Closing time: that power by childish gambino
The fourth part of a five-part series diving deep into the songs that finish your favorite album
On his first-ever studio album, Donald Glover, also known by his stage name, “Childish Gambino”, shows off one of his many creative facets with his ability to create strong, passionate music. This album, titled Camp, was a showcase of how talented and misunderstood Glover was, constantly referring to his alienation in childhood and how that has followed him into adulthood. Although he still felt that isolation as an adult, he funneled that energy into his music and embraced his unique nature, paving the path for a successful career. While Camp is far from his best work, one of the most encapsulating tracks lies at the tail end of the project: That Power.
As a song that spans just under eight minutes long, it is evident the amount of care and thought Childish Gambino put into this track. An eerie melody created from the collective voices of a choir introduces the song which then creates an environment for an early version of Glover’s singing voice to thrive. While this was mostly a rap album, we see hints of what’s to come for the alias that is Childish Gambino throughout the project, a very experimental version of what was to be fine-tuned years a decade later. Eventually, Glover begins what he has accustomed the listener to, he raps. With a raspy voice and grit that can only be mimicked from experience, Glover is ready to bring the project to an end, and over the span of two verses, it really feels as if that is exactly what the listener is meant to experience.
In these verses, Glover speaks once again about how he feels a significant separation between not only himself and the societal groups he’s meant to feel connected to, but him and his competition in creative fields. All this is done with some clever wordplay, metaphors, and rhyme schemes to keep the listener’s attention, and he flows in this almost storytelling-like state for most of the track.
He speaks on the theme of the album, that his childhood struggles manifest themselves in his current life, but in new, unforeseen methods. Bullies become fans, but weren’t they always in a sense? Doubters become people who simply wait for you to take a step back instead of forwards, and tell you that this is no longer worth your while. And even so, as the song comes to the three-minute mark, the beat cuts and switches on a dime.
All of a sudden the intensity is turned all the way down, and all that is heard is a drumline that has an almost familiar consistency to it. After a brief vocal intermission, Gambino begins to go from this pseudo-storytelling to actual storytelling. He gives the listener a description of the setting, as he tells the tale of him as a middle school child coming home from summer camp. He meets this girl, and for the first time, he decides to tell her that he has feelings for her. Glover has trouble doing this and afterward decides to take a nap to avoid the awkwardness of the situation. After all, he’s on a bus headed back home, so there is nowhere else for him to go. When he wakes, the girl is nowhere to be seen, but after he notes that his crush told everyone else what he said and they all poke fun at him as they get in line to head off the bus.
The lesson that Gambino attempts to convey through this story is that he obsesses over this moment, and he learns not to trust again. His music and his ability to shift his emotions into creative projects for all eyes to see is his way of doing exactly that. In his words, “I learned to cut out the middle man and tell everything to everyone always. Everyone can’t turn around and tell everyone, everyone already knows. I told them.”
Donald Glover now is a near-household name, and his accomplishments are nothing to scoff at. As an actor, comedian, musician, and director, it is evident that the boy that is spoken about in That Power is someone who learned a method to deal with his raw emotion, and in turn, allows others to follow the same path paved by Glover with a light at the end of the tunnel.