I decided to pick "Hundreds of Stories" for number 20. Let's analyze.
USNAVI:
So we survived the night;
What happens today?
If this is not one the major pieces of foreshadowing in the show, I honestly don't know what is.
Yeah, Usnavi and Abuela survived the night, but what happens that day? Yeah. Abuela dies. That's what happens. But this line is what really made me rate this song in a higher place; it's so subtle and quite smart.
ABUELA CLAUDIA:
Now you can sell your store!
Open a bar by the shore!
I’ve told you hundreds of stories
About home; make some more.
There's a simple rhyme scheme here: store/shore/more, and it's interesting that the name of the song doesn't rhyme with the rest of the lines.
Also, here comes another subject that's really important for the show, which is home and the stories related to it. Abuela Claudia talks about her already having fulfilled her dream of having a nice life in New York, and she has found her own home now. But, as selfless as she is, she wants to help Usnavi fulfill his own dream of finding home.
USNAVI:
Yo! I know just where to go!
There’s a little beach named Playa Rincón
With no road, you need a rowboat or motorbike
To reach this beach, it’s just a stone’s throw
From home
My folks’ home
Before I was born
Before they passed on
And left me on my own, in New York, with the grocery store
They would talk about home, I listened closely for
The way they whispered to each other
‘Bout the warmer winter weather
Inseparable, they even got sick together
They never got better… passed away that December
And left me with these memories like dyin’ embers
From a dream I can’t remember…
We have consonance again, in reach/beach, and an alliteration in warmer winter weather. It's basically the repitition of a consonant at the beginning of a word.
And there's also a possible Edgar Allan Poe reference here, in "[...] passed away that December / And left me with these memories like dyin' embers." You can find a quite similar line in "The Raven":
"Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor."
It might be a stretch though, but rhyming "December" with "dying ember" is something popular, along with the "remember" at the end.
USNAVI:
Ever since then it’s like
Another day deeper in debt with different dilemmas
The bodega’s a mess, I’ll be seeing less of Vanessa
Abuela I don’t know how I can keep it together!
Usnavi wants to leave everything behind and go to Dominican Republic, including his problems. The reason why he doesn't think of New York as home is because everything he's been through there is bad. Or at least all of what made a bigger impact on him. His parents died, he's in debt, and now there's a blackout and the bodega was pretty much destroyed. Besides that, he messed it up with Vanessa. So there isn't much good for him in New York, and now that Abuela has won the lottery, he has the chance to flee.
ABUELA CLAUDIA:
Remember the story of your name...
It was engraved on a passing ship on the day your family came
Your father said “Usnavi,
That’s what we’ll name the baby.”
Usnavi is stressed beyond belief and Abuela tries to calm him down with a story about his family. That's the power of our abuelas, y'all. Also, Usnavi is named after a U.S. Navy boat.
USNAVI:
It really said “U.S. Navy,” but hey…
I worked with what they gave me okay…
Abuela's positivity is contagious. If life gives you lemons...
ABUELA CLAUDIA:
We’ll find your island—
USNAVI:
I’ll find my island sky
ABUELA CLAUDIA:
Ay, find your island—
USNAVI:
But whatever we do it’s—
USNAVI/ABUELA CLAUDIA:
You and I!
This line really shows the union that exists between these two. It was already stated in the first song, and in "The Club", but here it's when we realize how close they really are. They're gonna be leaving together only because Abuela wants to share her prize with Usnavi and Sonny.
This song may not have an amazing writing technique, but it always gets my heart like this:
And for a good reason.
-A.
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