You Kill Me Boy, XO – Beyoncé on Monogamy

Written by Tommy Boyce

In a post-COWBOY CARTER world, it seems that there’s nothing Beyoncé Giselle Knowles Carter cannot do. We’re twenty-one years, eight studio albums, and one Beychella into the great Beyoncé experiment; a career minted through once-in-a-lifetime live performances, mastery of the media machine, and a continual (at times dizzying) artistic growth. The last decade in particular has seen her break new ground in her songwriting, offering an increasingly intimate glimpse into her personal life and twenty-three year long relationship with Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. I’ve spent the last few weeks unable to listen to anything at the gym but HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM, the recording of Bey’s landmark 2018 Coachella headline performance, and it was through repeated listens of this seamless mingling of her career up to that point that I realized how remarkable it is that the entirety of her artistic output has centered around one person, one muse. Beyoncé is perhaps the only major popstar to trace the course of a single relationship, so what does she have to say about monogamy?

Beyoncé first three records are testaments to excess, feeling everything as deeply and intensely as possible. They are loud, especially B’Day, capturing the initial fall for someone and the ensuing devotion and obsession. “Crazy in Love,” her debut single and opening of her debut solo record, tees this sentiment up: “Such a funny thing for me to try to explain, How I'm feeling and my pride is the one to blame/ 'Cause I know I don't understand, Just how your love can do what no one else can.” The song is Beyoncé’s Rosetta Stone, everything that follows can be traced back and translated through this sentiment. To Bey, the high from a new love is all-encompassing; her lover is the ultimate in her eyes: “there's no other man that gives me what I want and makes me feel this way,” her lover “fulfills her fantasies,” and she “belongs to [him],” pledging that “there is nothing I won't do for you/ I know my soul connected me to you.” She likens this love to something divine on “Ave Maria,” believing that through Jay she “found Heaven on Earth,” her “last, [her] first.” In fact, she hardly sings about anything but Jay on these first three records, almost no other subject is as important to her as the love that she’s experiencing.

Of course, this laser-sharp focus on Hova illuminates the hardships of being intimate with someone. Infidelity, a topic that would famously reach its zenith on Lemonade is an early thread here, with “Resentment” and “Me, Myself and I,” being two standouts that excavate the damage caused by such a betrayal. Even when there wasn’t the threat of “loose women,” Bey still had to deal with the bullshit that comes from loving a man, especially one who’s “too damn old to be so immature” (WOOF). Love doesn’t come easy, and a recurring theme amongst these three albums is the importance of tending and nurturing relationships despite the pain they can inflict. On the underrated “Satellites” from I am… Sasha Fierce, Bey asks her love to open up to her for fear of drifting apart: “If we don't communicate/ We'll exist in our own space/ We have all the love we need/ While we're apart, I cannot breathe/Satellites, Flashin' by.” Throughout the beginning of her career, we see Beyoncé wrestle with the intensity of her desire (she is famously a Virgo) and it’s reflected in brash, unflinching songwriting that’s unafraid of how she would be perceived (you can’t write “Ring the Alarm” if you’re worried about coming off as crazy). This beginning stage of a long-term relationship has her on the verge; of giving her all to her man, of walking away completely, of resorting to violence, and there’s a longing for a feeling of stability and peace in the romance.

These intense feelings from the flames of a new love don’t last forever; however, they eventually abet and leave you with a strong, fulfilling simmer. At least that’s what 4 and Beyoncé (Self-Titled) promise. There’s a joy to 4 that takes my breath away when I listen to it. Track after track portray the feeling of basking in the glow of a strong, steady relationship. “Countdown” celebrates the lessons she’s learned and relishes in the security of belonging to someone, “End of Time” is a B’Day level declaration of till-death-do-us-part, and “Party,” one of her best songs, is pure, unbridled devotion in MP3 form. Self-Titled, her best album (fight me), spends most its time under the cover’s, eschewing 4’s emotional satisfaction for the pure carnal lust that comes from knowing someone’s body inside and out. The staggering 7 track run from “Drunk in Love” to “Mine” is among the most revealing and sexually charged music of her career. Tracks like “Blow,” and “Rocket” have never made monogamy seem sexier; the former a cheeky ode to how sweet a lover tastes and the latter an almost shockingly explicit run-down of how exactly Mrs. Carter plans to break her own bed. Even in this lust for life Beyoncé still manages to weave in the feelings of doubt and anxiety that remain in the healthiest of relationships; “No Angel” sees her attempting to own both her sexuality and her faults while asking her partner to do the same and “Mine” unpacks the desire to possess a partner totally out of fear of losing them due to factors like postpartum depression and, again, infidelity.

