Dissect - S4E7 - Garden Shed by Tyler, The Creator

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

Our season long analysis of Flower Boy continues with the album’s centerpiece “Garden Shed.” In one of the greatest songs of our generation, Tyler acknowledges his attraction to men in the privacy of his garden shed. New episodes of Dissect release every Tuesday. Follow @dissectpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode contains subject matter some listeners may find sensitive or triggering. If you or someone you know is struggling with their identity, it might be in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, please call the Trevor Project Lifeline at 1-866-486. From Spotify Studios, this is Dysect, long-form musical analysis broken into short, digestible episodes. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Today we continue our serialized analysis of Flower Boy by Tyler the Creator. On our last episode, we examined Pothole, a song that finds Tyler working to avoid bad influences and disloyal friends that are potholes in his life, things that impede on his

progress and growth as a person. At the end of the song, we heard Tyler cut the ignition of his McLaren sports car and exit the vehicle. We then hear Tyler's jingling keys unlock what sounds like a thin metal door. Pothole is followed by the album's seventh track, the narrative and thematic centerpiece of Flower Boy, a song I personally rank among the greatest musical accomplishments of the 21st century, Garden Shed.

Garden Shed, Garden Shed, Garden Shep for the Gaudens, that is where I was idean, that was where love I was in, ain't no reason to pretend. Garden shit, Goddash, Goddish, Goddish, Goddardship for the Gossons and feelings that I was Gordian. Heavy on my mind, all my friends' laws, they couldn't read the signs, I didn't want to talk, I tell them my location and they ain't want to walk.

Truth is since a youth kid, thought it was a face, Written and produced by Tyler the Creator, Garden Shed is track seven of 14 total tracks on a flower boy, literally the album's middle point. Like I noted, the song is the narrative and thematic centerpiece of Flowerboy, and as such, I'd like to take a few minutes to recap the album's narrative up until this point, well, to ensure that we all have a clear understanding of how pivotal this juncture of the album truly is. How much drive can I have until I run out of road? How much road can they... Flower Boy begins with the song Forward, a precursor to the narrative told throughout the album.

Here, Tyler lays out the album's main themes, introducing his dissatisfaction with fame, the hollowness of his material goods, the lack of meaning in his life, and the chronic loneliness he feels as a result of all this. During the song's bridge, Rex Orange County sings, Sick as Sitting in Doubt, Please Let Me Figure This Out.

This becomes a kind of thesis statement, as Tyler will attempt to figure it out over the course of the album, attempt to resolve the problems he presents on Forward. Having established the themes and stakes of the album, Flower Boy's narrative begins proper with where this flower blooms. Here Tyler contextualizes his story, beginning with his childhood roots in poverty. He then flash forwards to when he found success and expresses the initial feeling of making it. At the end of the second verse, we hear Tyler driving a sports car, signaling the beginning of the album's car ride narrative. In the song's third and final verse, Tyler likens his rags to Rich's story to a tree

sprouting from dirt. However, while the majority of the verse portrays his story positively, the verse ends abruptly, a cliffhanger of sorts. Your favorite color green energy is scrown. Give a niggas life birdie in the bees dropping them seeds, not what you want. You don't know what I keep in the trunk. Oh, shit. The last thing we hear Tyler say on the track is, You don't know what I keep in the trunk.

Tyler appears to be hiding something deep in his core. We suspect that what he's hiding might be contributing to the emotional turmoil he presented on the previous song Forward. As Flyer Boy continues, we hear an interlude that features a radio host taking requests from his audience. An anonymous male caller requests a quote, song about me, which is then followed by the song See You Again, Tyler's unabashed love song to his fantasy partner that he only sees when he's asleep. Though not explicitly stated, given that the radio caller was male, it seems to imply Tyler's dream partner is a man. Narratively, the daydream that is see you again establishes

