Month: April 2017

Okay so… i have decided to knock the monkey idea on the head. It’s all a bit… confusing.

ANYWHO, i have been listening to some spoken word poetry that has inspired my greatly to write my own piece!! HOORAY finally we have words!

and with many thanks to the following artists who have creatively shook my brain:

ANDREA GIBSON 

Andrea Gibson – Maybe I Need You | Sofar New York (2015)

I mean… how beautifully moving. Music to accompany poetry. And raw poetry at that, a story, a feeling… so simple. It is direct.

 

 Andrea Gibson – Panic Button Collector (2014)

Andrea Gibson – I Do (Studio Version) (2011)

I really don’t have a lot to say about her work besides absolutely inspiring and compelling and completely up my street!

There are so many poems by her that have inspired me, unfortunately i cannot seem to attach the file / poem ‘Puff the magic dragon’!!  This is terribly upsetting but you can access it on Spotify if you wish to listen to my main influence! I will relay some lyrics…

‘Do you remember believing in something more than this…

Do you remember believing.

This morning i woke to the sound of my whole life leaving, beneath the ding of my alarm clock…

a little black box that wakes me every morning with the stop fucking dreaming, stop fucking dreaming, STOP FUCKING DREAMING…

and i sat up and thought my god, when did we all stop believing? 

cos 20 years ago you never could have told me that story was true… that dragons live forever but not little girls and boys that painted rings and giants wings make way for other things like student loans and pap smears and rent and lunch breaks and beer, GOD IM SO TIRED OF BEER i wanna be high again, like we were when we were five. 

So i say, we track down the train that drove all the madness away. Start living our lives instead of just writing about them, standing around on stages and shouting about them “Hey Andrea wanna go on a hike?” “no no sorry i’d rather stay home and type metaphors about mountains and trees under the fluorescence of my computer screen”

JESUS CHRIST I USED TO BE A UNICORN you should’ve seen me fly! why cant we be unicorns now? …

See we, need to re-mother our natures see, stop just punching and punching the clock or one day the tick-tock of our lives are gonna stop and we’ll have no wings to show for it. So tell me, tomorrow, when your alarm clock wakes you to another tired morning and you can hear beneath the pound the sound of its whole life leaving, 

what are you gonna choose to believe in.”

I want to include the ‘STOP FUCKING DREAMING’ aspect somewhere in my piece and i want to express how my brain is constantly away with the fairies, wishing we were five again, wishing there was more to this life. Because, that is me. That is exactly how i feel. So what i have done is begun to write down whatever comes to my mind as i sit and think now, about what is bothering me. Using the influence from each poem above, my first spoken word poem will be entered in my next blog post. Stay tuned!

Andrea Gibson – Maybe I Need You | Sofar New York (2015) Youtube video added by Sofar Sounds. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g20xeqjt6bA

Andrea Gibson – I Do (Studio Version) (2011) Youtube Video added by Jonah Harper. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yWmGuTU34g

Andrea Gibson – Panic Button Collector (2014) Youtube Video added by E Mcburney. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOS2ohwDpyA

Dream Big
What do you
What do you want
In life
Where are you going
What are you gonna do with your life

This is not where I wanna be, I’ve got too many dreams on top of me
I cant stop thinking about,
Everything that persists on stopping me
Too many rules, too many faces
telling me that ive got to go different places
and I feel the embarrassment when I see other people putting me through my paces
come down from the clouds
as a child she would listen to the radio
singing every single song as she would go…

 

When she was 2 she played in the dirt

As the sprinklers in the grass would spurt

She made sure that no small thing could get hurt

The things that you love are going to kill you

She said

And as that replayed in her head

She thought of the time she could have been dead

As she sit in the garden with jelly on her tongue

A wasp was lured in by the sun

And The

strawberry scent and how it hung

and then

Into the mouth, it stung and stung

I remember the ice lolly to sooth the pain

It was my sisters and she cried in vain

But I always remember the real shame

A wasp had died, and I was to blame

‘due to whats happened it is imperative that she does not get stung again and if she does she will need immediate emergency attention, as it is likely she will go into anaphylactic shock’

we flower pressed him under the word wasp in the dictionary

I never knew they had legs quite so hairy

I imagined he has a wife called mary and suddenly he didn’t seem so scary

The very next day I went back out

Into the garden I had no doubts

I picked up a wasp I just wanted a friend

It turned around and stung me again

I knew I was a forgiving child

With a heart that was made for the wild

Protector of insects that nobody loves

Maggot and worms I found in the shrubs

If you stood on a snail I would mourn for days

So sometimes when you catch me in a gaze

I’m not just having one of those days

I’m thinking about every different way

That I seem to be stuck in this phase, of life

It feels like I feel too much

Think too much, dream big and sink too much

On the brink, too much

And that’s why I think so much

About the simplest of things

Because when she was 14

life lessons began

Family, hearts and emotions ran

She would write down lyrics and paint and draw and act

There was something within the future of that

‘you’ve got to go into acting, girl you’ve got a talent’

