Not A Review: Bambi

I got home yesterday (ICYMI).

On my way home, my baby brother decided to control the music playlist in the vehicle (to play songs he knew I like or would like – because he loves me)

Now, he played Jidenna’s Bambi and while everyone in the car sang along, my heart almost came out of my chest because the song made me so wistful. I only just heard the song  yesterday when he played it,  but by the end of the track, I felt like I had known it for 5 years. It felt like a real and relatable sad story.

Call me weird but I could not explain the way I felt about the song. Call me dramatic but the song drowned my emotions for some reason.

So I went ahead to download it (sorry DMCA, sorry WIPO, sorry Jidenna). And I listened to the lyrics.

Basically, from what I could deduce, the song is about a young man who, though feels compelled to be quite the usual womanizing, philandering, two-timing African man (because he talks about his grandfather having 7 wives and maybe passing down the genes of ‘One man, who-is-counting number of women’), he has fallen in love with one particular docile and maybe innocent young lady (Bambi).

He sings about how there are lions near him (although I interpret it to mean that he’s a lion capable of the plural ferociousness of lionssss). He tells Bambi that though he wants her and admits that she’s the love of his life, she should not come near him, because she will be devoured (he refers to her a lot as ‘dear’ which may be the ‘deer’ opposite to his lion)

He also talks about the ‘women of his tribe’. Fellow lionesses who I supposed are girls comfortable with helping a man cheat. They’d be jealous if they eventually found out that he has found ONE girl with whom he wants to spend his entire life (probably because they feel like they could never have that).  They may also be part of the devouring lions.

Apart from its amazing tune, I like the song because it brings a new perspective to me on the mind of a cheating man. I usually try to understand why people act the way they do (yes, I have read the book), but for the cheating man, I have never really been able to empathize.

I still don’t condone the act, but now I can understand a couple of things from the songs. Like the fact that it’s actually a struggle for some of them to break free from their randy-ness. I mean, the same way I have in the past struggled with some habits, these people also struggle with the habit of womanizing.

I used to also always think narrowly that they expressly choose every time to just be lacking of self control (which is sort of an irony because can we really say that a person can choose to not have control? Maybe we can). But I now realize that the same way habits require you to practice them without giving you much time to analyze, cheating may also do that.

I used to also think that all cheating men (or women, as the situation may be), only cheat because they don’t really love anyone. But the Lion loved Bambi. At least he feels like he really really does. (he subtly threatens to even scatter her wedding day with drama because ‘no one can take you from me Bambi’ – which happens to be my favorite line in the song) But then, he says he just can’t drop his cheating habit.

As much as I like the song, I’m worried that it may be a comfort to many cheaters and dears out there.

Cheaters: Right?? This thing is just in my genes. I can’t stop. It’s who I am.

Dears: Jidenna said it all. Cheater loves me, he doesn’t just know how to stop cheating.

No. No. No.

Just like every bad habit, unfaithfulness and infidelity can be cured with a large dose of focusing on God rather than your own desires (I like how God literally kills our desire for doing bad and unhealthy stuff the more we focus on him and his word.) and the right dose of intentional self control (what’s that thing they say about fleeing all appearances of evil?)

In conclusion, the tune of the song sticks! In my head! It’s nice!

And, I duff my hat to Jidenna’s (or whoever wrote the song’s) storytelling ability.

Likes: The tune, The projected genuineness in singer’s voice, The mental mixture of jungle setting  and human technology and convenience

Dislike: The likely effect and interpretation of the song