Tyler's quest to find this person in real life. Thus, the album continues with two driving intertwined plot points, Tyler's ambitions to find his dream lover and his ambition to find himself. As we'll see, one will not be possible without the other. Flower Boy continues with Who That Boy, a song that works on a number of thematic and narrative levels. On one hand, as implied by the song's title and its opening lines, Tyler is continuing a search for the dream lover he fantasized about and see you again. On the other hand, Hu Dat Boy finds Tyler at his most egotistical, bragging about his fashion, cars and wealth alongside guest ASAP Rocky. Given that Tyler has already stated the dangers of ego

as a hindrance to one's personal growth, Houdat Boy makes clear that Tyler is using his ego as a protective emotional shield. He's got a lot more growing to do if he wants to resolve his internal strife and chronic loneliness. With the song's final verse, Tyler maintains the continuity of the album's narrative by acknowledging his ongoing search for his dream partner, which he likens to 95 Leonardo DiCaprio. Tyler then speaks about his mother's worry that his success is getting to his head. Tyler ignores his mother, instead speeding away in his McLaren's sports car. Wait, wait, boy that's McLaren at zero to 60 and two point new wave, I'm gone.

Tyler's juvenile joy ride doesn't last long. The song ends with Tyler hitting a large pothole, which leads directly into the song of the same name. Hitting a pothole seems to have awoken Tyler out of his ego field fantasy. Pothole finds Tyler much more introspective as he reconsiders his mother's advice and works to remove the potholes or bad influences that are bringing out the worst in him and stunting his growth. In our last episode, we compared this to pruning one's garden, which is the act of removing dead growth so that new life can flourish, of course tying into the themes of growth presented throughout the album. We also noted how Pothole is the first song on

Flower Boy that actually finds Tyler beginning to change his ways, beginning to take tangible steps and actions to grow as a person. And as we heard at the top of the show, pothole ends with Tyler pulling over his sports car, which we suspect is damaged due to the large pothole he hit while acting reckless. He then exits the car and enters a garden shed. Symbolically, Tyler is abanding his sports car, which we know represents the superficial materialism he's used to avoid his loneliness and anxiety. We also note that a garden shed is where one keeps tools of maintenance, representing the work or maintenance that Tyler is doing on himself. Finally, we note that a garden shed is essentially an outdoor closet, where one can potentially hide things. As well here, Tyler is entering this metaphoric garden shed to address

the secret he's been alluding to throughout the album. We also recognize this entire garden shed metaphor plays off the idea of one being in or out of the closet, a phrase used to describe the self-disclosure of one's sexual orientation. And it's here that I would like to momentarily suspend our analysis of Flower Boy and take a brief sidebar to explore this idea of a closet as it relates to one sexual orientation. And in order to contextualize how a closet manifested in society, we must first begin with a brief and frankly difficult overview of gay and lesbian discrimination, specifically in the United States. Most Americans are repelled by the mere notion of homosexuality. The CBS News survey shows that two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals

with disgust, discomfort, or fear. Laws against same gender sexual activity, were established with North America's first European settlers. In 1624, the British, French, and Spanish colonial governments all passed quote-unquote sodomy laws that prohibited a range of same-gender sexual activities, which were punishable by death in some colonies. These early sodomy laws set a precedent of discrimination throughout the history of the United States. Eventually, all 50 states enacted laws against same-gender sexual behavior. The 20th century brought with it a number of increasingly homophobic laws,

In 1917, U.S. immigration law was modified to ban, quote, persons with abnormal sexual instincts from entering the United States. In 1934, Hollywood adopted the Hays Code, which stipulated that, quote, sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden on the screen, unquote. In the years following World War II, the United States government tightened their discriminatory grip and attempt to restore what they felt was cultural order and safety. These were excluded from serving in the military, and in 1947, the State Department began firing people who they suspected to be gay under President Truman's National Security

Loyalty Program. In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. This effectively led the U.S. to willfully and or ignorantly turn a blind eye to the actual mental and physical health needs of gay people, while simultaneously pathologizing them. In 1953, a year after this attribution of mental disorder, President Eisenhower issued an executive order banning the employment of gays by the federal government, and many state and local governments followed suit.

