Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Tennessee
Arrested-development-tennessee-lyrics

1) 5 minutes: Write a reflection on some of the connections (themes, images, attitudes/beliefs/symbols, common motifs, etc). which overlap with Beloved (especially chapter 19) and also feel free to comment on the different or unique ways that Arrested Development articulates these ideas.
2) 5 minutes: Stylistically, what did you notice about the song?  Address some lyrical and musical characteristics you found interesting/significant for the song.

Tennessee by Arrested Development
Lord I've really been real stressed
Down and out, losing ground
Although I am Black and proud
Problems got me pessimistic
Brothers and sisters keep messin up
Why does it have to be so damn tough
I don't know where I can go
To let these ghosts out of my skull
My grandma's passed, my brother's gone
I never at once felt so alone
I know you're supposed to be my steering wheel
Not just my spare tire (home)
But Lord I ask you (home)
To be my guiding force and truth (home)
For some strange reason it had to be (home)
He guided me to Tennessee (home)

Take me to another place
Take me to another land
Make me forget all that hurts me
Let me understand your plan

Lord it's obvious we got a relationship
Talking to each other every night and day
Although you're superior over me
We talk to each other in a friendship way
Then outta nowhere you tell me to break
Outta the country and into more country
Past Dyersburg into Ripley
Where the ghost of childhood haunts me
Walk the roads my forefathers walked
Climbed the trees my forefathers hung from
Ask those trees for all their wisdom
They tell me my ears are so young (home)
Go back to from whence you came (home)
My family tree my family name (home)
For some strange reason it had to be (home)
He guided me to Tennessee (home)

[Interlude: Aerle Taree]
Eshe, she went down to Holly Springs
Rasadon and Baba, they went down to Peachtree
Headliner, I challenge you to a game of horseshoes, a game of horseshoes

Now I see the importance of history
Why my people be in the mess that they be
Many journeys to freedom made in vain
By brothers on the corner playing ghetto games
I ask you Lord why you enlightened me
Without the enlightment of all my folks
He said cause I set myself on a quest for truth
And he was there to quench my thirst
But I am still thirsty
The Lord allowed me to drink some more
He said what I am searching for are
The answers to all which are in front of me
The ultimate truth started to get blurry
For some strange reason it had to be
It was all a dream about Tennessee

Headliner, I won the game of horseshoes
Now you owe me a watermelon
Let's go climb trees and skip over rocks
Do like they do below the border
Speech's hair
Don't it look like the roots of the tree that the ancestors were hung from


But that's okay, get it cause he's down to Earth

HW: Read chapters 20-21 (236-247) and post a link to one outside digital source (song, news event, poem, prayer, historical event, novel, etc) which you feel might provide meaningful lens or connection to chapter 19-21 events, themes, and symbols, or allude to modern-day echoes of the events, themes, symbols found throughout  19, 20 or 21) or the novel as a whole.   Along with embedding the link into your discussion post, explain what the link is about and why you feel it might add another dimension to our reading and connection with the novel. If possible, print a page of your digital text and bring it to class.   



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