Monday, March 13, 2017

brown girl dreaming ft. Sampha

http://www.topmusicplaylist.com/sampha-5SCucTNUnq/song/what-shouldnt-i-be-QraCKhlr1g

I wish I could put the entire novel as a lengthy passage for this song, because I feel like it’s extremely applicable to Jackie’s contrast in family life with her grandparents versus her mother. I have decided to choose the vignette “home then home again” to mirror this Sampha’s “What Shouldn’t I Be?” because the vignette, like the song, demonstrates the confusion of identity Jackie is feeling as she shifts from region to region.

The vignette highlights Jackie and her siblings returning to New York to be with their mother after a summer spent in Greenville with their grandparents. It provides the impending notion to the reader that these children have to adjust their mannerisms and beliefs to accommodate to the adult’s wishes—be it their mother or grandparents—while trying to harness their individual identities. I especially think the song fits well in the lyrics “Family ties / Put them ‘round my neck…/ A ghost by my side / Challenges come / Challenges come and they go…/ You can always come home
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1 comment:

  1. KGMarch 15, 2017 at 4:16 PM

    Hi Kelena,

    This song choice works well with Jackie's struggles to find her identity without just accepting the ways of being of her elders. From her father to her grandmother, daddy, uncle, and mother, she sees qualities she wants to emulate and qualities she wants to leave behind in all of her family members. I am having a difficult time getting that song to play at that link, and even the Youtube versions seem to be silent lyric videos, which is a bit strange. It would be useful here to do a bit more close reading of the lyrics paired with the poem. For example, which specific lines in Woodson's poetry matches with the lyrics you excerpt from the song, and what can we as the reader gather from synthesizing the two together?

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