By 1955, anti-gay witch huns cost more than 1,200 men and women their jobs with the federal government. 1700 federal job applications were denied, and nearly 4,400 people were discharged from the military. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, the FBI and police departments kept lists of known gay people, their friends, and the establishments they frequented. The U.S. Post Office also tracked the addresses where material pertaining to homosexuality was mailed. Local and state governments shut down bars catering to the gay community,

and some of their customers were arrested and exposed in newspapers. Some cities performed quote-unquote sweeps to rid neighborhoods, parks, bars, and beaches of gay people. As a result, Thousands of gay men and women were publicly humiliated, physically harassed, fire, jailed, or institutionalized in mental hospitals. In the midst of all of this, a 1957 Navy report concluded that there was no evidence that, quote, "...homosexuals cannot acceptably serve in the military, or that they should be deemed national security risks." This report was purposely suppressed for 10 years. During the 1960s and 70s, gay rights activists began mobilizing to fight systemic and cultural

discrimination in the U.S. Still, it took decades for many of the discriminatory laws to be fully abolished. For instance, it wasn't until the year 2003 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sodomy laws in the U.S. are unconstitutional. Remember, the first sodomy laws were established in the early 1400s, making this nearly 400 years in which a state could legally punish consenting adults for same-gender sexual activity. We also note that it wasn't until 2015 that the U.S. Supreme court ruled that same-sex marriage must be recognized in all 50 states. At the time of writing this, that was less than four years ago. Of course, governmental laws are just one piece of a multifaceted set of obstacles that the LGBTQ community face. The stigma caused by years of

enforced heterosexual sexism come with it very real, very detrimental consequences. According to a Pew research study, 58% of LGBT Americans have been a target of slurs or jokes. 39% have been a rejected by a friend or family member and 30% have been threatened or physically harmed due to their sexual orientation. Even more troubling is the increased probability for suicides and attempted suicides. A 2016 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study showed that LGBT youth seriously contemplates suicide at almost three times the rate of heterosexual youth and are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth. A 2010 study by the American Journal of Public Health found that LGBT youth who come from highly rejecting families are

8.4 times as likely to have attempted suicide as LGBT peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection. They also found that each episode of LGBT victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior two and a half times over. While we could unfortunately continue to list these kind of statistics almost indefinitely, I hope it's clear that historically speaking, the LGBT community has faced centuries of systemic and cultural discrimination. I also hope it's clear that the ongoing stigmatization that's resulted from this discrimination has very real and unfortunate consequences for some within this community. And so as we work to bring this information back around to Flower Boy and specifically the song Garden Shed, we need to have an understanding of how stigmatization of non-heterosexual orientations caused the

quote-unquote closet to manifested society. That is, because of the cultural otherness prescribed to homosexuality, one who comes to identify with a non-heterosexual orientation becomes closeted by default. The decision is then forced upon the individual whether to reveal their orientation and with whom. And because revealing one's orientation is to voluntarily associate yourself with the stigmatized group, this is a decision that doesn't occur just once. It's a decision that's made on a daily basis, depending on a number of situational circumstances. This constant evaluation of one's environment to decide whether or not one feels comfortable revealing their orientation is called stigma management. This ongoing, often daily management

can be frustrating for some members of the LGBT community. As one person told Pew researchers, quote, my orientation is difficult to divulge to people even when I know there would be no negative reaction. It seems unfair that I should be expected to divulge my orientation because heterosexuality is the norm. If I can't mention it in casual conversation, I usually don't mention it at all, because I hate the idea of sitting every person down in my life to specially tell them, unquote. Often overlooked in the conversation about coming out is the fact that before one comes out to others, they first must come out to themselves. Of course, for many, this is a process unto itself. And while this process is of course unique to each individual, it can often involve confronting

and overcoming one's own biases they might have unintentionally inherited from their culture and our upbringing. Biases we know are products of centuries of discrimination. Authors of the book No Turning Back, Lesbian and Gay liberation for the 80s, described it this way, quote, As young people, we're told that gays are to be avoided and gayness hidden because homosexuals are perverted, unhappy, disgusting, and likely to molest heterosexuals. sexuals. Sometimes it was said directly through queer jokes, verbal attacks, and threats. Others of us heard more subtle comments. Bit by bit, we began to accept what we are told. We absorbed anti-gay beliefs even before we knew that we are gay. It was often only with

