So… He Doesn’t Wish He Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In His Hair)?

When I attended university, I did a Creative Writing degree. In my first year, we had regular sessions with a local poet who would take various classes related to poetry or verse. This wasn’t my favourite element of the program, but I still found that some of the writing exercises were interesting.

During one class, he turned his attention to music and how song lyrics themselves are considered a form of poetry. To demonstrate this, he decided to play “I Wish Was A Punk Rocker” by Sandi Thom. Admittedly, this is not the song I would’ve chosen, but still, I could see why he gravitated toward it.

At the end of the song, one student in my class — a quiet, very introverted guy — suddenly stood up looking extremely offended and clenching both fists.

Student: “Are you kidding me? Why the h*** would you choose this song as an example? SANDI THOM IS NOT MUSIC! G**D*** IT!”

Then, he proceeded to storm out of the room and slam the door, leaving his bag and belongings behind. There was a very stunned silence afterward until the poet finally spoke.

Poet: “So… moving on from that…”

We never found out why [Student] was so offended by that choice, and he never explained his outburst ever again. One of the students mentioned that he’d gone to school with [Student] previously, and he was apparently known for pulling stunts like that and getting upset about random things. I’ve never been able to listen to that song the same way since!