Dissect - S7E11 - Urn / Pink Toes by Childish Gambino

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

We continue our season-long examination of Because The Internet with “Urn” and “Pink Toes.” Gambino continues to grapple with the loss of his father and spreads his ashes in Stockholm. Then after returning home, he meets a girl and falls in love. But how long can this euphoric bliss last? Shop limited Season 7 merch: https://bit.ly/36ClxIV Dive deeper into the world of Because The Internet with our episodic visual guides (https://bit.ly/30EKbF1), where you can also read the BTI screenplay in full. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @dissectpodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. I'm your host, Kolkushnah. Today we continue our serialized analysis of Because the Internet by Childish Gambino. On our last episode, we dissected the zealots of Stockholm, where the boy went to Sweden to pick up the remains of his father and grappled with moving on from loss. The boy also got entangled with a girl named Alyssa, who he first met online and then in real life at a bar. As we left the script, Alyssa and the boy were in his hotel room. Alyssa left the hotel room unannounced

carrying the boy's father's ashes in an urn out into the streets of Stockholm. As the boy hears the door slam and goes to see that she left, the script directs us to play the next song, the subject of the first half of our episode today, Earn. Urn is produced by Childish Gambino and Louvre Gornsen.

In terms of its construction, the song is rather straightforward. We have some vintage sounding keys that play a simple two-court progression. Beneath these keys, we have a sampled drumbeat taken from Sweet Thursday's 1968 track, Gilbert Street. Toward the end of the track, the chords get a little staccata rhythm added to them,

and we get a really tasteful single-note synth and a beautiful melodic line on what sounds like a vintage synthesizer. Of all the tracks on Because the Internet, Earn was Glover's favorite. It's not hard to understand why. The track shines in its simplicity, seemingly drawing on soul ballads from the 1960s and 70s, And really for the first time on record, Glover goes all in on melody and nails it.

In a high falsetto, he sings a gorgeous, wide-ranging melodic line. Personally, whenever I hear Earn, I think back to those early Gambino mixtapes that were so reliant on clever bars, humor, and theatrical aggressiveness. It's hard to imagine the same guy who once sounded like this. Stay hard like my suit made by Tony Sark. This kind of music make your balls drop, Dick Clark. Would eventually sound like this. Earn to me is a symbol of Gambino's musical evolution

and his willingness to grow up publicly, unafraid to put himself out there while still honing his craft and discovering all the facets of his musical identity. Lyrically, Erne finds Gambino or the boy still processing his recent losses. He begins the track, I watch him all pass by the moon and stars. Given the boy's loss of his mother and father, we reminded of the moon and stars' presence as motivic images throughout

BTI. The moon, the feminine celestial body, appeared in the shape of his mother's voice and life shows, and when the boy looked to the moon for guidance while sitting on the hood of his car in no exit. The stars, the masculine celestial bodies, representative of the incubating presence of the boy's father, were also cited in no exit. Both of these guiding lights are now gone. The boy wishes to hold on to his father, singing, Let me hold him in my arms forevermore. His father has been absent for most of the narrative. His presence has been more of a contextual ambience, yet this doesn't lessen the pain of his loss. With those that we love but don't often speak to, there still remains hope that the connection can be rekindled at some point, but death irrevocably erases that,

and the definity of that hurts. After death, the boy still longs for that connection to remain. Hold him in my arms also directly refers to the boy holding his father's urn in the script. Gambino continues singing, These Cold Nights, The Parts, is ours, standing by the side. While the park doesn't appear in the screenplay, it might refer to the boy remembering or dreaming of a period when he can spend leisure time with his father. If we remember the first scene of the script, the relationship between the boy and his father seemed tense at best, and the absence of his mother was felt in their lack of synergy. On the other hand, the park scene mentioned here could suggest Gambino is singing about a different relationship

simultaneously. The park is ours suggests intimacy and seclusion, and a close, as two people stand side by side. The tenderness of this moment suggests romance, as nighttime parks have a historical, symbolic significance as a place for hidden romance. Gambino croons a paradox. Let you go on to the sea just for me. Don't ever leave me, my love. The first line is stretched out here, like the vast sea itself. It appears these lines reference the boy spreading his father's ashes in the script. We also have to reckon with the presence of the moon in the scene and its relationship with the sea. The moon controls the tides and lights up the sky in the nighttime setting of this scene, and so to let his father go under the light of the moon

is to let him return to his mother in the afterlife, a sentimental tribute. On the other hand, in terms of the other relationships Gambino might be thinking of, letting someone go into the sea is an active release in hopes that the waters will bring them back as the tides wash back up on shore. This is clear in Gambino's line, don't ever leave me, my love. He seems to understand that he can't control the connection, but he pleads for it to stay, for his father's love and influence to stay with him, for his guidance and ancestors to aid him, for his love to keep him company. Gambino sings, Keep holding on, let the modest go as my mind goes to and fro, waking up

