Songful Style Link Party #22 | “Flowers are Red” by Harry Chapin

Marsha chose Harry Chapin‘s 1978 song, “Flowers are Red”, for our November Songful Style challenge. The song shares the story of a little boy who is drawing flowers in many colors on his first day of school. Until his teacher tells him that it’s not time for art and that flowers are red and leaves are green and therefore he shouldn’t be using any other colors in his picture. How obscene! You can find the lyrics and other details about this song and the artist in this post.

I had never heard this song before Marsha introduced it for this challenge. While it is a lovely song with a very catchy chorus (it is worming my ears right now), it made me exponentially sad. Sad because the lyrics were born from a true story about Harry Chapin’s secretary’s son in the 1970s. Sad because I had teachers with similar beliefs in the 1980s and 1990s. And even sadder because this kind of creativity stifling still happens within the education system today.

“Your son is marching to the beat of a different drummer, but don’t worry we will soon have him joining the parade by the end of the term.” That is what the teacher wrote on the boy’s report card. Oof. If my kid brought home a report card with that statement on it, I am certain that the teacher would regret it after I was done speaking my opinion!

What doesn’t make me sad, however, is that my 9th grade social studies teacher once told me that I march to the beat of a different drummer. But he didn’t try to force me into some kind of parade of cloned and conditioned teenagers. Instead, he told me that he would like to join my parade! That was one of the few times in my youth when I felt an adult accept, embrace, and encourage my uniqueness. And that message is the one that I have always passed on to younger people when I have been in a position to pass some wisdom on.

When I coached high school swimming over a decade ago, the seniors made a video recapping their high school swimming careers and many of them shared important lessons that they had learned from the coaching staff. I laughed and cried when one of the swimmers said that she will always remember my advice as the best advice. The thing that I always emphasized to my swimmers was to always embrace your inner weirdness. Never let anyone stifle it or kill it because it is what makes you uniquely you. You cannot ever let anyone take that from you. And people will try to. They will try really hard to eliminate everything that is “different.” Be different anyway. Be kind. Be strong in your convictions. And embrace your inner weirdo!

When it came time to style an outfit to represent this song, I had a lot of options to work with in my closet. Red florals are abundant in my wardrobe but I definitely did not want to wear red flowers because that would be too easy and it would also be caving into that teacher’s narrow-minded views. I have this crazy bright multicolored floral dress that was on my radar for this challenge, but then I thought that a straightforward floral print was also too easy and too predictable. For me, at least.

Then I saw this bright paisley and floral print dress hanging in my closet, quite forgotten. I scooped it up on super duper clearance in the spring for less than $10. It is a little bit too big on me and I had contemplated turning it into a duster but it has a wide elastic waistband that I am not sure how to work around for a duster upcycle project. So without making any alterations, I belted the dress instead.

I chose this particular dress because it certainly has artistic vibes and the print is wild and bright enough to piss off any insular educator. Plus if the assignment was red flowers, I would likely submit something with red flowers and purple feathers, teal paisleys, yellow fleur-de-lis…

To really insult those with a parochial perspective on style, I decided an overabundance of bright and wild prints was exactly the thing I needed to wear. So I added a pink thrifted scarf covered in a crazy colorful geometric pattern, an insanely bright pink tribal print duster cardigan, and my happy Buddha charm from ZenSpiritMalas because we all need some good Buddha vibes.

And as my final poke at conservative views on creativity, I topped my head with my rainbow tie dyed leopard print hat. I wonder what that teacher in the song would say about rainbow tie dyed leopards!

While I don’t normally choose my clothing with the goal of offending or annoying folks, sometimes I just have to! But I don’t really understand how such a cheerful outfit could annoy or offend anyone. In fact, I received only compliments on this outfit the day I wore it. Perhaps the style cynics decided to remain reticent that day. Or my outfit just blinded them into silence. Either way, I was happy embracing my inner weirdness and that is the most important thing when dressing oneself anyway!

About Songful Style

Songful Style is an ageless style challenge series hosted by Suzy of The Grey Brunette, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. For this series, each month we will share a song with the lyrics and video and we invite you to use whatever aspect of the song that inspires you to create an outfit. 

It is similar to Style Imitating Art where we use artwork to inspire our outfit creations. Except Songful Style gives you lyrics, music, video, and album artwork to inspire your fashion creativity. You may even find inspiration in a memory triggered by the selected song. It is all open to your own personal interpretation and just a fun way to discover new music and get a little bit more creative with your wardrobe.

Anyone is welcome to join us on a permanent basis or you can just play along without any obligation to do anything other than feel inspired. We are flexible and fun and just want to find more ways to play dress up because it’s what we enjoy doing! 

We will be posting on the last Monday of each month and will announce our song choice for the following month at the end of each post. 

Be sure to check out how my songful friends have styled their outfits inspired by Harry Chapin’s “Flowers are Red.”

• Marsha of Marsha in the Middle
• Suzy of The Grey Brunette

Featured Favorite from Songful Style Link Party #21 | “Meet Virginia” by Train

Rena of Fine Whatever

If you would like to join us for our next Songful Style challenge, we are taking a break in December but will be hosting a link party on Monday, January 29, 2024, featuring our outfits inspired by Suzy’s song choice, “Humankind” by Coldplay. I will share more details about the song and artist in the beginning of January. Until then, have a blessed and merry holiday season. And happy styling!

Keeping it on the edge, 

Shelbee

Joining these Fabulous Link Parties. 

Outfit Details: Dress-Kohl’s / Cardigan and Belt-Torrid / Boots-Madden Girl / Gloves-Amazon / Hat-Wona Trading / Necklace-ZenSpiritMalas / Earrings-Gift Shop in Las Vegas / Scarf-Thrifted