Rhianna's Grandma

The course I teach at the Kintock Halfway House in Newark isn’t really about music. The guys I work with fit the prison profile outsiders would expect to find, for the most part; young men from financially stressed backgrounds form the general population. Most of them have little academic training and almost no exposure to cultures that exist beyond the mean streets they call home.

Current statistics indicate that the recidivism rate in NJ is about 43%. That means, I tell the class on day one, that we’ll be offering many of you graduate courses upon your return to the joint. Hoping to reduce that rate by just a trace amount, I try and extend an inmate’s capacity to relate to people and cultures that seem foreign by asking him to consider the possibility that artists from radically different backgrounds might- at times-address common themes. Stravinsky and Shakur-what do their creations reveal about the ways they differ as individuals, and do they also show us that their needs, fears, and sense of joy intersect at some deep, core level? If they can draw a line between Beethoven and Beyonce, might they one day be able to bond with someone sitting across the desk who has a good job to offer?

So we start out with the main man himself. A distant figure, for sure, until I tell them about the brutal treatment Beethoven was subjected to by his father. We talk about the Heilegenstadt Testament, the suicide note that Beethoven left for his brothers in 1802, when, overcome with grief at his growing deafness, he contemplated suicide. He was drinking quite a bit at that point-but then again, Beethoven was drunk much of the time, for most of his adult life. Somehow he pulled himself back from the brink and wrote the Eroica Symphony, one of the most life-affirming works in the history of Western art. We play the first movement, and the guys take it in. Then we listen to bits of the Pastoral Symphony; the room feels quieter, and when it’s over the men explain to me how Beethoven’s courage led him to a place of greater peace.

“The Shit is Real”

This is a story of the South Bronx

where at the age of 14 I was already knockin’ off punks

My moms was on welfare

I knew I had a father, but yo

the nigga was never there

So what the fuck was I to do?

Fat Joe didn’t have it any easier, and he lays it all on the line in this autobiographical rap. What would Joe and Ludwig talk about if they sat down and had a beer together?

Our Broadway unit traverses a fifty plus year span. We spin Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, the usual stuff, and end up listening to excerpts from two contemporary shows, The Light From The Piazza, and Grey Gardens.

Ado Annie, what a wonderful character!  The second female lead in Oklahoma!, Annie is the bad girl with a heart of gold. Check out these lyrics, from the great song “I Cain’t Say No!” that Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers wrote for her:

“I Cain’t Say No!”

I'm jist a girl who cain't say no,

I'm in a turrible fix 

I always say "come on, let's go"

Jist when I orta say nix!

When a person tries to kiss a girl,

I know she orta give his face a smack.

But as soon as someone kisses me,

I somehow, sorta, wanta kiss him back!

I'm jist a fool when lights are low

I cain't be prissy and quaint

I ain't the type that can faint

How c'n I be whut I ain't?

I cain't say no!

I'm jist a girl who cain't say no,

Kissin's my favorite food

With or without the mistletoe 

I'm in a holiday mood.

Although I can feel the undertow

I never make a complaint

‘Til it’s to late for restraint

Then when I wanna I cain’t 

I cain’t say no!

“S&M,” the brassy Rhianna statement of sexual liberation, may not reveal the level of wordsmanship that Hammerstein was able to conjure, but does the character she’s created have something in common with Ado Annie?

“S&M”

Love is great, love is fine  

Out the box, outta line

The affliction of the feeling leaves me wanting more

'Cause I may be bad, but I'm perfectly good at it 

Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it 

Sticks and stones may break my bones 

But chains and whips excite me.

“Yeah,” said one of the guys at our last session. “They’re both freaks.” Ah, the joy of watching a student make a connection!