for one more show. He's holding on to the memory or connection of a relationship, even as his mind goes back and forth, like the tide of a sea. The modest here, the thing he's letting go of, seems to represent traditional thought or holding back from free expression. Letting the modest go is to stop holding back and suppressing any parts of ourselves so that we might move forward with freedom. Gambino then sings, Waking Up for One More Show. The show might refer to each passing day, as we keep waking up for one more day, holding on to life one day at a time, and trying to let go of inhibitions while we grapple with existential decay,

knowing that each day could be our last. There's also the possibility that Glover could be referring to his own career, both his live shows and his show community, which he had recently left. Gambino then sings, We see him in the night, tell him I'm not afraid of him, I'm not afraid of him, because I won't know. It's a pretty vague passage, but the core of the message is one of fearlessness, as Gambino confronts an ambiguous hymn.

Given that the song's main layer is the death of his father, Gambino could be saying he's unafraid of death. The reasoning he gives is because I won't know. Perhaps this is an acceptance of the fact that we don't know things for certain. We don't know what's real, what's a show, or even if there's a difference. We don't know who we are, why we're here, or what's to come. But in the face of all this, we can't be afraid of moving forward. We can't let it paralyze us. We can rise from the ashes of our losses. We have to keep exploring, seeking, and creating openly and honestly as our means of freedom, however arbitrary it might feel at times. Earn then concludes with that same mysterious clicking or loading noise from crawl and death by numbers.

Continuing the scenes in Sweden that matched the previous track, Zealots of Stockholm, Erne also interacts directly with the boy and Alyssa's outing in the streets of Stockholm. The boy runs out of his hotel to catch Alyssa, who took the urn that held his father's ashes while he was making a drink. When he catches up to her, he asks her what's happening with the urn. She says, let's get rid of it. It's just bad for you. The boy gets mad at her for judging his relationship with his father and says that he's pissed. But Alyssa says that they'll do it together, since she did it when her sister passed away.

The boy sarcastically says, of course, that gives her the right. Then she takes out her phone to show him her phone's wallpaper. It's her twin sister. The boy says he knows they agreed it was silly to ask, but he still asked how she died. and Alyssa says it was brain cancer. They keep walking until they stop at the water, their breath making little clouds in the air. Just as Alyssa is about to tip out the ashes,

the boy stops her and holds the urn. He sort of hugs it, putting his head on it and turning his head so she can't see. He whispers, I'm sorry, we're alone. An embedded film clip in the script then shows Alyssa and the boy staring at each other as ashes serially fall in between them.

The script then reads, quote, the ashes. He's gone." Alyssa asks if he feels better, but he says he feels the same. Alyssa recognizes and acts on what the boy so far has only brooded about, that he needs to release emotion and let himself feel openly. Alyssa wants him to get rid of his father's ashes because they're bad for him. It's a symbol of the emotional baggage that he needs to let go of if he wants to move forward,

if he wants to grow up. When the boy prods her, she reacts with intimacy, revealing that her twin sister's died. The connection between Alyssa and her twin is a parallel for the boy and his father, and that our connections last beyond the limits of mortal life, and we can find ourselves in those who have passed away, but we still need to move forward. When the boy hugs the urn, he whispers, I'm sorry, we're alone. It's a central statement of Because the Internet, a universal apology for our inherently lonely existence, carrying with it the hope that we can amend this tragic condition. The film clip captures an intimate connection between Alyssa and the boy as the

ashes fall, evidence that vulnerability and honesty paved the way for bonds. While the relationship began online, their interaction developed and the connection they made was real and significant. When the boy pours his father's ashes, the script uses the he pronoun to fuse the two identities. He pours out the ashes. He's gone. The boy and his father are inextricably connected, even if the father's physical remains are gone. After the ashes have been poured, Alyssa's boyfriend appears yelling at the boy. Her boyfriend swipes at the boy, and they all yell at each other before the boyfriend shouts, do you even know who the fuck I am? Alissa says, please don't do this, and the boy says he doesn't know. So the boyfriend shouts, what does the fox say? And reveals that he is the one

who created that song. The boy is confused, and Alyssa says, you know, the song and the video. The boy has no idea what they're talking about. This stuns Alyssa and her boyfriend, and Alyssa asks, I thought you were the internet. The boy says he must have missed it when it was popular, to which the boyfriend shouts that it's popular right now. He brags about his 220 million views on YouTube and talks about receiving a letter from an African village

claiming that they learned what a fox was from his video, which he takes to mean that he introduced the entire idea of an animal to an entire continent. He then yells that the boy wants to have sex with the video, this girl. The boy says that he doesn't, and that he doesn't want to be here anymore. As the boy leaves, Alyssa and her boyfriend start a boring argument and the scene ends. Okay, so what does the Fox say? This is actually a real song by the Norwegian musical comedy duo Yelvis. It was a massively viral video in the fall and winter of 2013. While we don't know which of the duo is Alyssa's boyfriend,