That of course leads us to Lemonade, the album that probably has defined Beyoncé the most as a musician and cultural figure. There’s not much I can say about Lemonade that hasn’t already been addressed, but what really stands in my mind when I think about what Beyoncé thinks about love is how damaging it is to be hurt by someone you know so well. “Hold Up” explicitly deals with this, with Bey trying to make sense of the “wicked way” she was treated by the person she knew best; similarly “Love Drought” sees her repeatedly asking: “Tell me, what did I do wrong?” and on standout single “Sorry” she “regrets the night [she] put that ring on,” asking the “lord to reveal to what his truth is.” Lemonade as an album see’s Beyoncé circling back to the feelings she was exploring at the beginning of her career, but here the intensity of her desires brought on by falling head over heels is replaced by a righteous anger from the faithlessness of the man she gave her life to. It’s the comedown of the high of the previous two records, the reminder that what brings you the most happiness can equally give the most pain.

*Beyonce in ‘Hold Up’ music video (2016)*

But that isn’t the end of the story here. Yes, love hurts. It keeps you awake at night, obsessing over whether you stay up in someone’s mind, it causes you to overthink and overanalyze, it drives you to extremes you didn’t think possible, but Beyoncé keeps loving anyway. On the emotional climax of Lemonade, “All Night,” she sees her decade’s long-relationship from a galaxy’s-eye view, recognizing the hurt they’ve caused each-other but deciding to find strength in her love and move forward: “My love's too pure to watch it chip away/ Boy, nothing real can be threatened/ True love breathes salvation back into me/ With every tear came redemption/And my torturer became my remedy.” To Beyoncé, every heartache, every obstacle she’s faced is worth it to stay in the “blinding light” of the person she loves. To her, loving makes you something you something greater than you are on your own, and finding the rich reward of a love that’s tried and true and long-lived is one of the most important things you could ever hope to do.

RENAISSANCE and COWBOY CARTER don’t break especially new ground lyrically for Beyoncé, they’re more interested in exploring new sonics, but we now get Bey soaking in an even richer, deeper love. The first time I heard “VIRGO’S GROOVE” I actually got emotional thinking about what it must mean to love someone as much as this singer love’s her muse; what is it like to go around every day carrying that depth of feeling and care? “II HANDS II HEAVEN” likewise gagged me, it’s such a transcendent, blissful song, a victory lap for an artist who has spent her entire life exploring what it means to love and lose, and came out on the other side victorious: "I'll never stop you, you'll never stop me/ From bein' whatever we need to be/ And in these dark times, I'm so glad that this love is blinding/ 'Cause all I see is the best of you, and all you see is the best of me/ And you bring out the best of me/ And all I see is everything.” I started writing this piece when I was in love; I was riding the high of those early days, soundtracking my happiness to songs like “Love On Top” and “CUFF IT” and looking forward to the promise of a future that songs like “XO” portray, one of emotional fulfillment and joy.

I suddenly find myself no longer in love (well at least no longer in that relationship) and am undergoing the very unglamorous process of unpacking my emotions and becoming accustomed to singlehood. I won’t lie, in the beginning it was hard to listen some of these songs again and remember the way I could so easily put myself into Beyoncé’s shoes, feeling the same way she felt about her man. But as I start to move on and wrap my head around everything, I know that I’m grateful to have loved, and listening to Beyoncé’s experience of her own journey of loving and being loved, I know that it will always be worth it do so. When I hear the outro of “II HANDS II HEAVEN,” the choir exalting that “I’ve been waiting my whole life for you and I,” I’m at peace knowing that one day I’ll also that feel way, and thankful that Bey’s shared her love with me in the meantime.

Written by Tommy Boyce, June 6 2024

You Kill Me Boy, XO – Beyoncé on Monogamy

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