The death of the legendary singer, Dolly Parton, brought memories of her song, Coat of Many Colours, flooding back into my mind.
As a child, my father, Mkpisong Ememobong Essien, taught me that music was more about the lyrics than the instrumental accompaniment. He stressed that music is a form of communication through which deep messages are conveyed in lyrics. With that information lodged in my young mind, I could not fully appreciate a song until I could clearly understand and accept the message it conveyed.
Maybe this disposition accounts for my struggle with much of contemporary music, where the instruments seem to lead, burying the lyrics, or the artistes mumble plenty sounds to create a danceable rhythm without making sense concurrently.
But back to the main gist. I remember my dear mother and earth angel, Mrs Rosemary Ememobong, playing Unconditional Love by Donna Summer and singing along to it with her high-pitched soprano voice. In her young days, her voice competed with those of the birds; those who worshipped with us at Church of Christ Etonko and Uruk Uso can attest to this.
As she sang, I found myself drawn to the song because of the words, and I asked Mum if it was possible to give and receive unconditional love from human beings. Her response was that it was an ideal which humans must continually strive to attain.
The next song that played from her radio (the old cassette radio, I mean) was Coat of Many Colours by Dolly Parton. At first, I was attracted to the song because I thought it was related to Joseph’s story. As I listened on, I realised it wasn’t, but there were messages in the song that confused me.
How could rags be stitched into a coat of many colours?
How could one be proud wearing rags pieced together?
How riotous to the eyes would the eventual product look?
Clothes are sewn with threads, not love, so how does love become the thread used to sew?
How can one acknowledge poverty and still claim to be as rich as she could be?
This confusion was too much for my young mind, and Mum was too deep into the song, singing and dancing alone, to be disturbed. So, I waited for Dad to return. As soon as he entered the house, after my welcome greeting, I sat quietly, waiting for the opportune time to fire my questions. Mkpisong, being the psychologist that he is, noticed that I was deep in thought and asked if all was well.
I just poured out my confusion to him. He laughed, invited me to join him at the dining table, and began to explain that value determines almost everything. I can’t forget that it was the first time I heard the words intrinsic and extrinsic. He explained that some things have an inherent or intrinsic worth, but that people also attach other forms of value to things based on what those things mean to them. That sentimental, cultural, emotional, or personal value can make something that appears worthless to another person priceless to the person who possesses or desires it.
He drew an example from his time at Texas Southern University, where he guarded a small bag of sand which the villagers had given him before his departure to the United States. It was a tradition then that villagers would give a handful of sand, put in a bag, to anyone travelling to a far distance, with the instruction that the person must return home with the sand intact. He said his friends made fun of him and asked what was special about the sand. To them, it was just ordinary sand. But Dad told me that he guarded that little bag of sand with his life. To his friends, it had little or no value. To him, it carried home, identity, memory, tradition, love, and the hopes of the people who had placed it in his hands.
When Dad finished his story, I clearly understood the song and started singing it. As I grew older, I saw its efficacy in real life. I remember kids in the boarding house in the secondary schools I attended who did not have all they needed but were among the happiest. Kids who had patches on their uniforms yet exhibited confidence and swag (what Genz now calls “steeze” and “composure”).
In my own life too, I found that true happiness did not come from the things I owned or lacked, but from a joy deep within, especially when I was with the people who expressed unconditional love. In every sense, when I look back at my life, I can see how many missteps, failures, and struggles have been stitched together by the Almighty into the coat of many colors that my life has become. And truly, I don’t care how riotous my life may look in the eyes of others. What I see is the beauty that God has made of it.
That is why the lesson of Coat of Many Colours has remained with me, poverty is not always the absence of possessions, just as wealth is not always the abundance of them. Sometimes, the truly rich people are those who have found value, joy, love, and meaning in what makes them happy, irrespective of what the world thinks.
As Dolly Parton journeys home, her memories remain with us-many of us who used her songs as fuel for success, a source of comfort in difficult moments, or a duvet of consolation.
Adieu, Dolly Parton.