neither does the boy. The question, do you know who I am, continues the threat of Who Am I that began the album? The viral influence upon this person is evident. His perception of reality appears warped by the influences of success on the web. His hubris has been fed, and he actually believes he introduced the idea of a fox to an entire continent, and that that matters. His name is never in the script, and his identity becomes frozen with the viral video, where he quite literally wears a mask and a costume of a fox. fox. This animal symbolism is reflected in the way he sneaks up on Alyssa and the boy. His constructed masked identity overtakes that of its real-life identity, an example of the

ramifications of freezing someone's persona for what they were at one time on the internet. What's shocking is that the boy has no clue who this guy is. Alisa asks how that's even possible, considering that the boy has an online tagline claiming that he is the internet. It's a surreal situation, one that if taken at face value, reflects the echo chambers we create for ourselves on the web. There's also the possibility that in this scene, the boy is seeing a part of himself in the ridiculousness of the Foxman. If the boy is the internet, that includes the absurdity of people like the Foxman, and he may be realizing that entangling his identity with the internet might not be the best route. The Yelvis reference also contains

an interesting parallel in relation to childish Gambino's music career. When he first began making music, Gambino had to combat the notion that his raps were meant to be funny, a concern over his branding and identity early in his career. People tell me I should spit under Donald Glover, but I try to keep my real name under cover, because if you hear my name, then you think it's jokes, and I can't go for that nigger hauling oats. My niggins stay down like a winter-court. Given this dilemma over whether to rap under Donald Glover or Childish Gambino, he chose

to separate the identities to try and offer different perspectives and avoid being pigeonholed or labeled in a static way. It seems that the comic virality of Yelvis then is a cautionary tale for Glover, a reminder of what it could have happened to him. Given the behavior of the boyfriend in the script, this highlights the way in which identity is shaped by the internet, and the importance of trying to avoid labels so as to experience greater and greater freedom. Toward the end of the scene, the boyfriend is hyper-aggressive and claims that the boy was just trying to have sex with Alyssa. This is ironic, given that when we last saw her boyfriend, he was making out with some other girl outside the box. Alyssa left that situation to explore connection with the boy,

and the foxman appears to have projected his own desires as the boys. He expects the boy to be out for the same self-gratification, but the boy leaves instead. Having a tone with the irony and vestiges of constructed identity left by his father, the boy is ready to return home. Earn and its scenes on the screenplay find Gambino and the boy vulnerably attempting to express care for what they've inherited, as well as recognizing the need to burn it down and rise from the ashes anew. This is viewed through an elegy for different relationships, depending on the perspective taken. The sort of hyper-constructed, imposingly masculine identity of the boy's father is released and welcome back in the shape of understanding, empathy, and

recognition that no one has it all figured out. This is a kind of forgiveness for the errors of our parents, a huge part of becoming an adult, and displays a critical understanding that they too are human, that were all human, unexempt from life's dilemma, and inherent lack of meaning. The question now is, returning home, has Gambino and the boy changed? How can he rise from the ashes after the loss of his father, his mother,

the things that made him? He's changing, being reborn, experiencing and traveling and living a new life after his suicide attempt of no exit. He will have to accept the death of the past and decide what parts of himself to keep and what parts of himself he wants to try to grow up. And then there's the song's title to consider,

Earn. In the years after BTI's release, fans have pointed out that Earn is a homonym for the protagonist of Donald Glover's show Atlanta, a protagonist named Earn Marks. Earned Marks, as in pursue currency, since that character is wrapped in economic struggle and pursuits. So the sound of the word earned is obviously important to Glover, or at least something he's thought about in relation to one's identity. With this in mind, we can take a look at the spelling of Earn, You are N. You are in what? That's what we're starting to explore. In the aftermath of the past, who are we?

Recall that the album's first words were, Who Am I? The open-endedness of this question and the urn acronym suggests infinite possibility. We can be anything. That can be scary, but it's also incredibly liberating. You can be anything. It seems the vulnerability and honesty of Urn and his connection with Alyssa will lead Gambino to more sincerity and even love. That's Pink Toes, right after the break.

Welcome back to dissect. Before the break, we followed the boy and Alyssa spreading his father's ashes into the sea in Stockholm. After the boy and Foxman get into an argument, the boy leaves, and the script suddenly flashes forward. Back in Los Angeles, the boy sits in a vegan restaurant with fam and another girl, waiting for a friend of hers to arrive. When the friend approaches the table, the boy realizes it's the girl from the party, the one who momentarily stopped his rampage by putting her broken hand over her phone before he could smash it. Her name is Naomi, played by Jenae Aiko.

