Analysis of Feels Like Summertime by Childish Gambino

1. Take notes on how it makes you feel to listen to the song and watch the video.
   Listening to the song watching the video left me confused. The song talks about the
   serious message of climate change. However, the video is full of current rap celebrities
   engaged in, among other things, riding a bicycle and playing basketball. Thus, the video
   seems to convey a different message from the song’s lyrics. It could be that Gambino was
   criticizing the public’s obsession with the lives of celebrities at the expense of serious issues,
   such as climate change.
2. When you consider the lyrics, what message do you think the artist was
   conveying?
   At the heart of the song is a message about climate change. The message is brought out
   more clearly in the second verse where Childish Gambino sings that “every day gets hotter
   than before; running out of water, it’s about to go down” (Glover, 2018). The first part of the
   lyrics is about global warming. The second part is about the consequences of global warming.
   A consequence of global warming that the songs highlights is increased duration of dry spells
   which may lead to running out of water in some places that are already water-stressed.
   The song also conveys worries about the impact of uncontrolled population growth on the
   environment. The worry about fast population growth with little chance of the growth
   slowing down is highlighted in the first section of the first verse when Gambino sings that
   “seven billion souls that move around the sun, rolling faster, fast and not a chance to slow
   down” (Glover, 2018).
3. What do you think they were feeling when they wrote this song?
   The feelings of the artistes when writing this song are perhaps best revealed in the song’s
   refrain. In the refrain, Childish Gambino laments about hoping that the world changes but it

3

remains the same (Glover, 2018). The lyrics convey a feeling of hopelessness and
disillusionment that the artiste has about the sad state of the world and the sad reality that
nothing seems to be done to make the world better.

4. Do you agree or disagree with what they\’re saying? Why?
   I agree with the message of the song. Climate change is an issue that should be taken
   seriously because failure to act may have dire consequences for humanity.

4

References

Glover, D. (2018, September 1). Feels Like Summer (Video). YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1B9Fk_SgI0&feature=youtu.be