You can't teach the old maestro a new tune

“You can't teach the old maestro a new tune” is Remi Boncoeur’s self-invented saying, a refrain that begins as a joke about his authority and returns as a declaration of loyalty and suspicion. Repeated in sharply different circumstances, it captures the gap between Remi’s confident self-image and the precarious arrangements he is trying to control.

First Use as a House Rule

When Sal stays at Remi’s home, the arrangement places Remi and Lee Ann in a bed across the room and Sal in a cot by the window, with a rule that Sal is not to approach Lee Ann. Remi delivers a speech warning Sal against crossing that boundary, then calls the maxim an original saying of his own. The phrase presents Remi as the “old maestro,” a figure whose established authority supposedly cannot be altered by anyone else.

The household context complicates the boast. Lee Ann resents both men and regrets her involvement with Remi; she had hoped that his lavish spending meant she might marry a rich man, but instead finds herself living in a shack and commuting to her job in Frisco by Greyhound bus. Against that dissatisfaction, Remi’s claim to command the situation sounds less like secure mastery than an effort to assert control over a strained domestic arrangement.

A Refrain of Defiance and Suspicion

Later, Remi repeats the saying while speaking of the world as owing him something and joking that Sal’s way of talking might earn him the nickname Dostioffski. The maxim is no longer confined to the rule about Lee Ann: it becomes a broader performance of Remi’s insistence that he will not be changed or instructed by others.

In another conversation, Remi offers to watch the place while Sal is gone and says that circumstances are becoming difficult. He describes himself and Sal as buddies facing the situation together, then groups Dostioffskis, police, Lee Anns, and other supposed enemies among those out to get them. He urges Sal to stay alert for schemes and closes by repeating the maxim. The recurrence binds an offer of friendship to a defensive picture of the world: Remi presents loyalty as a shared stance against forces he distrusts.

Meaning and Narrative Function

The saying’s literal image casts Remi as a seasoned musician whose way of doing things cannot be revised. Its repeated use turns that image into a verbal signature, but the contexts give it more than one edge: it enforces a boundary in the household, asserts independence, and seals a pledge of companionship. The phrase’s return does not demonstrate that Remi has mastered his circumstances. Instead, it reveals how he uses a compact, self-authored motto to make authority and solidarity sound fixed amid tensions he cannot resolve.