tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post8246429835247545613..comments2024-03-24T12:25:13.240-07:00Comments on Every Single Paul Simon Song*: GracelandAnother Paulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-77009774031173729582020-12-05T19:30:36.817-08:002020-12-05T19:30:36.817-08:00Unknown-- Well, Simon does like New Orleans' m...Unknown-- Well, Simon does like New Orleans' music. He references it in Take Me to the Mardi Gras, and in That Was Your Mother, and probably other songs. <br />But this song begins in the "Mississippi Delta." While the maximal extent of this region stretches from the Gulf coast of Louisiana to the southern tip of Illinois, most people using the term mean a much smaller region in NW Mississippi. This region does border Louisiana, but not the Gulf coast and the New Orleans area. <br />Also, the song's pedal steel, the references to Elvis, and the presence of the Everly Brothers, all put it in the geography of country music, not zydeco or Cajun music. <br />So ghosts are mentioned, but Cajun/ Caribbean zombies are not. Once again, I don't think a "socket" is a zombie. I think it means an empty eye socket, as with a skeleton.Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-59956956889414076842020-11-23T11:23:02.052-08:002020-11-23T11:23:02.052-08:00Many years too late to reply but I'm going to ...Many years too late to reply but I'm going to do it anyway. Paul Simon had just left New Orleans or at least Louisiana somewhere down there he was recording something down there and so that could tie in with his comment about the the zombie or aspect of it that phrase always bothered me and I couldn't figure it outAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04884807519837587244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-31020299402578547742017-08-27T18:30:34.115-07:002017-08-27T18:30:34.115-07:00Proofreading Nerd-- Heavens to Betsy! Thank you so...Proofreading Nerd-- Heavens to Betsy! Thank you so much for that geographical insight. I never would have known that. The area you discuss is not, as I said in the post, near New Orleans but farther north and in another state, although still south of Memphis and Graceland. Thanks again. Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-665364388311938372017-08-25T15:10:54.726-07:002017-08-25T15:10:54.726-07:00According t Wikipedia...
Mississippi Delta
Not to...<br /> According t Wikipedia...<br /><br />Mississippi Delta<br />Not to be confused with Mississippi River Delta.<br />This article is about the geographic region of the U.S. state of Mississippi. <br /><br />The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi which lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth"[1] ("Southern" in the sense of "characteristic of its region, the American South"), because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history. It is 200 miles long and 87 miles across at its widest point, encompassing circa 4,415,000 acres, or, some 7,000 square miles of alluvial floodplain.[2] Originally covered in hardwood forest across the bottomlands, it was developed as one of the richest cotton-growing areas in the nation before the American Civil War (1861-1865). The region attracted many speculators who developed land along the riverfronts for cotton plantations; they became wealthy planters dependent on the labor of black slaves, who comprised the vast majority of the population in these counties well before the Civil War, often twice the number of whites.<br /><br />As the riverfront areas were developed first and railroads were slow to be constructed, even after the Civil War most of the bottomlands in the Delta were undeveloped. Both black and white migrants flowed into Mississippi, using their labor to clear land and sell timber in order to buy land. By the end of the 19th century, black farmers made up two-thirds of the independent farmers in the Mississippi Delta.[3] In 1890 the white-dominated state legislature passed a new state constitution effectively disenfranchising most blacks in the state. In the next three decades, most blacks lost their lands due to tight credit and political oppression.[3] African Americans had to resort to sharecropping and tenant farming to survive. Their political exclusion was maintained by the whites until after the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.<br /><br />African Americans developed the musical forms of blues and jazz. The majority of residents in several counties in the region are still black, although more than 400,000 African Americans left the state during the Great Migration in the first half of the 20th century, moving to northern, midwestern, and Proofreading Nerdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16810057923658528870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-32017048836047950832017-08-25T15:05:22.533-07:002017-08-25T15:05:22.533-07:00Thing is, Misissippi Delta regers to NW Miss. rt n...Thing is, Misissippi Delta regers to NW Miss. rt nr Memphis. Chk yr Google. It's a well known blues region.Proofreading Nerdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16810057923658528870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-40193756579095474962017-05-14T16:56:15.799-07:002017-05-14T16:56:15.799-07:00What a kitty!-- I can see how that would make sens...What a kitty!-- I can see how that would make sense. But both Rod Stewart and Bruce Springsteen have songs titled "Reason to Believe." It's somewhat a cliche.Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-40784982932664883792017-05-13T06:25:23.285-07:002017-05-13T06:25:23.285-07:00Huh. I always thought the line went "And I...Huh. I always thought the line went "And I've raised him (the child) to believe we all will be received in Graceland" which made total sense to me: the father handing down his Elvis obsession. What a kitty!https://www.blogger.com/profile/16687446734968364905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-90936772048464197562016-02-22T20:31:52.826-08:002016-02-22T20:31:52.826-08:00Fat Man-- I understand your interpretation of a bo...Fat Man-- I understand your interpretation of a body as a "socket" for a soul, but I'm afraid I don't share it. The part of a person called a "socket," aside from that for a shoulder or hip joint, is the eye.<br />It could as well be an electric socket, but I doubt that as well...<br />Still, the zombie imagery works insofar as the southern setting of the song-- better for New Orleans than Memphis?Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-36608264780937562412016-02-22T20:28:03.617-08:002016-02-22T20:28:03.617-08:00Fat Man-- I don't pretend to be an expert on P...Fat Man-- I don't pretend to be an expert on Presley, but I have heard that he even had some Jewish ancestry. As he was someone who sang several albums of gospel material, I doubt Elvis felt close to that part of himself. <br />As it happens, many non-Jewish celebrities had connections with Jewish neighbors, fellow performers, employers, etc., from Louis Armstrong to Colin Powell. Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-24662903345489370672016-02-17T21:23:59.929-08:002016-02-17T21:23:59.929-08:00"And my traveling companions
"Are ghosts..."And my traveling companions<br />"Are ghosts and empty sockets<br />"I’m looking at ghosts and empties"<br /><br />A ghost is a soul without a body. An empty socket is a body without a soul; a/k/a a zombie.Fat Manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09554029467445000453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-28353179759992843892016-02-17T21:20:54.248-08:002016-02-17T21:20:54.248-08:00"I even know the couple who had the mansion&#..."I even know the couple who had the mansion's first Jewish wedding"<br /><br />Not that weird. Elvis had Jewish friends from his youth.<br /><br />"Elvis Was Our Shabbos Goy" By Vox Tablet on August 25, 2014<br />http://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/182703/elvis-was-our-shabbos-goy<br /><br />"How Elvis Presley Missed His True Calling — As a Cantor" by Anne Cohen and Sigal Samuel September 8, 2014<br />http://forward.com/culture/205079/how-elvis-presley-missed-his-true-calling-as-a-cantor/Fat Manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09554029467445000453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-780163570610517092012-10-15T19:35:11.947-07:002012-10-15T19:35:11.947-07:00Oh, and Hal-- Thanks! This was fascinating.
Oh, and Hal-- Thanks! This was fascinating.<br />Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-71148552058033308742012-10-15T19:28:00.904-07:002012-10-15T19:28:00.904-07:00Also, the lecturer wonders why the Civil War refer...Also, the lecturer wonders why the Civil War reference, if that is historically inaccurate? Then I realized, maybe the whole South evokes the Civil War, and he's connecting the idea of two halves of a country going to battle against each other with two people breaking up. Even Lincoln compared the situation to a familial strife, "a house divided."Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-29628603272621980892012-10-15T19:20:26.531-07:002012-10-15T19:20:26.531-07:00Hal- Halfway through this talk, I realized that I ...Hal- Halfway through this talk, I realized that I had not made clear the implication that the "she" is likely the partner of his "first marriage," and that this "child" is also hers. Just so that's clear.Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-12209420878977551442012-10-15T19:11:23.367-07:002012-10-15T19:11:23.367-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-79423148512832734192012-10-13T07:58:19.752-07:002012-10-13T07:58:19.752-07:00Paul Simon is visiting Emory Univ. to give lecture...Paul Simon is visiting Emory Univ. to give lectures and a short concert in Feb. 2013. To celebrate, we've started a video project in which people talk about their favorite Simon songs and memories. Here's our first entry... on "Graceland."<br /><br />http://tinyurl.com/9czk84e<br />Hal Jacobshttp://tinyurl.com/9czk84enoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-61838052156433626062012-04-17T09:26:44.591-07:002012-04-17T09:26:44.591-07:00Okay, I just found Alison Krauss's version of ...Okay, I just found Alison Krauss's version of this, which Paul praised in an interview, and I was Blown Away. She took what's really a rather bitter song and made it sound like a redemptive hymn. Pure grace and beauty. The one thing that jars me is hearing her sing the lines like "She comes back to tell me she's gone/As if I didn't know that, as if I didn't know my own bed..." Clearly written by a man, so it's just odd for those lyrics to be married to Alison's voice. But I guess it's not as bad as Krauss and Shawn Colvin singing "I get no offers, just a come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue" (!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-71293905312730270352012-04-10T19:04:13.206-07:002012-04-10T19:04:13.206-07:00Oh, it's definitely there.Oh, it's definitely there.Another Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17490204558031016152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7824464142604361129.post-75109188504621577932012-04-03T14:45:00.916-07:002012-04-03T14:45:00.916-07:00Listen to "Mystery Train," which Paul ha...Listen to "Mystery Train," which Paul has frequently cited as his favorite rock 'n' roll song ever, then listen again to the rhythm track on "Graceland." Hat tip, much?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com