When she sits down, she comments on the boy almost hitting her arm at the party. When the boy complains about being at a vegan place, Naomi says it was her request since she's vegan. and she mocks him jokingly. The boy laughs inside, but puts his head down, which makes Naomi ask, what's the deal? Why you always act like your parents died? The boy smirks and says, they did, and then him and Phamp break out and laughter.

They all go back to the mansion where the boy and Naomi sit together and talk. The boy reveals he has no idea how his father made money or if there's any left, so he plans on selling drugs with Pham to stay afloat. Naomi says this is a terrible idea, since he can't connect with him. anyone, can't get any trust from them, and is only good with people online. She knows this because she looked him up. She reveals that she's a writer too, mostly poetry, and the boy says that's a mistake in this day and age. They tease each other and goof around a bit, and Naomi asks, quote, you ever think we're in hell? This is all hell. Living on earth and being the only ones

aware that it's all ending slowly. The boy says no. Then she remembers that she read something that said more than likely we all just do this all again. It's all a cycle. The boy likes this idea, and Naomi says, see, you're not such a lonely boy. She laughs and mushes his face with her hand. The boy shakes his head, but smiles, and the scene ends. The boy meeting Naomi like this is almost certainly based on real life, as Glover told the story of meeting Jeanne in many interviews. Me and Jeanne met, like she had just performed on Jimmy Kimmel, and then she went out to dinner, and my friend fam was friends with her brother and knew people and crew so we went to have like a vegetarian dinner with her. I think there's a picture on Instagram of that night actually.

And she was just sitting there were just talking about stuff and she was just like funny. So we just became like really cool. So I just started to stay in. This sets the tone for the intertwined aspects of reality and fiction when it comes to the relationships of the boy and Naomi, Glover and Iaco. The latter being a partnership, that caught the interest of tabloids and media. The two constantly posted photos together on Instagram. Glover tweeted a love song titled Melrose for her, and neither of them could give a single interview

without being asked if they were dating or not. She's a special being to me for sure. I care about her a lot. I love her. She's a really good friend. Like, she's opened my brain up to, like, so many cool things. Like, she's such a special being. I don't know why I was lucky enough to cross her path, but it happened.

So, like, yeah, she's just cool. She's on the album. The two collaborated on a wide array of projects from multiple songs, performances, music videos, and social media. In terms of the interwoven identities of Childish Gambino, Donald Glover, and The Boy, their relationship with Jene, Ayako, and Naomi is central to BTI's exploration of the ties between identities and relationships, further entwined by the planes of reality. reality, construct, the web, and the subjectivity of each and every one of our infinite connections. Iaco wasn't the only celebrity whose identity impacts our understanding of BTI,

fitting in with Chance the Rapper, Abella Anderson, Rick Ross, and others. Glover Cassie's celebrity collaborators as an injection of reality into his constructed world. Public personas are performances, done to create the image of an individual that might gain attention in celebrity. But the notion of constructed identity is not solely the purview of celebrities, as social media provides everyone the chance to curate and develop an expression of self, an act that inherently questions the nature of identity itself, and whether we're the people we project, or more importantly, if we're anything at all. We recall that Kurt Vonnegut quote we mentioned earlier this season, we are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful who we pretend

to be. Glover consciously explores this idea by employing public personas in his work in a way that forces us to question if the art we consume is real or not. The important takeaway here isn't whether or not Glover and Iaco were dating. It's that Glover and Iaco recognized that their real-world actions could affect perspectives of fans experiencing the art, blurring the lines between fact and fiction in a way that fuses them together, understanding the subjectivity of any real or true qualities. The group eating at the vegan restaurant continues the motivic presence of eating. We can trace this throughout BTI screenplay. There's the somers. Moore's Pop-Tarts the boy eats as a kid, the slaughterhouse and robbery at the In-N-N-Out

in Telegraph Avenue, the diner argument over the merits of vegetarianism and sweatpants, the boy tossing his burger out and no exit, and now the boy eating vegan food with Naomi. From the non-nutritional pop-tarts as a boy, the unquestioned consumption of meat and burgers, to now finally eating healthy vegan, there's certainly a progression here. It seems Naomi is going to lead the boy to more responsible patterns of behavior. The boy threw his burger out in no exit, no longer willing to hurt others for his own gain. By connecting with Naomi, it seems he'll learn how to eat or live in a way that doesn't do so much harm unto others. Since the boy outwardly doesn't display his laughter at Naomi making fun of him,

she asks why he acts like his parents died, which leads to him and fam bursting out in laughter at the irony of it all, that his parents did die. The loss of the boy's parents is representative of the lack of universal guidance, and their laughter at this plight points out the truth of the matter. Naomi telling the boy, I'm a writer too, likely alludes to Janay and Gambino's shared artistic occupations. The boy's plan to start selling drugs to keep up his lifestyle, sets up a sense of tension for the final act of the script. Naomi predicts that it won't turn out well for the boy due to his inability to connect, highlighting the drug dealer's ties to that central thematic concept as a drug dealer's nickname is one's connect or connection. Naomi and the boy talk about their

concepts of life, the first real meaningful conversation in the script. Naomi suggests that life is a cycle, a loop, overtly stating a central symbol we've recognized throughout the album and script. Their connection over this fundamental belief leads us into the fifth and final act of the screenplay. It begins with the line, this is the part where they kind of fall in love a little bit, and we're instructed to play the album's next song, the subject of the remainder of our episode today, Pink Toes. Pink Toes Sunshine

