Sunday, August 12, 2012

Song of the Week

Frank Ocean's 'Forrest Gump'




This song has been on repeat for the past week.  Along with releasing, what is in my opinion, the best album of the year so far, Frank Ocean opened up about his own sexual orientation (he states that his first love was a man).  Such a fact obviously skews the interpretation of the song, making it much more personal than Ocean merely assuming a female narrator – presumably Jenny.  I find this song to be intriguing in its ability to flow between the narrator’s nostalgic view of the past and her/his present, less romantic reality: the cigarettes are burning and the narrator admits to a nervousness of unknown undertones.  Ocean subtly employs echoed samples of cheering crowds along with a collective chorus that brings the remembered scene to the narrator’s conscious.  Sure you can read into this song on many levels, but in the end it's a song that simply reveals the effects of the past upon the present.     

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