Listening to POPS - THEY to Aid in Writing Exercises

POPS by THEY will always have a place in my heart. Whenever it plays I have to hear it through and each time the meaning is different to me based on where I am in my life or where I want/feel my writing to be/is. As a writing student I am always finding ways to work my muscle, especially when I am feeling lost or uninspired. Listening to music is a great tool for any individual that wants to create or have a way to experience themselves.

During Summer Swarm (a summer session for incoming SCAD bees enrolled at SCAD), a good friend of mine (at the time), put me onto THEY. Specifically, their song POPS. In this blog I will use POPS as an example for gather ideas and reflecting. I recommend playing POPS one time through if you have yet to hear it, read my exercise excerpt below and then potentially share your own if you feel comfortable! This is a safe space, but never feel obligated to share or comment anything that you don't feel comfortable sharing.

Exercise/Reflection: Remember when, where, why, etc

I’ve talked about not fitting a “black American dad story”, but cruising in the grey area, in a lot (ok, more like one or two) of my independent writing piece which is another topic and blog in itself so we won’t get into. Nonetheless, this song reminds me of how that coined phrase is different for everyone. No one has the same, "black American dad story" as Audrey Graham (Drake) once said, regardless of what the American stereotype claims.

Pops brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard it. Not the first time it was played, but the first time I heard it and actually felt it.

There is a beauty in listening to a song and going down a streamline of thoughts when playing it. Key topics, words, or elements from POPS can evoke thoughts and questions with your own life. Here are some of mine from recently.

Death/Reflection of Life

Recently, I think about death of those I love and don’t talk to. The statement will go no further, but is something I need to admit out loud and on paper, somewhere.

Calling a man "Picasso" isn't a compliment.

Pops was on repeat in June /July 2018 (whenever the Swarm was--a summer session for incoming SCAD bees) where I’d meet someone I’d refer to Picasso throughout my college experience (after throwing this man at my professor my last year of undergrad, I dreamed I will never write about him again, so I will not. You can get a gist of him on my medium (@itsyanniee), but truly he does not live in my mind or on paper anymore and he never deserved the space that in occupied in/on either).

Pops made me reflect on the relations I’ve had with my father. And the type of men I attract and interact with. I'm sorry that there isn't more context provided, but run with what I have provided because that's all you really can do as a reader. You can laugh or frown based on assumptions. I tend to do a bit of both.

Childhood

It also made me realize how much I never wanted my childhood to shape who I was and how I distance myself so far from it that I wonder if there is a bit of blur between fact and potential fiction. I also wonder if that even makes sense.

Is that not the coolest thing, oddly enough? How one song can instantly become a parallel for your own narrative? As a writer, it definitely helps with writing exercises and free writing (as pictured above). Of course, as we can see a lot of things are unclear and require further expansion to develop a story, which I kind of hinted at in the last one. What could be fact or fiction? This steams from having some of my fiction work be considered non-fiction in the past. What do I do to fix the unresolved for love ones, especially when our time on earth is short? What do my relationships say about me? These are all questions that can arise after conducting such an exercise.

Let me know your thoughts and opinions below. Have you ever done an exercise like this? If so, how did it make you feel? How did your thoughts change?