City Kid - Genesis

Clive Lewis

Question: WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN a CHEAP GUITAR, a PARABLE OF JESUS and a SCHOOL IN UGANDA?

Answer: THE CITY KID

Question: WHAT IS THE CITY KID?

Answer: It’s a novel for teenagers, soon to be published by Dernier Publishing. But let me explain a bit more…

First of all, the CHEAP GUITAR. It was a steel-stringed acoustic instrument, with a twangy tone, and not much to look at. But it was given to me – and you don’t look a gift horse etc. The problem was: I had never played a guitar before and was more or less clueless about music – except I liked to listen to a wide range, from Bach to rock’n’roll. So I taught myself some chords, practised a lot (in the midst of my teaching job), and eventually was able to accompany the choruses sung at the school’s Scripture Union group. Let me make it clear: I was pretty naff at that time but it was better than nothing (so they assured me.)

A word about the SCHOOL. It was in Uganda and bore the splendid name Kiira College, Butiki. It was on a hilltop, not too far from a source of the River Nile at a town named Jinja. And on a clear day you could see Lake Victoria in the distance. I had gone out to teach English and Literature for a couple of years (in the end I stayed for over seven years, but never mind that now) and, among other activities, I was put in charge of the small Scripture Union group which met on Sunday afternoons in one of the classrooms.

After a while my fingers got the itch – to compose my own Christian songs, that is. My first efforts were awful, partly because I knew so few chords! Also, the words I wrote to go with the music were too full of clichés – too many familiar phrases and expressions. I really wanted to write words and music that sounded a bit different from existing songs: material that would encourage people to listen and think about the content.

After my first two years in Uganda, I returned to the U.K. for a period of leave and then flew back to a different school in the east of the country. In my baggage was a brand new Spanish-style acoustic guitar. It had as much nicer tone than the old guitar and was much kinder to the fingers, especially if you wanted to go beyond strumming and develop finger-style. So I was all set – but for what?

This is where the PARABLE OF JESUS comes in. Not any parable but a particular one – the Prodigal Son: the story about the son who demands his share of the inheritance from his dad (who has plenty of years left in him) and goes and blows it all in wild living in the city. Finally, fed up (metaphorically) with eating pigs’ food, he comes to his senses and returns home, in a very contrite mood, expecting to become a servant in his dad’s household. Instead he gets a grand home-coming celebration. You must know the story – no need for any more detail.

Well, it struck me that the lure of city life was very powerful among the young people of Uganda. Most of the pupils whom I taught came from poor rural backgrounds and they knew that the best way to escape village life was a) to get a good education and b} to secure a well-paid job in a town. And the town that had the most opportunities was the capital city, Kampala. So most of the well-educated young men and women were attracted to work there, preferably in an office in one of the newly constructed high-rise blocks.

I struck me that The Prodigal Son parable had a lot of applications in the context of Uganda, which – in those heady post-independence days – was keen to recruit newly qualified young people to the ranks of the government and civil service. So I sat down to write a sort of Africanised version of Jesus’ parable. I decided to call it THE CITY KID. As I developed the idea, I somehow conceived the plan to compose songs that would fit the narrative. (I can’t recall the process now, but I’m sure God had a lot to do with it!). Eventually I had nine songs that would accompany the telling of the story. They’re not great songs and, if you heard them, you would quickly note a variety of influences in the music: from rock and country-and-western to folk and ballad. But the tunes were all original and the words complemented the experiences of young John Ouma, the name I gave to the African prodigal son.

So now I had a storyline and a set of songs. (By the way, I should mention that this was a long time ago, when I was in my twenties, but there’s no need to labour this point.) What next? I wondered. Fortunately, I had struck up a good friendship with a Ugandan colleague, named Moses, who was a much better guitarist than me. He helped me to choose a small group of senior students at the school with singing ability. Together we practised the songs – two guitars, an African drum and five or six voices - and at last we were ready for our first performance in front of a large proportion of the pupils at our school.

It went well, even though there was no acting involved: Moses and I took it in turns to read the narrative and, at key moments, we all burst into song, with the drum accentuating the rhythms of the music. Titles of the songs included Come In and Enjoy Yourself, No Way to Go, and the theme song The City Kid, which begins with the immortal (only joking) words:

You think that with your modern clothes

And the way you can dance,

With your miniskirted girlfriends -

that life’s game of chance…

The presentation lasted about an hour and was well received. Subsequently, the group performed it at neighbouring secondary schools until The City Kid became quite well known in the area.

The story of The City Kid might have ended there – and I would have been well pleased even if it had gone no further, because the story had presented a challenge to many school children in the part of Uganda where I lived. But it wasn’t the end of the story by any means.

It’s time for another riddle.

Question: WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN a YOUTH FESTIVAL, an ARCHBISHOP and man named EDWIN LUWASO?

More next time!