Simon's current marriage to Edie Brickell is his longest by far, of his three. However, the course of true love never does run smooth, and the couple had an argument in 2014 that-- largely due to the fact that they are a celebrity couple-- made headlines. To show the public that they were fine after this bump in the road, they released a duet titled "Like to Get to Know You." (Thanks to my readers for spotting this one!)
This simple, Everly Brothers-style song is about a longtime couple who, despite their years together, seem frustrated that they still don't know each other well. At first, this is a source of frustration-- how can this be? Yet, they re-frame it is a positive: Well, it'll be like a new relationship, then!
"You share my heart/ you share my kids and my dogs," one sings, "But I swear I don't know you at all." They other responds: "You see my face/ Every night, every day/ But I swear you don't see me at all."
Echoing the classic "They Can't Take That Away From Me," with its intimate, personal observations about the way the other wears a hat and holds a knife, they sing: "I know how you like your coffee/ I know how bad you drive."
Meanwhile, they see other couples "in the movie line" or they "check out people in the checkout line." Those other couples seem very comfortable in their intimacy. They are "holding hands and laughing," and "exchanging loving glances." Unlike this couple, who seem estranged.
Still, they "wouldn't trade places" with those couples, even so. Why not? "I'd like to get to know you again."
In the title track to his 2016 album, Stranger to Stranger, Simon wonders if they would have gotten together had they met now: "Stranger to stranger/ If we met for the first time... could you imagine us falling in love again?"
He answered this question, in a way, years before. In 2014, they each said "I don't know you at all," but that they'd "like to get to know" each other now.
What's the difference, really, if the "stranger"-- the person you "don't know at all"-- is someone you meet on the street... or in your own bedroom?
Next Song: Fast Car
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Sunday, June 19, 2016
In a Parade
What is going on and what we think is going on may be two different things. If the difference is vast enough, we consider that a mental illness.
The song is set in the emergency room, or "ER," of a hospital. Some nights, it is quiet. The speaker compares this almost-silence to a piece of medical equipment that makes some noise, but not much-- the EKG. This stands for "electrocardiogram" (why there is a K in the abbreviation but none in the word being abbreviated is another story). It's the heart-rate monitor that goes "beep" every time your heart beats, and "beeeeeeep" when your heart stops.
Anyway, tonight is not one of those quieter nights. Tonight, the place is flooded with "broken bones" and "wounded souls" (compare this to the imagery in the folk-doctor's room in "Spirit Voices" or even the first part of "American Tune"). The injured are doing paperwork or calling someone. The place is busy, even bustling, but not at all chaotic.
Into this scene comes someone, however, who does not see this commotion for what it is. To him, it's a "parade"... and he is smack in the middle of it. He can't even "talk to you now," because after all, a parade is no occasion for a conversation.
Clearly, this person cannot fill out his own paperwork. So someone else does, and we get to read it. He is diagnosed as "schizophrenic"; his outlook is judged as "guarded," meaning there is a smidgen of hope, but not a wide smidgen, as smidgens go. He is given an anti-psychotic medication meant to re-balance his brain's chemistry.
We don't see the lines on the form regarding name, age, address or the other usual information, possibly because these are blank, in turn because they are unknown and unknowable. The only person who could answer is otherwise... occupied. But that line on the form, his occupation, they are able to determine.
He's a "street angel."
Yes, the same one we met a couple of songs back. He was brought into the ER by someone who didn't know where else to bring him.
The clinicians do try to have a conversation with him, but it's not all that informative. He tells them that he drank some orange, then grape, soda. And he may have... perhaps along with some medicines that may have been added to these in order to make dosing him easier.
But this seems to focus him on sugary imagery, because next, he explains: "My head's a lollipop and everyone wants to lick it." That may seem odd, but he's not necessarily being inaccurate, just metaphoric. Examining a true schizophrenic is fascinating to medical science. He may have been in another institution or institute in which everyone around him wanted to use him as a guinea pig for their experiments or analysis. We often forget that such probing is noticed by its subject... even if we think they are, mentally, on another planet. As for the lollipop image, we use the expression "Everyone wants a piece of me" when we feel overwhelmed with requests.
