Episode 8

(Episode title:  Will Bella Scout Her Mom?)

 

“Fernando” (English lyrics version), by Benny Andersson (music) and Björn Ulvaeus (lyrics), originally performed by Abba (1976), as performed by Brooke Lundy in a recording first published in Young Americans (2000).

Played on Bella’s truck radio by Jake, distracting Bella from driving and contributing to her crash.  The  English lyrics below, played in YA, are Abba’s, but differ markedly from the more romantic original Swedish lyrics, which do not reminiscence about youths spent fighting for a losing faction during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20.

      

Can you hear the drums Fernando? 

I remember long ago another starry night like this

In the firelight Fernando

You were humming to yourself and softly strumming your guitar

I could hear the distant drums

And sounds of bugle calls were coming from afar

They were closer now Fernando

Every hour every minute seemed to last eternally


I was so afraid Fernando

We were young and full of life and none of us prepared to die

And I'm not ashamed to say

The roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry

(Refrain:)

There was something in the air that night

The stars were bright, Fernando

They were shining there for you and me

For liberty, Fernando

Though I never thought that we could lose

There's no regret

If I had to do the same again

I would, my friend, Fernando


Now we're old and gray Fernando

And since many years I haven't seen a rifle in your hand

Can you hear the drums Fernando?

Do you still recall the frightful night we crossed the Rio Grande?

I can see it in your eyes

How proud you were to fight for freedom in this land

(Refrain, twice)


Comment:  The English lyrics’ theme of looking back on youth from maturity underscores yet again that the drama is a dream of youth from a perspective of maturity. 

The song’s “no regrets” theme may also be a message from Jake to Hamilton – she seems to be trying to cheer him up.  But does he really need it?  He doesn't seem all that surprised or upset when she tells him she'll have to leave Rawley - he just says, "awww ...", puts his arms around her and comforts her.  And when they get to the cabin, Hamilton, far from being preoccupied with Jake's predicament, is focused on food:  "What?  I'm hungry!"

Of course he's not surprised. The Dean's son must have seen, before the toilet stall door closed behind him on the night of the cotillion, that Jake would have to leave Rawley for her own good, and his, and the school's, regardless of whether she was caught or not.  And he's not upset: the inevitability of Jake's departure is part of what he dealt with while he brooded on his bed the night of the cotillion, and he went for her anyhow.

The whole point of the Jake-Hamilton interaction around "Fernando" and immediately after their arrival at the cabin is that while Jake, courageous as ever, is desperately trying not to be upset, Hamilton really isn't upset.  The implication is that he has long planned for her to leave Rawley ... and if he has planned her departure, he has also planned her return.  It's a subtle but strong hint of a happy ending ... but ambiguity is what we make of it, and and the deliberately ambiguous Hamilton Fleming is a mirror.  What we see in him depends on what we are.


 “Goodbye,” by The Crash Poets (2000)

Played at the start of episode 2, as Will bikes from town to Rawley, and during the walk along the train tracks to Carson near the end of episode 8.

The  lyrics of "Goodbye" and brief accounts both of the song's early publication (apparently begun in the soundtrack of Young Americans) and of The Crash Poets, are given on the "Episode 2" page of the "Songs" subsection of the "Music of YA" section of this site.

Comment:  Along with "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake and "Over the Rainbow" as sung by Israel Kamakawiwio'ole, "Goodbye" is one of three songs that provide a musical frame for Young Americans.  Its first use, at the start of episode 2, denotes that Will is leaving “New Rawley” to “go to Rawley” – and his friends “in town” will “never see him again” because Rawley will change him.  Its second use, it episode 8, is the drama’s goodbye to viewers; Will’s not leaving Rawley, and Jake and Hamilton aren’t giving up on each other.  But we’ll never see Young Americans again – it was an eight-episode summer fill-in for Dawson’s Creek that had perfect (albeit deliberately ambiguous) closure. 