‘you know you are gonna be famous, you are’

‘you know, one day youre gonna be a star’

If you just keep the dream in the near not far

 

When there’s so many things

For the lesson learned was one I still hold

To learn from things you have to be bold

I want to give my love to things

That respond to love with a harsh sting

I still love wasps just as much

But now I am much more weary to touch

But love regardless and that I do

Believe in people and believe in you

You can do whatever you want to do

The shape of your life is up to you

‘but what if I want to get away from it all,

Worry about the trees and the fall

And not about the kids at school or the teachers and tutors

2012

If you let too much get on top of you, you’re never going to make it

Listen ma I think I can take it

I got dreams and I know for my sake its

Not gonna matter if I get in a relationship

Its never going to ruin my plans

to give

a bit of my love to another man

Instead of

Putting my all into my passions

Chasing my dream will never go out of fashion

 

 

i have been listening to my solo playlist on Spotify as I go day to day to get inspiration for the words within my piece. I am currently sitting in an internet café with it on in my ears, watching others go about daily routines, kids crying… laughter… eating, drinking etc. I am allowing the music to be an accompaniment to the waitress’ life. I am letting the words and lyrics relate to her inner thoughts. I imagine her coming out of this routine and time stopping, everything around her stopping, still as if a pause button and she comes out of her own mind and body, performs the song as an inner monologue… and then continues the job.

It is this aspect of inner thoughts and imagination – the realness behind what we present ourselves as.

I imagine, through the smiles, and sweet toned voice of the waitress is inner hurt. I begin to attach stories to her life. made up of course. I imagine… a break up the night before. I imagine, a past drug addiction. I imagine a miscarriage that only makes her bitter that there’s 6 children in here currently making a lot of noise, running around and saying cute things of which she flashes a staged smile and nods her head along to the mothers who share with her their woes and joys. Behind it all her heart is hurting, beating quickly as her stomach churns at the memory she tries to repress. and she gets on. “Thankyou ill bring those over in just a second okay?..* :)”

I hear lyrics that vary from serious topics, bad things in life, confronting these inner issues. I also hear the simplest day to day actions made into songs. Lilly Allen – Friday Night –

This song is purely about going to a club on a Friday night. she simply describes her journey, what she sees, what she does etc.

what I like is the humour within it all- serious or simple topics that play with humour, by the tone of the music or the topic.

I am struggling at this moment as to whether to have a serious topic, or a funny one. what I really want to do is to take on different voices / roles within the spoken song. like a conversational piece- lilly allen and kate nash at very good examples of this of which I have been studying intently. topics like love – but things like stalking and obsession, making light of the things that we all do and go through.

the ironic ‘oh yes I’m fine, everythings just wonderful, I’m having the time of my life’

(everythings wonderful – lilly allen)

this song is particularly interesting to me. lyrics that read:

oh jesus Christ almighty,

do I feel alright? no -not slightly

I wanna get a flat I know I can afford it

its just the bureaucrats that wont give me a mortgage

its very funny cos I got your fuc*n money and I’m never gonna get it just cos of my bad credit

….

why cant I sleep at night

don’t say its gonna be alright

I wanna be able to eat spaghetti bolognese

and not feel bad about it for days and days and days

all my magazines they talk about weight loss

if I buy those jeans I can look like kate moss

I know its not the life that I chose

but I guess its just the way that things go

 

 

In lesson, we had to present our ideas through the third person. It had to be reflective of your style of performance, and so I decided to perform this rendition through a poem – in the style of how I would perform my actual final piece.

it read :

‘The girl sits at her desk

There is a computer

She is typing

She is huffing and puffing

she is irritated

She checks her watch

she smirks to herself about a funny memory that entertains her

she spins on her chair

she tries to balance a pen on her tash

time passes

she is bored

she is tired

she is restricted

her head falls

she enters a dream world

where she would rather be

she stares into the distance as her daydream consumes her, a poetic revelation takes over..

the sounds of the office create a musical symphony about where she really wnats to be and, how this life is not meant for her yet she, feels like she is wasting her life,

by working in a place filled with such strife.

her mind is away in another world, there is more to life for this young girl,

but she has found herself working 9 to 5 in order for her to stay alive.

but what is life if it’s not really lived?

the purpose of the song will be expressive of this, So she’ll walk around the room as the lights change to red,

and purple and blue to show the dreams within her head.

A table and chair will be set over there, as if in a work space, as if others are there.

But her mind will transform the scene of confinement, to smoke machines and colours to make it more vibrant,

as if her mind and the song can transport us all there

to remind us about our choices to come, after uni we must let our imaginations still run,

as free as they can, in the adult world, which we’re all about to enter, so let the truth unfurl.

The song will be direct and hard-hitting to some,

she wants to inform how our lives could become.

The importance of living to your full potential, is a message to end this song on, but coincidentally she comes round, the time has come for her to leave work.

another day awaits tomorrow. Another paycheck. Just to get by. She sighs, and begins to walk away. ‘