great difficulty that we could acknowledge our own gayness, for then these beliefs would apply to us, unquote. Despite its challenges, the process of coming out to oneself can also be extremely liberating. Psychologist Dr. Jack Desher describes it as, quote, a moment that is sometimes charged with excitement and at other times with trepidation. It is a realization that previously unaccepted feelings or desires are a part of oneself. It is in part a verbal process, putting into words previously inarticulated feelings and ideas. Some gay people describe it as a switch being turned on. Coming home or discovering who I really was are how gay people frequently describe coming coming out to themselves. It can be experienced as a moment in which they make contact with their

true selves." And so while we recognize each experience as unique, we can see how coming out to oneself can be for some a dualistic experience, one of both liberation and trepidation. We can also see how cultural stigma can fuel that trepidation, as one is then closeted by default, and must decide if, when, and how to express their orientation and with whom. While some may feel comfortable, comfortable doing so right away. It can take years or decades for some to begin revealing their orientation to others, while some never do at all. We'll be back right after the break. Welcome back to dissect. Before the break, we discussed at length the historical challenges of the gay community in order to contextualize why a closet manifests in contemporary society. Now we'll work to bring all

this information back to Tyler the creator, Flower Boy, and specifically the song Garden Shed. As we heard at the of the episode, Tyler has several times alluded to a secret he's been keeping, while also subtly implying his attraction to men. On the song Forward, we heard Tyler speak about being in the woods with flowers, rainbows and posies, flowers being traditionally feminine, and rainbows being a prominent gay pride symbol. Later in the song, Tyler was never into the beaches and all the sands, see I was in the woods with flowers, rainbows and poses falling out of my pocket, but y'all want to know if I swam to cool down. Later in the song, Tyler about women he's let on and how they tried to keep his head on straight. Straight, of course, alluding to heterosexuality.

At the top of the episode, we discussed Tyler's allusions to a secret he was keeping at the end of where this flower blooms. We also heard strong implications that his fantasy partner is male on sometimes, see you again in Who That Boy. Now, having abandoned his sports car, his protective shell, Tyler enters the Garden Shed, a place of safety and seclusion where he'll address his secret head on. While we cannot and should not label Garden Shed as Tyler's coming out moment, because Tyler himself has never described it as such, Garden Shed is the song in which Tyler will speak most transparently about his internalized feelings for men, about the confusion he felt during his youth about these feelings, the trepidation of revealing these feelings to his friends,

and the alienation and isolation he felt because of these feelings. And while the subject matter of Garden Shed is deeply personal, Tyler did choose to address these feelings of music, music that he knew would eventually become available to the public. And if Tyler was apprehensive about revealing these feelings to his friends, we might assume there would be significant apprehension to reveal these feelings to the public as well. So again, while we shouldn't label this coming out, we should acknowledge and respect this as a moment of revelation,

both public and personal, one that we assume wasn't the easiest considering, first, Tyler's role as a significant public figure, second, the history of discrimination and lasting stigma in the U.S. we discussed at length, and third, the historic homophobia and intolerance in hip-hop specifically. Tyler's trepidation about this subject is not only discussed in Garden Shed's lyrics, but it's also reflected metaphorically in the song's extended instrumental introduction. Tyler's main verse on the song doesn't begin until over two and a half minutes into the track. What comes before is a beautifully developed musical and emotional roller coaster,

one that contains a series of turbulent stops and starts. As we'll hear, Tyler implies that this is in part a metaphor for his hesitancy to address this subject matter, for his search to find the proper words to express himself. Now, pulling off a near three-minute, mostly instrumental section of music is not the easiest of tasks, and so we're going to walk through each section to hear just how Tyler is able to develop what he has stated to be the most beautiful thing he's ever written. Because also the way garden shed is structured, it's like three different emotions that you go through. It's like you go through a whole emotional arc before ever speaking on the record.

What mood were you going for? Well, I remember making that, I had those chords on piano and I was like, it's not hitting. So I had Austin from Slow Hollows come and just play, we played the chords in the guitar. And I had it looped. And it was just there. Went to sleep, woke up early the next morning. and literally just was like let me add the most simple drums did that I was like added a quick synth it was like boom boom boom boom wanted that guitar yeah

hits and then go back to being the prettiest thing ever yeah and I was like it's like it's like turbulent yeah yeah yeah I was like oh my god I think this is the most beautiful thing I've ever done garden shed begins with the distorted guitar playing the chord A major seven after the chord is strummed we hear a time warping pitch ascending effect that feels as if we're being teleported into Tyler's subconscious, perhaps the garden shed itself. This introduction to me is a palette cleanser, a stage reset and a play. Having been ushered into this new world, we then hear the main chord progression used throughout Garden Shed. The progression is comprised of a B-flat major 7, A-minor 7 add 4, G-major 7 add 6, and back to the A-minor 7 add 4.