That doesn’t mean we can’t go back to Rawley – we can, as the mirror framing the Deans note to Will in the drama’s last shot symbolically assures us.  But to return to it, we must do our own dreaming – exceed expectations and dream dreams that are worthy of us, in the language of Krudski’s narrative comments.  By doing that, we can say of Rawley, what Will says of it in episode 1:  "Ive been coming here forever."

Railroad tracks extending off into the distance are a familiar visual symbol of "forever," and Will's statement about "coming here forever" - going to Rawley forever - is the reference of the railroad track imagery in the final episode of Young Americans. The scenes set on a railroad track are followed by scenes set in a cemetery, apparently to let us know how seriously the railroad track imagery is offered.  Will's use of Thoreau's line, "heaven under our feet as well as over our heads," to describe Rawley is not casual rhetoric - the image of Rawley as a heaven or paradise is developed throughout the final episode, which centers on Will's and Jake's expulsions from Paradise, and Bella's prospective expulsion from her gas station.

Will's expulsion from paradise is reprieved when he stops being "sure of himself" (his first line in the episode) and recovers the humility he needs to keep growing, to keep on "being a kid," by recognizing, after spending two days with Jake and Hamilton, that life is a gift (Will's last line in Young Americans).  Bella's eviction from the gas station to which she has been clinging is at least fortuitous if not Providential:  the abandonment-traumatized girl, the brightest teen in the drama, should be aiming far higher.  Moreover, her craving for security is what made her unable to love Scout - she must be weaned from it.  The ending given Jake is deliberately ambiguous because Jake is us, the viewers - as the camera imagery in the first Jake-Hamilton scene makes clear - and our will is free, as the title of episode 7 reminds us.  After eight episodes, either we trust Hamilton and the school he personifies, or we don't.  If we do, then he will bring Jake back to Rawley ... and us with her.  As the extensive use of religious imagery in Young Americans suggests, the drama is a post-Christian altar call, a call to imaginative moral idealism.


“Over the Rainbow,” music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg for first performance by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (1939), as sung by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole in his medley, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” (1993).

Played at the ends of episodes 1 and 8.


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The lyrics of "Over the Rainbow" are given on the "Episode 1" page of the "Songs" subsection of the "Music of YA" section of this site.


Comment:  Played at the end of the first and last episodes of Young Americans, this classic tribute to the power of imaginative dreaming is one of three songs that provide a musical “frame” for the drama – comparable to the symbolic visual “frame” provided by the shot of Hamilton looking at the viewer through his camera as we arrive at Rawley near the start of episode 1, and the drama’s last shot, a note in a mirror assuring WILL (and, because it’s in a mirror, the viewer) that he can come back to Rawley.  The other pieces of YA's musical frame are “Goodbye” by The Crash Poets, played at the start of episode 2 and near the end of the last episode, and "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake, played at the start of episode 1 and the end of episode 7.

This “framing” song serves in Young Americans to express, musically, the drama’s third love story – Will’s love for Rawley, which saves him as the Dean's son who personifies Rawley saves Jake – and enfolds the contrasting Jake-Hamilton and Bella-Scout storylines.  Rawley is Oz-like, as Will makes clear by calling Rawley, at the start of episode 4, "this world where dreams really do come true."

This song is only the most conspicuous of YA’s four allusions to The Wizard of Oz.  The others are:  (1) in episode 3, Hamilton’s mother’s nickname for him, “Munchie,” a real-world parental nickname for kids derived from “Munchkin"; (2) Jake’s mother’s frustration at being too old to play Dorothy in episode 5; and (3) the Oz references in the lyrics of Guster’s “What You Wish For,” played at the start of episode 3.

Young Americans’ repeated use of contemporary renditions of old songs, including its framing by a brilliant 1990’s improvement on a 1930’s classic, underscores that the drama itself is a retelling of classic stories, as Antin repeatedly stressed in press interviews in 2000.  This interplays with the drama’s many non-musical anachronisms and its theme of rebirth and rejuvenation by imaginative dreaming, articulated by Sean at the drive-in in episode 3:  “Everything old becomes hip.” 


Ichabod Grubb

Created: April 2014

Last updated: April 2014