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.