Go Pink Toes was produced by Chidoch Stephen Ponce and Ludwig Gorensen The song interpolates the chord progression of music Soul Child's 2009 song So Beautiful. These chords are played on a similar keyboard with some added rhythmic variation. Even beyond the chords and the keyboard sound, So Beautiful's production seems to be an inspiration on Pink Toes as well. Let's hear the two back to back, noticing a similar vibe and instrumentation. This harmonious soundscape, complete with the idyllic sounds of chirping birds, and inflections of So Beautiful, a classic romantic love song, sets the stage for a rare moment of warmth and because the internet's second half.

Gambino sings, rainbows, sunshine, everywhere we go. It's perfectly fitting for the part where they kind of fall in love a little bit, a representation of the effects of their connection. Gambino, apparently in Bliss, continues singing Rainbows, Sunshine. In the script, he's just begun his relationship with Naomi, and he's also started dealing drugs, so they're intertwined in the classic, Love is a Drug symbolism.

It's important to note that both rainbows and sunshine are terms for LSD or acid, a hallucinogenic substance, which affects the user's perception of the outside world. In interviews, Gambino noted this connection between drugs and love and pink toes. Yeah, it's called Pink Toes. Okay. It's kind of like this... Pink Toes. It's called Pink Toes.

That's what a Southern guys call white girls in the South. But also, like, when you... Like, depending on who you're talking to, they're talking about drugs. So it's kind of about this relationship, kind of like a drug, but also more like just... It's kind of a song more about like any dude who's doing something that... Like, whether it's like selling drugs or working the, you know, a chick-fil-A. Okay. like the girl's like, it's going to be better eventually.

Right, right. That's eventually what that song's about. And she writes her soul out on that. It's really good. The song's title, Pink Toes, is a slang term for a white woman, which in turn could also be a term for drugs, most specifically cocaine. The term could also apply to a light-skinned black woman, as it appeared in Glover's show Atlanta, when a strip club DJ shouts out the character, Vanessa.

As Gambino finishes Pink Toe, as Gambino finishes Pinker's, To's introduction, he says, go, sending off our journey through the rainbow and sunshine. Gambino begins, I thought I told you about it, and in the background repeats, act like you know. Slightly coy, he appears to be acting as if he told his partner about his dealing, and the repetition of act like you know suggests that she should behave like this is business as usual, whether it be the drugs or the love. Either way, their influence seems to make it feel like Gambino can act like he knows what to do, something quite different than his continued questions and explorations we've experienced in BTI. Gambino then makes direct reference to the drugs, singing,

You don't leave home without it, and repeating, move that kilo in the background. The it and the kilo here are drugs, with both kilo and pink toes pointing to cocaine specifically. Don't leave home without it also insinuates protection, for as one leaves the comfort of home, they often desire some form of protection or defense against the outside world. For now, the security of drugs and or love is his defense, giving him this opportunity of momentary bliss. With the effects of the drugs and love are powerful, Gambino does note a bit of a burden, singing, She on my back about it, C-3PO. The she appears to be Jene, Naomi, or his partner. In terms of it being Naomi specifically, this refers to her concern with the boy not having the necessary skills

to make a good drug dealer. The nod to C3PO is a reference to Star Wars episode 5, The Empire Strikes Back, when Chubaca has to carry a broken C3PO on his back while evading Darth Vader. Gambino then sings, and all the time, act like you know. The drugs and love he indulges in now

are a way to pass all the time, a way to act or feel as if he knows what's going on and what we should do with our life. How could you ever question? They know better to mention. The budget trucking just enough to make a... pay attention. The who, what, why, and where they sport the flyest pair. She got the nicest hair and she knows life is better with this liquor. It's crazy how the world look different. It's crazy how

the girls look different. The colors and the sound so vivid. You never catch your boy poop pimping. You sitting on a sidewalk and that don't sound right, but as long as I look fly by prom night. Gambino begins rapping, How Could You Ever Question? They Know Better to Mention. This is a turn from his incessant questioning throughout BTI, and he appears to tears emboldened into this stance by his newfound connections. The apparent dismissal of questions also foreshadows the very frailty of this blissful moment. Questions are inevitable, yet to preserve this joyful feeling would require to eschew interrogating its source. It's an impossible task, something that can't go on forever. Gambino continues, the budget truck ain't just enough to make