We first hear this progression played twice by a solo distorted guitar. What's interesting about this progression is that you can't really prescribe to it a traditional key signature. Instead, we find Tyler using his same tricks of stepwise motion and common tones to link together a non-traditional sequence of chords. Since we've already covered those techniques at length on our previous episodes, we won't detail exactly how they're used here. After the solo guitar introduces the song's main progression, Gardenshed continues used with an abrupt change of instrumentation. We'll hear the entrance of electronic keyboard,

which takes over playing the main progression. These keys are supported by drums and a bass guitar. Now that drums have been established, it becomes clear that the song is in the time signature of 6-8. 6-8 time, known for its swinging waltz-like characteristic, isn't a totally obscure time signature, but it's certainly one you very rarely hear in hip-hop. The vast majority of hip-hop songs, and all popular songs for that matter are in 4-4-time, aptly nickname Common Time. This means that there are four quarter-note beats per measure. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. With 6-8 time, there are 6-8th notes per measure.

Beats 1 and 4 are typically emphasized, giving 6-8 its swing feel. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 1, 4, 5, 6, 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, Now I point out Garden Sheds' use of 6-8 time only to add to the song's list of unique musical characteristics. The song's structure, harmony, and time signature all exist outside the traditions of hip-hop, though I think it's been pretty clear thus far this season that Tyler has completely obliterated the label of hip-hop artists and producer. Tyler the creator is a genre unto himself.

Okay, so far we've heard the same chord progression first played by a guitar two times through and now once through on electronic keyboard. Tyler will continue to repeat this progression, but with each repetition, he'll add new elements that will hold our attention and keep the song's momentum ever growing. To this point, the chord progression is repeated again on keyboard, but this time around he introduces a lead synth line.

On the next repetition of the same progression, Tyler changes the instrumentation once again. Gone is the electric keyboard and synth, replaced now with four separate guitar tracks. First, we have a distorted electric guitar that will play single strokes of the main chord progression. Beneath this is a clean electric guitar strumming the main chord progression. Finally, on top of both of these tracks is two lead guitar tracks. One guitar plucks a single string and slowly bends the note upward.

The other lead guitar plays a simplified version of the song's bass line, giving the bass track crunch and depth. Now let's hear how all these tracks stack up together on Garden Shed, including the guitar introduction, we've now heard the same chord progression five times in a row, but through Tyler's crafty development of this progression, it doesn't feel like repetition, it feels like progress. As Garden Shed continues, we get an abrupt climax created by two new components, a new modulating chord progression and the entrance of the singer Estelle. Instrumentally speaking, it's pretty cool what Tyler does here, as he combines different elements that were first presented separately in the three sections we just dissected.

First, we recognize a synth line we first heard over the electronic keyboard. But rather than electronic keyboard, this time it's accompanied by the strumming electric guitar and single-string guitar bend. And so we have Tyler bringing together instruments and parts that were first presented as separate entities. So while the ingredients are familiar, the result is fresh, helping to keep the song progressive, but also maintaining continuity and unification. With the first, the first first sung passage of the song, Estelle sings, Don't Kill a Rose before it can bloom, Fly Baby Fly out of the cocoon. Again, fitting into the album's ongoing large-scale dichotomies of the natural versus the material, the meaningful versus the superficial, Tyler chooses to express

the meaningful with nature metaphors. He cites a premature rose and a cocoon butterfly as his current state of maturity, implying that Tyler must do something to fully bloom, to complete the transformation from Caterpillar to Butterfly. What that something is has not been revealed, as Tyler at this point of the song is still building suspense, and as implied by the next part of Garden Shed, still building courage. As a song returns back to its original chord progression, Tyler enters singing, You don't have to hide, I can smell it in your eyes, that there's something more to say, than words. It would seem Tyler's talking to himself. Just as we've heard a handful of times on the album, Tyler is hiding something. There's something. There's something to

