Angie Heimann's song "What's to Become of the Mockingbird" is essentially Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird shortened into a song.
The first stanza of Heimann's song speaks of a southern town's courtroom filled with spectators "white and black and brown / come to see the falling down / Of a mockingbird." The courtroom refers to Tom Robinson's trial in Maycomb, and Robinson is the innocent mockingbird that will fall when he is sentenced to death. In both the song and the book, Robinson is seen as a mockingbird because all he has ever done is strive to bring pleasure, just as mockingbirds bring pleasure by singing all day long. Robinson strove to bring pleasure by being an upright Christian citizen and by being empathetic towards Mayella. Due to his empathy, he helped Mayella with any odd jobs she needed help with, a decision that sadly led to his downfall.
In the third stanza, the song also speaks of "two eggs among the ebony" sitting "[h]igh up in the balcony" of the courtroom. Since eggs can be seen as a symbol to represent children, this is clearly a reference to Jem and Scout, who, against their father's wishes, sneaked into observe the trial and sat with Reverend Sykes, minister of the African-American church, up in the balcony reserved for African Americans. However, one difference between the lyrics in this third stanza and the novel is that Dill is present in the novel, whereas the lyrics of the song only speak of "two eggs," meaning two children, not three.
Finally, the song asks, "When's this world gonna be a place / Where the innocent go free," which closely resembles a central theme Harper Lee expresses in her book. Lee uses her book to show that a tiny bit of progress has been made towards freeing the innocent of the damages caused by racism while also asserting that much more still needs to be done.
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