Bucket List
Saba
Grateful hustle with real grit, undercut by a jarring closing bit
What do these signals mean?
- Edifying — Points the heart toward God, truth, hope, or love.
- Worth Weighing — Real good and real concern together. Test it before you take it in.
- Take Caution — Leans toward what could dull or mislead. Approach carefully.
- Consider Avoiding — Celebrates what Scripture warns against. Little here builds up.
Weighed against Scripture
“For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Saba's repeated image of rain giving way to sun directly mirrors the psalmist's promise that weeping may last through the night but joy comes in the morning. The chorus is almost a secular paraphrase of this verse.
“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
Paul's contentment learned through both plenty and want resonates with Saba's gratitude rising from the bottom. The drive to accomplish is not self-made boasting here but something closer to resilience grounded in survival.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
A few bars tip toward chest-thumping about being the sole heir to the booth and leaving haters behind. Scripture warns that pride before a fall is real, which is worth holding alongside the song's better gratitude.
For most of its runtime, 'Bucket List' is a celebration of perseverance and quiet gratitude from a Chicago artist who came from little and is checking off dreams one by one. The chorus carries genuine wonder at still being alive and the sense that something or someone has been watching over him. That is meaningful. The song loses its footing in the final seconds with a comedy-skit outro from an angry ex threatening violence, which is jarring against everything that came before it. Listeners who stop before that point get a more coherent message than the full track delivers.
Scattered profanity throughout, casual mention of trying marijuana, and a comedic but aggressive outro voicemail that references physical violence. The core of the song is not gratuitous, but the language is consistently coarse and the outro lands hard.
The chorus is genuinely thankful: surviving, sensing angelic protection, trusting the sun comes after rain. There is no God-language, but the posture reaches toward gratitude and resilience rather than self-worship or despair. The outro shifts the tone sharply into something petty and comedic.
Saba is documenting ambition, survival, and gratitude from the bottom up. The bucket list framing is about doing what doubters said was impossible. The outro reads as a comedic skit rather than sincere menace, but it still disrupts the song's better impulses.
When you think about your own bucket list, what is underneath the ambition: a desire to prove something, or genuine gratitude for the life you have been given?