something he has to or wants to say but can't. Tyler then stops abruptly, saying to who we assume is the recording engineer, damn, run me back. This implies that he's messed up his lines or isn't ready to say them just yet. Leaving in this quote-unquote mistake was of course intentional and almost plays like a skit, displaying Tyler's hesitance and trepidation and expressing this part of himself, of confronting the secret he's been alluding to throughout the album up until this point. In the same way, this also appears to be one of the reasons why Garden Shed is so instrumentally focused for its first two minutes and 45 seconds. It's a kind of sonic representation of the apprehension and nervousness Tyler feels when confronting this subject. We're going through an entire wave

of emotions that are represented musically in the stops and starts of the song, the ups and downs, the twists and turns of this extended instrumental introduction. And to this point, Garden Shed continues with yet another abrupt climax. We get a new core progression and yet another modulation, making that two modulations in a single song. And just to keep reemphasizing the fact that Tyler is continuously and consciously developing Garden Shed musically, I have to point out that with this new part comes with it the entrance of a new instrument, the piano. It's a little hard to hear beneath the vocals and guitar, so I'll single it out here so that you can listen for it in the actual song excerpt. And now let's hear this as featured in Garden Shed's second

modulating part. Estelle enters the track once again, riffing on the phrase, if I could find the words to say, again exemplifying Tyler's trepidation and or difficulty expressing himself. Garden Shed continues by returning back to the electronic keyboard as a main harmonic instrument, and just before Estelle returns singing the word Shed, Tyler says the words in the garden. This of course reflects the song's title while also confirming where the song is set, inside a garden shed, Tyler's hiding place. Having repeated the closest thing the song has to a refrain or chorus, Garden Shed stops abruptly, and we wonder whether this is the end of the song,

wonder if Tyler is not yet ready to confront the secret he's been hiding. After a few seconds of this dead air filled only with the line noise of a guitar, Garden Shed resumed with a solo guitar strumming distorted chords. This is similar to the very beginning of the track, which you remember started with the single electric guitar strumming distorted chords. Following the long silence, this always comes across to me as a restart or a reset, a deep inhalation. It's kind of like saying, okay, let's try this again. Indeed, it's directly after this guitar part that Tyler finally enters the track with his only proper verse.

Coming off the two minute and 45 second, mostly instrumental emotional buildup, the trepidation he exhibited throughout that time, not to mention the multiple references to his hiding something throughout the album up until this pivotal point, Well, it all adds up to be a truly triumphant, climactic, and transcendent moment, the emotional crux and centerpiece of the entire album. Having finally entered the song, Tyler wastes no time making clear just what he's speaking about. He wraps Garden Shed for the Guardian, bending the word Garden to also sound like guarding. He continues, That was where I was hiding, that was real love I was in.

These lines confirm our album-long suspicions that Tyler was in fact hiding something, and that what he was hiding has to do with love. Tyler continues, ain't no reason to pretend, Garden Shed for the Garsoons, then feelings that I was guarding. Garcone's is French for a boy, and it's here that we get confirmation that what he was hiding, what he was guarding, what he was apprehensive to express and reveal, was his attraction to men. Tyler then says, heavy on my mind, revealing that this topic is something that he thought about often, with the word heavy, implying that it was a heavy emotional and psychological lift,

something he felt was weighing him down. Tyler then speaks of the alienation he felt from his friends. He creates a metaphor about his sexuality, describing it as a location, his friends could never find. He raps, All my friends lost, they couldn't read the signs, I didn't want to talk and tell on my location, and they ain't want to walk. Here Tyler expresses that he didn't want to talk, didn't want to have the formal conversation in which he revealed his sexual orientation to his friends. The line, and they ain't want to talk, seems to imply that his friends might have been living

in voluntary ignorance, that perhaps they suspected it, but didn't say anything or asked Tyler about it directly. These lines help us to understand the chronic loneliness Tyler is expressed throughout the album. Because Tyler is unable to express his attraction to men, he's lonely in his romantic life. Because he can't express this attraction to his friends, he feels alienated despite being in the company of friends. They don't see the real him, or at least not the complete picture. Because of the cultural stigma associated with non-hetero orientations and the undeniable prejudice that some have towards this community, Tyler can't tell which of his friends would accept him if his orientation was revealed.

