Branches Book

BRANCHES

“Whoever you are, wherever you are… I’m starting to think we’re a lot alike.” Because we are all a lot alike.

“I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films. Even though it's my voice, I'm a storyteller.”

A Storyteller Ocean’s progression as an artist stems from the development of his own stories, telling them through song, and later making himself the focus of the story. Life is a hard thing to write about, or compile into notes and compress into one song. Life is not a fairytale, there are obstacles to overcome and transitions to make that can be uncomfortable and unpleasant. Ocean uses his comical interludes to break up the intensity of the songs and the stories behind them. It’s like when people feel uncomfortable, anxious, or awkward, they laugh, or divert themselves and their audience to laughter. This is relevant at the beginning of “Pilot Jones,” when he says “We once had things in common/ Now the only thing we share is the refrigerator/ Ice-cold, baby, I told you I’m ice cold” before getting into a story about a crack addicted dealer, a very heavy story to follow. In his song “Fertilizer,” he channel-surfs to the commercialized jingle “I’ll take bullshit if that’s all you got,” and ensuing a canned laugh track before the next track on the album “Sierra Leone,” which is a sexy and sultry slow jam of metaphors about a poor, young couple who have unprotected sex and then get pregnant. “Spending too much time alone and I just ran out of Trojans. Horses gallop to her throne.” In an interview with the BBC, Ocean explained his songwriting process. He said, “What inspires me to make music is…I’m just inspired to tell stories, and you gotta make sure the listener is listening to you. And if you put it in the form of a song, oftentimes, if the song is striking enough, you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.” Channel Orange The first track on the album, “Thinkin Bout You,” goes hand in hand with his previously published coming out letter on tumblr. Before releasing the full album, he posted a snippet of the song for his tumblr fans to listen to. Though this song was for a woman, the lines "my eyes don't shed tears, but boy they pour when I'm thinkin bout you,” seem to tell another story,

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