one of those life-sized teddy bears. The bear can be a representation of the character’s innocence. When we get to the end of the video, the viewer can see that the bear is
completely torn down and withered. As the character gets older, he loses all compassion for the bear, which I believe can also be seen as a comfort object that a child would carry around. The ferris wheel represents life, seeing as we all consider the life cycle to be “the circle of life” and all a ferris wheel does is continuously go around in a circular motion. Everything that’s happening
outside the ride just so happens to be on fire. This could be an interpretation of how some people never focus on anything outside of their own life, especially when they’re too stuck on the fact that they could possibly be alone forever. They’re so isolated and consumed with their own lives, that they never focus on the outside horrors of the world and simply just other things that go on around them.
Steering away from the music video, I want to give my final interpretation of the song in itself. I see this song to be about growing up, and realizing that you will not be able to rely on those around you and mainly you will have to fend for yourself. You are faced with the fear of being alone. You are confronted with the problem of having to make your own life choices and decisions. This song means so much to me because of the fact that I’ve always been afraid of getting old, and I’m so scared of what the future holds for me. I won’t have the authoritative
figures I have now in ten years time, and will need to rely on myself. Though it’s not my all time favorite song by Donald Glover, it very much holds a special place in my heart because of the scary resemblance it has with my life. The song is an overall piece of art and reminds people that it’s okay to feel alone, and that sometimes we have to take on some of life’s toughest obstacles on our own.
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