Tyler continues the verse rapping, Truth is, since a youth kid, thought it was a phase, thought it'd be like the phrase, poof, gone, but it's still going on. This describes what many in the gay community experience when they first feel attraction toward the same gender. In the caste identity model, which outlines six common stages of gay and lesbian identity development, this phase is described as identity confusion, where one first experiences attraction to the same gender and questions what it might

mean. Tyler first assumed that his attraction to males was a phase of his adolescence, something he would eventually grow out of. He cleverly describes this feeling by saying, thought it be like the phrase poof gone. Poof is of course a word to describe a sudden disappearance, but it's also the British word for an effeminate or gay man. Saying, but it's still going on, Tyler is acknowledging his feelings as permanent, not a phase of his youth, and thus he is working to accept and assimilate those feelings into his identity. As Garden Sheds' only verse continues, Tyler gets more specific and describes the particular features he's attracted to. Tyler

Tyler describes the ladder trying to grab the ring to Saturn. Baj Tan implies an attraction to white skin. This seems to be consistent with his earlier allusions to the dream lever he's searching for, first described as having rose-tinted cheeks on See You Again and looking like 95 Leo as described on Hu-Dap Boy. Pocodot nose refers to freckles on one's face, which seems consistent with a series of tweets Tyler made about his attraction to freckled faces. One tweet from 2013 read, quote, I'm a sucker for freckles and curly hair. Can't lie, that's my go-to, legit, unquote.

Tyler continues the verse saying, how to keep it on the subwifor. This is a play on the phrase, keep it on the low, as subwifers are the speakers that produce low frequencies. This again reinforces that his attraction to men was suppressed. and not expressed to others. It remained closeted or hidden in his garden shed. Tyler then describes his past sexual encounters with women, wrapping, A couple butterflies want to float. A line I'm pretty sure translates to something like a couple bitches want to fuck, as Tyler then says, but I was always like, eh, barely interested, but bag just to brag to my boys like bruh. Aside from some nice alliteration of the letter B, Tyler describes bagging or having sex with these

women that pursued him, not because he was attracted to them, but because he wanted to impress his friends and perhaps put on a front that he was heterosexual. This reveals the extent that Tyler was willing to go to project a charade of strictly heterosexual orientation, a charade we can interpret as a manifestation of how fearful or intimidated he was about revealing his attraction to men. We also consider the possibility that Tyler was still exploring his sexuality, that even though he didn't desire these women, he had relations with them to see how it might make him feel. Tyler then works towards the end of the verse wrapping, this is crucial subject matter, sensitive like cooking batter, to the temperature that's rising. Tyler acknowledges here the gravity

of the song's theme, comparing it to cooking batter that rises when heat is applied over an extended period of time. Tyler plays off this rising metaphor, saying, step in on that ladder, trying to grab the rings of Saturn, I'm a planet by the time you hear this shit and chatter about the heat, it will not fucking matter. There seems to be two points. possible meanings are interpretations of these lines, which are heavily cloaked in metaphor. Let's first make clear the metaphor that's presented before we attempt to analyze it. Tyler steps on a ladder and attempt to grab the rings around the planet, Saturn. He then refers to himself as a planet before saying that by the time we, meaning us, his audience,

hears this song, and chatters or gossips about Tyler revealing his attraction to men. It won't matter to him. The most common interpretation of this metaphor I've read online is a depiction of Sue. suicide. Stepping on a ladder and grabbing the rings of Saturn certainly contains imagery that one could possibly interpret as depicting a suicide attempt, specifically someone hanging themselves. We're then left to wonder if, quote, it will not fucking matter because he won't be around to experience the gossip or backlash. Given the trepidation he's alluded to about revealing his orientation and the statistics we heard earlier in the episode about increased suicide rates among

the gay community, we can't rule this out as a possible meaning. The second possible meaning is a much more positive interpretation. The act of stepping on a ladder is one of ascension. Presumably, Tyler has metaphorically ascended into space and attempt to grab the rings of Saturn. This imagery is almost godlike, one of transcendent strength and metamorphosis. Playing off the reference to Saturn, Tyler then says, I'm a planet, again describing a powerful transformation. Given that so much of flower boy is about growth and maturation, it seems likely Tyler is presenting yet another metaphor about personal transformation. We also recall the lines of Estelle sung earlier in the song, Don't Kill a Rose before it can bloom, Fly Baby Fly out of the cocoon.

