Lost Children Archive

So the wind instruments are the Indians, and the violins are the bad guys? asks the girl.

My husband confirms this, nodding.

But what are the bad guys, Pa, really? she asks him, demanding more details to put all this information together in her little head.

What do you mean?

I mean are they beasts, or cowboys, or monsters, or bears?

Republican cowboys and cowgirls, my husband tells her.

She thinks for a moment as the violins strike a higher pitch, and finally concludes:

Well, I am a cowgirl sometimes, but I’m not ever a Republic.

So, Pa—the boy wants to confirm—this song takes place in these same mountains we are driving through right now, yes?

That’s right, his father says.

But then, instead of helping the children understand things in more subtle historical detail, he adds a pedantic coda:

Except it’s not called a song. It’s just called a piece, or in fact a suite.

And while he explains the exact differences between those three things—song, piece, suite—I stop listening to him and focus on the very cracked screen of my irritating little telephone, where I type in “Copland Appalachian,” and find an official-enough-looking page that contradicts my husband’s whole story, or at least half of it. Yes, this Copland piece is about people getting married, reproducing, and so on. But it’s not at all a political piece about Indians and white-eyes, and the violins in the orchestra are certainly not Republicans. Copland’s Appalachian Spring

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