her pay attention. The who what, why, and where they sport the flyest pairs. She got the nicest his hair and no life is better with this N-word. The double entendre of the budget truck makes reference to both the boy moving out of the mansion and making a change in his lifestyle, as well as the fact that if his car was cheap, a budget truck, he wouldn't get her attention. The girl also disregards the who, what, why, and where, ignoring her reservations about the drug dealing and instead focusing on wearing nice clothes and enjoying a lavish lifestyle. They sport the flyest pairs refers both to the girl wearing nice shoes, an indication of wealth, but also the idea that the pair, the couple, is fly,

and therefore gets sported or displayed. While their love is wonderful and their connection leaves them happy enough to glide by questions, it's all reliant upon money. They are blindly in love, with each other, with drugs, with the blissful lifestyle both provide them. Gambino then revels in the ecstasy of this bliss out state, rapping, It's crazy how the world look different,

It's crazy how the girls look different, the colors and the sounds so vivid. It's clear he's inebriated here, experiencing the euphoria of psychedelics and love. He then claims, you never catch your boy, Po-Pimpin. Now that don't sound right. The term Po-Pimpin refers to a poverty pimp, used to describe someone who makes monetary gain by exploiting impoverished groups. While he's drug dealing, Gambino claims he's doing so on an elevated plane, something that would keep him from the streets, or from being arrested and seated on a sidewalk. This arrest interpretation was also emphasized during live shows, as Gambino would pantomime his hands being cuffed behind his back while singing this line, foreshadowing the danger he'll face later in the screenplay. While he claims he's above this, it appears he wouldn't mind

having to stoop so alone to gain capital. He sings, but as long as I look fly by prom night, go. Symbolically, prom is a constructed appearance for immature love's sake, an event where gawky teenagers take their awkwardness and transitory personas, wrap themselves up in nice suits and dresses, and try to make everything look picture perfect for a night. Prom night is a visceral memory, one that gets built up in our culture, but it's all a show and only lasts one night. But despite this, it's fun and creates memories. It seems the boy is taking this approach with his connection with Naomi. In the face of his existential crisis, he's putting it together for a night, and enjoying the bliss of this while he can, even if it's destined to end.

The same could be said about drug use, a momentary high, but a high nonetheless. After a repetition of the song's hook, Janay Ayako enters the track, doubling as the character Naomi in the script. Here we get vocal harmonies, the beat switches, more and more birds chirp, and we feel the presence of feminine love. It's a beautiful transition into the only true guest verse that appears on BTI. to stay with someone or you. Iaco sings, he slangs his hay, through the corridors, every day 20K, yep, at the very least for sure. And what appears to be a direct reference to the script, she describes the boy's lucrative drug dealing,

in this case, hay referring to weed. Interestingly, in what appears to be a love song, Iaco's first words are about the money the boy makes, reinforcing their love and connections reliance upon monetary freedom. Iaco then disregards those who would condemn their relationship, singing, And they say there's no way I should stay with someone like you, but I tell them no, there's no way I could stray, got to stay with someone like you. The emphasis here is on the strength of the bond, as she stands by him even when told it's not a good idea by some vague they.

But why does she have to stay? What is it that she's relying on? Iaco lets us know why this love is so powerful, so important to her, singing, because I know one day you could take me away, far away. The romance is a form of escapism, a source of hope. Part of the intoxication is the idea that things could get better someday, that together they could move beyond the struggles of where they are and go far away, that their love can make a safe space for them.

But this has to come from somewhere, and it seems that the boy's wealth provides the key, the power to make this space. As Iaco sings, I know you could pay all the money you made, there'll be plenty of sunshine. Money is the key to getting away, to rising above some of the struggles that they face. This subliminal thread reveals the frailty of their connection. While it is amazing, lovely, and utopic, it can't last. The systems surrounding this love prevents true, unabashed freedom and connection, but they hold on to hope that things will get better. The pursuit of

this dream keeps them going, and the building bricks of their path forward are drugs and money that they can use to buy freedoms. The boy inherited wealth, but now needs to make it on his own to maintain his freedoms. As Gambino has highlighted throughout BTI, money is a power, and power is freedom.

Chance made millions, Hyme made millions, Dan made millions, Kendrick made millions. I would too if I wasn't in my feelings. You know, because like, that people say money's not everything,

but money, you need money to do what you want to do. Like money is power. Honesty is power, truth is power. You know what I'm saying? Word. Like, that's what I'm saying.

