Bonfire

About

Bonfire is a 2011 hip hop song by American actor Donald Glover under his stage name Childish Gambino. In late 2011 to 2012, the vocals for Bonfire became a popular mashup source on SoundCloud and YouTube. In early 2018, a remix of Bonfire by Elijah Who became widely used with cursed image compilations.

Origin

"Bonfire" was the lead single for Childish Gambino’s debut album Camp. After a live premiere on July 22nd, 2011^[1] and an official release on September 17th,^[2] the full song was posted to SoundCloud on September 19th by Glassnote Records (shown below).^[3] The song amassed over 22.8 million views in nine years. On Donald Glover’s YouTube channel, the music video for Bonfire accumulated over 43 million views before becoming unavailable.^[4] On Spotify,^[20] the song has over 220 million plays.

Bonfire has been described as a "bona fide braggadocious track" in which Childish Gambino "alludes to the idea that [he], from a musical perspective, is on fire."^[5] The first verse and chorus of the song are especially popular (lyrics below).^[6]

Okay, it's Childish Gambino, homegirl drop it like the NASDAQ
Move white girls like there's coke up my asscrack
Move black girls 'cause, man, fuck it, I'll do either
I love pussy, I love bitches, dude, I should be runnin’ PETA
In Adidas, with some short shorts, B-O-O all over me
My green is where it's supposed to be, your green is in my grocery
This Asian dude, I stole his girl, and now he got that Kogi beef
My dick is like an accent mark, it's all about the over E's
Hot like a parked car
I sound weird like "nigga" with a hard 'R'
Fly like the logo on my cousin's 440
Eatin' Oreos like these white girls that blow me
Vodka for my ladies, whiskey for a grown man
Hangin' in the islands, lookin' for Earl like Toejam
I made the beat retarded, so I'm callin' it a slow jam
Butcher and I know it, man, kill beef, go ham
These rappers are afraid of him
'Cause I'm a beast, bitch, "grrr", Invader Zim
Gambino is a call girl, fuck you, pay me
Brand new whip for these niggas like slavery
Told me I was awful and that shit did not faze me
Tell me how I suck again, my memory is hazy
“You're my favorite rapper now”, yeah, dude, I better be
Or you can fuckin, kiss my ass, Human Centipede
You wanna see my girl? I ain't that dumb
You wanna see my girl? Check Maxim
"Man, why does every black actor gotta rap some?”
I don't know, all I know is I'm the best one

It's a bonfire, turn the lights out
I'm burnin' everything you mothafuckas talk about
It's a bonfire, turn the lights out
I'm burnin' everything you mothafuckas talk about ^[7]

On October 25th 2011, Childish Gambino fan site Forever Childish posted the earliest found link to Bonfire’s isolated vocals and instrumental to Tumblr.^[8] The availability of Bonfire’s vocals and instrumental allowed people to easily create mashups using it. Because the Forever Childish post had only 17 notes, the vocals and instrumental probably came from an unspecified source.^[9]

Spread

After the release of Bonfire’s vocals and instrumental in October 2011, it became a common source in mashups and SoundClown edits. The earliest found mashup was posted to SoundCloud on November 3rd, 2011 by musical artist DJ Fergie Ferg. It uses the song "Nightcall" by Kavinsky, which is known for its use in the title sequence of the 2011 movie Drive (shown below, left).^[10] In nine years, it garnered over 100,000 plays and 1,100 likes. On November 6th, SoundCloud user manonfiremashups posted a Bonfire mashup using Das Kapital’s remix of Bon Iver’s "Skinny Love" (shown below, right).^[11] In a similar period to the Nightfire mashup, it gained more than 100,000 plays and 1,200 likes. Notably, many Bonfire mashups have been removed from SoundCloud for copyright issues.^[12]

In 2012, people began creating Bonfire mashups to the point of oversaturation. On October 2nd, 2012, Reddit user mtndrew11 made a post to the subreddit /r/mashups complaining about the overuse of Bonfire as a source (shown below).^[13] The post received over 110 upvotes and 33 comments before being archived.

On November 28th, SoundCloud user imrobw posted a track titled "Throw It In the Bonfire" that paired Bonfire’s vocals with various sources (shown below, left).^[14] It received almost 50,000 plays and more than 800 likes in seven years. On February 5th, 2013, Soundcloud mashup artist Only Mashes Bonfire posted a Bonfire mashup using a remix of the "Boxing – Results" theme from the 2006 video game Wii Sports (shown below, right).^[15] In seven and a half years, it gained over 68,000 plays and 1,300 likes. From 2013 to 2018, Only Mashes Bonfire released more than 20 mashups using Bonfire.^[16]

On the music mashup channel SiIvaGunner, over 75 high-quality rips featuring "Bonfire" have been uploaded to YouTube.^[17] One SoundCloud playlist includes over 450 tracks referencing the song.^[18] Additionally, the popularity of Bonfire as a source may have set a precedent for other Childish Gambino songs to be widely remixed and sampled.

Related Memes

Cursed Image Compilations

In early to mid 2018, a Bonfire remix by musical artist Elijah Who titled "don’t forget to feed your neopets" became associated with cursed image compilations (shown below).^[19]

Various Examples

External References