He explains why he wears a hooded sweatshirt, twice. The first time, he says he wants to "cover his mistake," and the second time "so I won't get a ticket." Well, is someone were trying to get in your head, wouldn't your instinct be to cover it? Maybe his mistake, to him, was letting someone analyze him in the first place. And "getting a ticket" is sure to mean being punished, possibly for resisting treatment.
Lastly, he says, "I write my verse for the universe," which echoes what he'd said in the original song. "That's who I am," he concludes. He is a poet, and he generously shares that poetry, with everyone, for free.
Not insisting you get paid for your work? Now, that's just plain crazy.
The Street Angel is-- fundamentally and mentally-- a poet, and so he speaks in poetry. He needs a psychiatrist who was a minor in literature to interpret what he says. This is how he interfaces, to the degree that he does at all, with the world. So he needs a poetry-to-mundanity translator to communicate.
Now, where are angels? In some other-where called "Heaven." Yet, they interact with us, on our plane of existence. What must they think of us humans-- how must they perceive us, through that veil between the physical and meta-physical? And if they tried to explain that to us in ways they could manage, in ways they think we could perceive... would we think they were poets? Or mentally ill?
In any case, our Street Angel is off the street. Let's hope the doctors let him keep some of the angel part, too.
Musical Note:
Some of the drum tracks here were recycled from the song "Cool Papa Bell," also off of this album.
But the more interesting sample is slowed-down, played-backward tracks of gospel songs from the 1930s. These sounds sounded, to Simon, like the words "street angel" and some of the other lyrics.
Next Song: Proof of Love
The song is set in the emergency room, or "ER," of a hospital. Some nights, it is quiet. The speaker compares this almost-silence to a piece of medical equipment that makes some noise, but not much-- the EKG. This stands for "electrocardiogram" (why there is a K in the abbreviation but none in the word being abbreviated is another story). It's the heart-rate monitor that goes "beep" every time your heart beats, and "beeeeeeep" when your heart stops.
Anyway, tonight is not one of those quieter nights. Tonight, the place is flooded with "broken bones" and "wounded souls" (compare this to the imagery in the folk-doctor's room in "Spirit Voices" or even the first part of "American Tune"). The injured are doing paperwork or calling someone. The place is busy, even bustling, but not at all chaotic.
Into this scene comes someone, however, who does not see this commotion for what it is. To him, it's a "parade"... and he is smack in the middle of it. He can't even "talk to you now," because after all, a parade is no occasion for a conversation.
Clearly, this person cannot fill out his own paperwork. So someone else does, and we get to read it. He is diagnosed as "schizophrenic"; his outlook is judged as "guarded," meaning there is a smidgen of hope, but not a wide smidgen, as smidgens go. He is given an anti-psychotic medication meant to re-balance his brain's chemistry.
We don't see the lines on the form regarding name, age, address or the other usual information, possibly because these are blank, in turn because they are unknown and unknowable. The only person who could answer is otherwise... occupied. But that line on the form, his occupation, they are able to determine.
He's a "street angel."
Yes, the same one we met a couple of songs back. He was brought into the ER by someone who didn't know where else to bring him.
The clinicians do try to have a conversation with him, but it's not all that informative. He tells them that he drank some orange, then grape, soda. And he may have... perhaps along with some medicines that may have been added to these in order to make dosing him easier.
But this seems to focus him on sugary imagery, because next, he explains: "My head's a lollipop and everyone wants to lick it." That may seem odd, but he's not necessarily being inaccurate, just metaphoric. Examining a true schizophrenic is fascinating to medical science. He may have been in another institution or institute in which everyone around him wanted to use him as a guinea pig for their experiments or analysis. We often forget that such probing is noticed by its subject... even if we think they are, mentally, on another planet. As for the lollipop image, we use the expression "Everyone wants a piece of me" when we feel overwhelmed with requests.
He explains why he wears a hooded sweatshirt, twice. The first time, he says he wants to "cover his mistake," and the second time "so I won't get a ticket." Well, is someone were trying to get in your head, wouldn't your instinct be to cover it? Maybe his mistake, to him, was letting someone analyze him in the first place. And "getting a ticket" is sure to mean being punished, possibly for resisting treatment.
Lastly, he says, "I write my verse for the universe," which echoes what he'd said in the original song. "That's who I am," he concludes. He is a poet, and he generously shares that poetry, with everyone, for free.
