What a Rush

My friends and I have this saying that we throw out into the air anytime we feel an adrenaline rush and when we are sarcastically talking about unexciting things. Well, August Rush is one of those exciting things that does deserve the, “What a rush!” sort of exclamation. There are two songs, specifically, that would fall under this category of “a rush,” in my opinion. The first song is called “Raise it Up,” and the second is called “August’s Rhapsody.” 

            August Rush is a child who runs away from his home in the foster care system when he realizes that he needs to find his biological father and mother. The song “Raise it Up” is played when he finds himself in a church on his journey to find a family. The words say “sometimes it takes a different kind of love to raise a child… sometimes we need a helping hand to find the way.” This song elicits emotion perfectly. There is a small child singing in a church choir, and she is singing everything that August is feeling. She then sings, “I’m feeling like a motherless child; pain cuts into my soul. Its beating me down, can’t find my smile… gonna break down these walls gonna give my all [sic].” 

The song is a sort of gospel ballad, and gospel ballads were written and sung to create community and reinforce togetherness, but August is alone. He is an outsider watching this choir practice together. When the words ring out, though, August knows that this is what he is longing for, and the song happens at the perfect time in the movie, because this is exactly when August decides to break out of his timid shell in order to increase the tension on his journey to find his mother and father.

The next song that completely changes the movie is “August’s Rhapsody.” This song is the most climactic song in the movie. The playing of it probably is the climax. The song doesn’t have any words, but it is the combination of every sound and melody, every symphony and harmony that August has heard and played throughout the movie. It is a culmination of both his mother’s and his father’s music. And August writes it himself. In a scene previously, his instructor asks, “Where does it [the music] come from?” He simply says, “It’s like someone is calling out to me, and writing it all down is like I’m calling back to them… the ones who gave me the music.”

The song is played at the very end of the movie for a concert in the park. It is the telling of his story—sort of the retelling of everything that has happened in the movie so far. August brings his friend (the little girl as mentioned in the previous section, the one who sang in Raise it Up) out onto the stage to sing some notes in his rhapsody. This little girl represents part of the family that he has made throughout the movie, and seeing his pride in her singing as he directs his rhapsody on stage for the first time changes the way that people see the movie. This song is the theme of the entire movie, in a sense. It is what plays when (spoiler alert) the mom and dad finally find, not only August, but also their way back to each other. It is so representative of who August is and why his story and his music are important.