These are both metaphors for personal transformation. In this way, the last line, it will not fucking matter, comes with it a different connotation. It won't matter because by the time we hear this song and the entirety of Flower Boy, Tyler will have completed his transformation. He will have risen above the inevitable gossip, risen above the potential backlash, because he's finally confronted the insecurities plaguing him since his youth, finally confronted the internal dilemma that has obstructed his growth, the thing that has prohibited him from fully blooming. With Garden Shed, Tyler has begun the process of self-acceptance, true and complete self-acceptance, a process that will allow him to finally and fully flower, to finally and fully bloom. Garden Shed is

Flower Boy's center of gravity, the thematic and narrative centerpiece of the out of the album's overarching story of self-discovery, self-acceptance, and the maturation that occurs when one truly discovers and accepts oneself. Tyler confronts the feelings he's felt since youth, feelings that he makes clear have been plaguing him emotionally, feelings that have contributed to the alienation and loneliness he's expressed throughout the album. But as powerful and revelatory as Garden Shed is, I would like to make clear that in terms of Flower Boy's narrative, this is not the conclusion of Tyler's journey. It's actually more like a new beginning. Because even though Tyler has articulated his feelings to himself, at this point he's still hidden

in the garden shed, still in a hidden, secluded space by himself. Tyler will now start the process of articulating his feelings outside the garden shed. Specifically, Tyler will work to express how he feels to the dream partner he established on See You Again. As we'll see, this process will pose its own set of challenges, and many of the insecurities and defense mechanisms we heard on the first half of the album will resurface. But at least now, having articulated his feelings to himself, he can now give himself a shot at articulating them to someone else. In other words, Garden Shed makes possible that his fantasy partner that was formerly just a dream could actually become reality. Now I'd like to conclude today's episode by pivoting away from

our more objective analysis of the album's narrative. What I'd like to do now is share my personal, subjective thoughts and feelings about Garden Shed. I'm making this distinction clear out of what I intend to be respect for Tyler and what is obviously a very personal subject. I don't want my subjective feelings about the song to be confused with his intentions, as Tyler has yet to discuss on record the significance of Garden Shed, nor has he ever defined or labeled his sexual orientation in concrete detail. And so having said that, what I personally hear in Garden Shed is the quintessence of self-expression, the encapsulation of a feeling in a moment of time crystallized and memorialized in music. What I hear is an artist that capitalized on the transcendent potential of art

to express what for him was previously inexpressible. I hear in the extended opening instrumental deep-rooted feelings expressed in chords, human emotion captured in abstract harmony. Indeed, the first two minutes and 45 seconds of Garden Shed says to me more than most could ever say in words. Because when executed at this level, music has the power to unfasten the restraints of language and articulate the deepest parts of our spirit, has the power to tap into the collective subconscious of shared human experience. And it's because of this power that I hear in the wordless abstraction of Garden Sheds' introduction, the centuries-long discrimination against

the gay community. I hear the millions of people who felt alienated, fearful, defeated, closeted, rejected, or alone because of the stigma and prejudice created from our country's dark history. I hear trepidation, but I also hear confrontation, someone grappling with the unjust stigma and working to defeat it. And I hear in Garden Sheds' only verse, someone transcending the inherited injustice of the world and accepting who they are in face of that injustice. I hear an artist admired by millions being transparent in their process of self-acceptance, so that others may be inspired or feel empowered to do the same. I hear a rally cry for the pathologized, an anthem for the individual. In Tyler the Creator's Garden Shed, I hear the diverse spectrum of human emotion. I hear pain,

I hear honesty, I hear bravery. I hear fear, growth, transcendence, and triumph. But most of all, I hear petals emerging from a blooming flower, understanding that the world is much more beautiful when we're all encouraged to freely express the full bouquet of our colors.