#19 - In the Heights Ranking

I know I said it last time, but this is honestly getting harder and harder with each song, so it took me a few days to figure all of this out. But I finally got it, so I'm not stopping.
That's how entitled I am.

Get your tissues ready, because my pick for number 19 is "Alabanza".

Usnavi begins the song, and he's not rapping now; yes, it's that sad.
Not only this song is placed right after "Carnaval del Barrio", which makes this piece of news fall even heavier on us. It's an interesting choice, since Abuela's death was as unexpected for them as it was for us. Or was it?
We've seen some pieces of foreshadowing in previous songs, but they're rather hard to catch. It's not until this happens that we realize what they all meant. So it's not just about sadness, it's about despair and lack of acceptance, perhaps even guilt. Because we knew, so there was definitely something to be done, that didn't happen, and it led to this.
Usnavi sure feels like it.

USNAVI:

[...]They said

A combination of the stress and the heat…

Why she never took her medicine, I’ll never understand[...]

These lines show Usnavi's conmotion about this. He doesn't even finish his first sentence, and he goes through this moment of asking himself "why?" 

USNAVI:

Abuela Claudia had simple pleasures,

She sang the praises of things we ignore:

Glass Coke bottles, bread crumbs, a sky full of stars[...]

From "Paciencia y Fe" we know that Abuela Claudia would buy a loaf of bread everyday to feed the birds, and that was one of her biggest hobbies, if you will. But it also brought her a lot of joy, and I might be making a bold statement here, but she was probably the only one who was completely happy in the neigbourhood. 

About the glass Coke bottles, here's a bit of history: Coke was sold in glass bottles before moving to plastic and aluminium cans. There was a Coke blottling plant in Cuba, which opened in 1906. According to the show, Abuela Claudia emigrated to the US with her mother in 1943, so she definitely grew up drinking from those kind of Coke bottles. 

USNAVI:

She cherished these things, she’d say: “Alabanza.”

Alabanza means to raise this

Thing to God’s face

And to sing, quite literally: “Praise to this.”

It would have been easy to just say: "She cherished these things, she’d say: 'Alabanza'", and then just add "which means 'Praise to this'" , and add some rhyme. But here we see that the word in Spanish and the word in English fit exactly at the beginning and the end of this stanza, which gives the feeling of enclosure. It's a cycle ending. 

USNAVI:

When she was here, the path was clear,

And she was just here, she was just here…

Which path? The path Abuela and Usnavi were supposed to go through just to get to Dominican Republic and fulfill his dream. Now that Abuela is gone, the plan doesn't sound that appealing anymore. 

And then he just can't handle it and he can't even finish the sentence. 

NINA:

Alabanza.

Alabanza a doña Claudia, señor,

Alabanza, alabanza.

Alabanza.

Alabanza a doña Claudia, señor,

Alabanza, alabanza.

From what we see in the show, the second closest person to Abuela Claudia was Nina. So she takes the eulogy from where Usnavi left it and continues with a song of praise. 

Now, we can't ignore how much influence RENT had on In the Heights. They both are musicals about the struggles of minority groups living in specific areas in New York. 

In RENT, the "heart of the group" (Angel) dies, and everyone comes together to mourn. The same thing happens here, and everyone joins into the song as they leave candles outside Abuela's house. 

USNAVI:

Alabanza.

Now listen; I might be reading too much into it when I say that this song shows the progression of life. Stay with me.

When Nina comes in with the first "Alabanza", it starts siently. Then, more people start to join in, and even the music gets more complex. And out of a sudden, everything ends and Usnavi finished with a quiet voice, which feels kind of out of place. See where I'm going with this?

The birth is when Nina starts, and then life goes on, reaches its peak point, and then there's a pause out of nowhere, which is death. 

Yeah, it's sad as fuck. 

But hey, this is what you signed for. 

What? Did you think it was a lighthearted musical about Latino people? 

Well, yeah, kind of. But there's also a lot of sadness and pain hidden underneath. So you pretty much signed up for this too. Face the consequences.

-A.