Sound and music play powerful symbolic roles in Gemeinhart’s novel. In addition to Rodeo’s fixation on playing the guitar, other characters like Lester and Salvador, are deeply invested in music. Lester is torn and grieving because he has left music behind to seek a renewed investment with his girlfriend. Salvador carries a bitter sense of incompleteness because he was never able to play his 10-minute violin piece for his mother.

Loss of music is equated with loss of vitality and disempowerment. Thus, it is not accidental that, for these characters, empowerment and fulfillment are symbolically expressed through music: Lester recognizes his happiness is connected to playing with his band in Tampa and Salvador at last is able give a virtuoso performance that uplifts his mother and everyone else on the bus.

Symbolically, the absence of the music is the end of joy and vitality. The end of music is an expression of the end of life. This is captured in the scene where all the riders on Yager are participating in a song Rodeo is playing on his guitar. Coyote is elevated to a joyous place. When song ends, she suddenly feels a desolate void.