Not insisting you get paid for your work? Now, that's just plain crazy.
The Street Angel is-- fundamentally and mentally-- a poet, and so he speaks in poetry. He needs a psychiatrist who was a minor in literature to interpret what he says. This is how he interfaces, to the degree that he does at all, with the world. So he needs a poetry-to-mundanity translator to communicate.
Now, where are angels? In some other-where called "Heaven." Yet, they interact with us, on our plane of existence. What must they think of us humans-- how must they perceive us, through that veil between the physical and meta-physical? And if they tried to explain that to us in ways they could manage, in ways they think we could perceive... would we think they were poets? Or mentally ill?
In any case, our Street Angel is off the street. Let's hope the doctors let him keep some of the angel part, too.
Musical Note:
Some of the drum tracks here were recycled from the song "Cool Papa Bell," also off of this album.
But the more interesting sample is slowed-down, played-backward tracks of gospel songs from the 1930s. These sounds sounded, to Simon, like the words "street angel" and some of the other lyrics.
Next Song: Proof of Love
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Street Angel
There has always been the impulse to-- ironic as it seems-- glamorize the poor, from the holy hermits of yore to movies like With Honors in which a self-proclaimed "bum" out-debates a Harvard law professor. Likewise, there has been an long-held impulse to sanctify the mentally ill.
It's true that some indigent or lower-class people are undiscovered geniuses--like "Good" Will Hunting-- and some-- like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind-- struggle with mental illness while still contributing genius-level work to society. But, in fact, the poor and/or mentally ill are just as mixed a bag as the rest of society, goodness-wise and intelligence-wise.
In this song, we get another sacred genius who has not been able to make his way in society and so has wound up homeless. The speaker calls him a "Street Angel," but doesn't give us his name.
He begins by saying that he sympathizes with those good, decent people who are, nevertheless mentally ill and/or homeless: "My heart goes out to the street angels." He "saves his change" for them, too, and is especially impressed with the ones "working their way back home" either geographically or psychologically.
He doesn't just give them his money, either-- he gives them something more rare: his attention. He talks to one Street Angel who confesses: "Nobody talks to me much." The speaker says he can relate: "Nobody talks to me much." [The italics are not in the lyrics but implied in the delivery and inflection when sung.]
The Street Angel also has something else in common with the speaker (assuming it's Simon himself); they are both writers. But the Angel does it for free. The Street Angel says he makes his verse "for the universe" and asks nothing in return-- he does it for the "hoot" of it. This is an old expression-- "Wasn't that a hoot?" once meant "Wasn't that so very funny?"
"The tree is bare," says the Angel, "but the root of it/ Goes deeper than logical reasoning." Maybe nothing he does bears any fruit, in other words, but there is a reason to do it beyond the expectation of return, or rather not a reason but an emotional compulsion.
Then the Angel switches topics to religion: "God goes fishing/ And we are the fishes." So religion is a trap, complete with a lure: "He baits his [sic] lines/ With prayers and wishes." Does it work? Yes: "We're hungry for the love, and so we bite." God uses our loneliness against us, he argues.
So he is not changing topics as such, but returning to the original one, about how nobody talks to him. He's in a bind-- he's lonely, but on the one hand, human-type people ignore him... and on the other, God while does seek his company, it's only for selfish reasons.
His response is two-fold: To retreat from the world ("We hide our hearts like holy hostages") and to assume all communication is a one-way street-- to/at the world, but not back from it ("I tell my tale for the toot of it.")
What becomes of the Street Angel? Even though he was "working his way back home," he is removed from the street by the same society that dumped him there: "They took him away in the ambulance... He waved goodbye from the ambulance." One last gesture of communication with the one person who ever acknowledged him.
There is one note of possible hope. Remember how he was "working his way back home"? Well, now, he "made a way with the ambulance." So even though it's only "a" way and not "his" way-- and even though that way is not "back home"-- at least he is not on the street anymore.
And he still gets to be an angel.
The song concludes with the line: "My heart goes out to the street angel." Does it matter if a homeless or mentally ill person is angelic in some intellectual or spiritual way? Can't you still feel bad for them, even if they are ordinary, just because they live on the street?