But at the same time, if you tell you, like, you know, there ain't nothing more important than the mullah. We ain't really eating, boy, you gotta get your food up. We so steady eating, baby, you already know that. The way I'm dropping new shit, I'm sitting there. Here in his iconic freestyle on sway in the morning, Gambino lists colleagues who made money and laments his inability to do this himself. He then says, you know, people say money's not everything, but you need money to do

what you want to do. Money is power. This very concept is the foundation of pink toes. Money, as it exists in our economic system, becomes a foundation for the power to make a connection. After recognizing that people say money isn't everything, Gambino counters, but at the same time, they'd be telling you, there ain't nothing more important than the mullah. We ain't really eaten, boy, you got to get your food up. We so steady eaten, baby, you already know that. Eating here becomes a competition. The basic survival need becomes corrupt by the paths that we need to

attain it, by the comparative stunting and gloating that we use to separate ourselves from others. This extended eating metaphor reverberates throughout BTI, and as Naomi provides the boy's healthiest eating option to date with the vegan restaurant, reaches a pinnacle of development in pinto's. We've got to make things good for each other. We have to make it so we can eat right, so we can feel safe, so that we can grow. Iaco's passionate verse is undermined by its reliance upon money. The need to make money in order to get away from problems is an inescapable problem. It's what makes it so that their love can only dream of making it somewhere else for good, and it's what ultimately prevents their freedom. There's the sweet ecstasy of love present in this

song, but as usual, Gambino makes us eat our vegetables too. Everybody should be just following their passion because they're going to be good at that at most, but like people are too worried about, you know, you know, their jobs, because people got to eat. It's a lot. It's a lot of it. It's a lot of It's not sad, but it's just like it's true. Like people got to eat and I feel bad. Like I don't want to be the guy on camera being like, you should be following your dreams. And then people are like, I have five kids.

You know, I can't do that. But I think it's true. Like people are scared and vulnerable. Because it's dangerous to do that. But I don't think we're going to grow if we don't. As Glover explains, we all have to eat. The thing is, we've contorted our eating habits, making it a competition that ends up exploiting other people.

We can't keep doing this. We're not going to grow if it's a dog-eat-dog world. We're just going to keep killing each other and our planet. Gambino returns to the track singing, I never worry about it, and repeats, act like you know. The lack of worry indicates both the carefree joy of love, but also the complacency Gambino falls into, as he stops seeing the problems that have consumed his mind previous.

He then sings, I have my N-word count it, back up them owes. Here there's concern over money, but interestingly, it's not accounted for directly. Similar to money's presence underneath the images of love, the boy obviates the responsibility of doing the numbers to someone else. Back-up them-Os refers to both the zeros in his bank account, as well as the ounces and quantities of the various drugs being dealt. These tedious but necessary accounting tasks are left to someone else, indicative of the boy's failures as a drug dealer. But it's also indicative of our more universal practices, wherein we don't account for the true toll of our actions, all too content with just enjoying what we can on the surface. Gambino continues singing,

she's dressed up in gold, C3PO, a slight modification of the line from the beginning of the song. Dressed up in gold implies magnificent wealth and continues the imagery of surface level opulence. The reference to C3PO nods both to the droids gold construction and also the opening bridges line, she on my back about it, C3PO. It seems the she, likely Naomi or Iaco, has come around to the lifestyle. Instead of the worrying she displayed at the start, she is now content to enjoy the splendor of dressing everything in gold, as she feels intoxicated by the drugs and love with Gambino and his money. Gambino then begins transitioning to the end of the song, foreshadowing coming events in the script and the unpredictability of its end.

He sings, I'm out of time, and in the background, act like you know, repeats. Here we see the beginning of the end, even as Gambino tries to tell himself to act like he knows what to do. His time is up. Just as he started to feel a connection and purpose, it will end as quickly as it began. The screenplay scene Pink Toast scores begins with a passage describing Naomi and the boy's love. We're going to read this passage. and full. It deserves our time and space as Glover breaks the fourth wall and engages us with sincerity. Quote, this is the part where they kind of fall in love a little bit, but I feel like anything we put here wouldn't do justice to what really happens when a person you meet ends up

in your life out of nowhere. But know that it's exactly how you expect it to be, but also more. It's a big inside joke that you can't mess up and only one other person in the world gets it. It's not a very pretty or perfect love, or necessarily a romantic love. It doesn't look cool. It's more like two helpless things in the wild, and one says, I'll protect you. And both parties know it's a lie because there's no way either of them can protect the other from anything. That lie is the best way to describe this love. That feeling of not having to say, I'm scared, because you share the exact feelings without having words over or under-complicate it.

That's worth more than protection. It's a connection, the less alone. The script then gives us a few glimpses into Naomi and the boy's love and daily life. They talk, hang out, watch cartoons. The boy buys things for Naomi, and she makes him stuff. For the third and final time, the script says, they're always saying things, giving opinions, feeling interesting. They both have a purpose. It's a great time.

