Inspired By: Day Dreaming (Aretha Franklin 1972)

'Inspired By' is a series of writings based on songs from various genres and eras. The writings explore the potential backstories and imagined events derived from the lyrics or musical arrangements.

For this lover, it is deep. And wide. This love fills up oceans and its tides rise and fall with the moods of the moon. It is the kind of love that is far-reaching, stretching back through lineages, weaving a course along generations, and rooted in connections that lost their way as timelines bend at the glories and shames of humanity.  It is the kind of love that offers no explanation for its existence because it does not have to; it’s here because it’s here. Kinda like God.  Now, in the simplest of ways, it is a love that makes me shape-shift, turn myself inside out so he can see the way my heart leaps at the very sight of him.  But then, he doesn’t know that, nor will he ever. 

You see, I love harder in my daydreams than I do in the wake of day and the still of night.  It’s easier that way. The color of reality is usually gray. While the fabric of my spirit moves in love as vast as the cosmos, in my skin and bones, love buckles under the weight of simple ass notions determined by some invisible hand;  a hand that holds damn near everybody under its trance. The masses sing choruses in the same key about love; what it is, what it ain’t, what it should be. But all I know is how love is what it is in me. In that, I want to express myself in fullness. But in this mess of capitalistic unrest, I hold it hostage within a fortress built with my tears and distrust. Ain’t none of that fair. So, I continue to daydream.

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INSPIRED BY: This is one of my favorite songs by Aretha Franklin. Since hearing it several years ago in my twenties, this song definitely inspires me to dream about the Love of my Life. A few times I thought I met someone worth day dreaming about, but they proved to be either false starts or imposters. Nevertheless. The cosmic chords at the beginning of this song set the tone for the dreamy vibe of the music and the vocal soarings of Mama Aretha and her background singers. The specific lyrics, “I want to be what he wants when he wants it and whenever he needs it. And when he’s lonesome and feeling love-starved, I’ll be there to feed it”, proved to be the central focus for the words that came to me.

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Not So Fine Print: With the exceptions of the paintings and the YouTube video, this is my creative work and I can prove it. I don’t mind you sharing but give credit where credit is due. Send them a link to this site. Encourage them to subscribe. But don’t take it and act like it’s yours. God don’t like ugly so if you steal any single word I wrote, your life will go awry. Trust me. My writing is conjure.