In terms of analysis, there isn't much that needs to be said or pontificated about in light of this beautifully sincere passage. The writing breaks any wall of writer and audience, opting instead for conversational tone and pronouns that seek to connect on a personal level. Most importantly, their relationship is, quote, a connection, the less alone. This is all we look for on earth, unquote. Connection in many ways is the central concept of BTI, and here, after searching and struggling for so long, the boy has finally found it.

This connection doesn't mean he isn't alone. but it means that they're less alone. Typically we believe that once we connect and find love, our loneliness will be abated. Glover here challenges that assumption, instead stressing the loneliness and confusion inherit to the human experience, recognizing that we're all independent yet intertwined, that we are both alone and connected. When we feel those connections, we have a purpose with each other as the script reads, and we have a great time. We've heard this same phrasing a few times in the screenplay, notably at the parties the boy grew to loathe and in the streets of Stockholm where people walked together and conversed. Now the boy gets to be a part of it.

He realizes a connection. He gets to say things, give opinions, feel interesting. He finds purpose in his connection with Naomi and it's a great time. But then the script says, quote, time passes. The boy's drug dealing grows exponentially. While he's not very good at it, he starts expanding, dealing more than just weed, using the mansion as the center of his, business and moving out to a rental house. The script then cuts to a scene of the boy telling Naomi he has to go oversee a deal at the mansion, and she tells him he shouldn't go. He says that he

has to because he doesn't trust anyone, except for her. She says that he shouldn't, which he recognizes is true. Naomi then says, I don't want to be right, I want to help you. The boy mocks her, but she doesn't laugh. As the boy leaves, he asks if she's okay and she says, I'm fine. The boy doesn't know if she's telling the truth or not. The script then notes that nothing real is ever fine and tells the reader to remember this. As the boy walks out, the script says that they'll never see each other again, and the scene ends. In these scenes, the boy gets caught up in the pursuit of more and more wealth, leaving the security of his home and selling more and more, even if he doesn't actually know what he's doing. This reality underscores the futility of his constant reminder to act like you know in pink toes.

toes. When Naomi expresses concern for his safety, he mocks her. Instead of them laughing together and bringing them closer, it fails. They aren't honest with each other, and the boy can't detect the truth underneath Naomi's, I'm fine, so he leaves. Notably, this disagreement only happens due to the boy's need to make money. He has to overlook a particular drug deal, as he has to keep pushing to make more money. This reflects that underlying threat of money being central to their connection, a weak point in its foundation. The script tells us that they'll never see each other again, foreshadowing the coming events of the screenplay. Matching the song's mournful outro, Gambino sings that he's out of time and we hear the light sounds of sirens in the background.

As quickly as it began, it seems his drug dealing is going to catch up with him. Conclusions. After the mournful intimacy of Urn, the boy finds himself ready to connect within the system surrounding him. He falls up. in love with Naomi and finally feels a purpose. This connection gives them hope that things can get better and that maybe they can experience that together, but they won't. Like a drug trip, the bliss of their love is brief and doomed. But regardless of this, it's nice to finally get some sincerity from Gambino, some rainbows, sunshine, happiness. The joy of connection, whether that be the ecstasy of love or the euphoria of drugs, is something to behold and relish, even if we know

it's going to end. The reality that life is short and difficult cannot be avoided, but we should cherish the joy we do experience when we can. What Pink Toes and the corresponding script illuminate are some of the ways our current systems impede us from experiencing more of that joy. Underneath the boy and Naomi's connection is a need for time and space to engage and nurture that connection, and to do that requires economic freedom, the lack of concern for making money or eating. The stress caused by the pursuit of money to survive ultimately led to the conflict at the end of the scene, which will eventually lead to the boy's demise. The irony here is that we created these economic systems, systems that exploit and create a need to compete with each other

for safe space and freedom. If love is providing safe space for each other to connect, and our system requires money in order to do that, then we need money to achieve long-lasting love. Intrinsically, that attains the purity of the connection and can destine us for failure. While we might enjoy the pleasure of our brief moments of connection, if we really want to grow up, if we want to progress and evolve, we have to change our old systems, our ways of eating. Because for now, we're all just hoping things will get better, making it work if we can within the imperfect system we made. But this isn't going to last, and as a universal applicator that highlights our current dilemma in the age of the internet, neither will the boy.

We'll see Gambino grapple with the end in the album's next track, Earth, the Oldest Computer. A song will examine note by note, line by line, next time on Dysect. Today's episode of Dysect was written by Camden Ostrander and me. Remember, you can go deeper into the world of Because the Internet through the supplementary guides on our website, Dysectpodcast.com. Be sure to check out our limited season 7 merchandise. Also, be sure to follow us on social media at Dysect Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Eric Bass and me, screenplay score by So Wiley, song recreations by Andrew Atwood, theme music by bureaucratic. Okay, thanks everyone. Talk to you next week.