Next Song: Stranger to Stranger
It's true that some indigent or lower-class people are undiscovered geniuses--like "Good" Will Hunting-- and some-- like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind-- struggle with mental illness while still contributing genius-level work to society. But, in fact, the poor and/or mentally ill are just as mixed a bag as the rest of society, goodness-wise and intelligence-wise.
In this song, we get another sacred genius who has not been able to make his way in society and so has wound up homeless. The speaker calls him a "Street Angel," but doesn't give us his name.
He begins by saying that he sympathizes with those good, decent people who are, nevertheless mentally ill and/or homeless: "My heart goes out to the street angels." He "saves his change" for them, too, and is especially impressed with the ones "working their way back home" either geographically or psychologically.
He doesn't just give them his money, either-- he gives them something more rare: his attention. He talks to one Street Angel who confesses: "Nobody talks to me much." The speaker says he can relate: "Nobody talks to me much." [The italics are not in the lyrics but implied in the delivery and inflection when sung.]
The Street Angel also has something else in common with the speaker (assuming it's Simon himself); they are both writers. But the Angel does it for free. The Street Angel says he makes his verse "for the universe" and asks nothing in return-- he does it for the "hoot" of it. This is an old expression-- "Wasn't that a hoot?" once meant "Wasn't that so very funny?"
"The tree is bare," says the Angel, "but the root of it/ Goes deeper than logical reasoning." Maybe nothing he does bears any fruit, in other words, but there is a reason to do it beyond the expectation of return, or rather not a reason but an emotional compulsion.
Then the Angel switches topics to religion: "God goes fishing/ And we are the fishes." So religion is a trap, complete with a lure: "He baits his [sic] lines/ With prayers and wishes." Does it work? Yes: "We're hungry for the love, and so we bite." God uses our loneliness against us, he argues.
So he is not changing topics as such, but returning to the original one, about how nobody talks to him. He's in a bind-- he's lonely, but on the one hand, human-type people ignore him... and on the other, God while does seek his company, it's only for selfish reasons.
His response is two-fold: To retreat from the world ("We hide our hearts like holy hostages") and to assume all communication is a one-way street-- to/at the world, but not back from it ("I tell my tale for the toot of it.")
What becomes of the Street Angel? Even though he was "working his way back home," he is removed from the street by the same society that dumped him there: "They took him away in the ambulance... He waved goodbye from the ambulance." One last gesture of communication with the one person who ever acknowledged him.
There is one note of possible hope. Remember how he was "working his way back home"? Well, now, he "made a way with the ambulance." So even though it's only "a" way and not "his" way-- and even though that way is not "back home"-- at least he is not on the street anymore.
And he still gets to be an angel.
The song concludes with the line: "My heart goes out to the street angel." Does it matter if a homeless or mentally ill person is angelic in some intellectual or spiritual way? Can't you still feel bad for them, even if they are ordinary, just because they live on the street?
Next Song: Stranger to Stranger
Monday, March 28, 2016
Horace and Pete
This is the theme song to the web series Horace and Pete, created by stellar comic Louis CK.
Each verse is three lines, the last two of which rhyme. The whole thing is less than three minutes long.
The show is set at a bar, and as in the theme to Cheers, the speaker seems to be a patron thereof.
"Hell no, I can't complain about my problems," he says. "I'm OK the way things are/ I'll pull my stool up to the bar/ At Horace and Pete's." Which sounds like he wants to complain, but feels the need to ask permission. He is hoping to hear: "No, go ahead, man, get it off your chest."
Either he has been given the go-ahead but is still reluctant to simply start in, or he has not... so he speaks in generalities. In either case, he offers: "Sometimes, I wonder, 'Why do we tear ourselves to pieces?'"
And... no response is forthcoming. Twice rebuffed, he decides the sour-grape approach, that he really didn't want to interact anyway. "I just need some time to think," he says. Ha! He wasn't rejected... he rejected them! He didn't want to talk anyway.
But he still wants to be around people, even as he sulks, so he adds, "Or maybe I just need a drink/ At Horace and Pete's." As Billy Joel put it in his song Piano Man, also set at a bar, "They're sharing a drink they call 'loneliness'/ But it's better than drinking alone."
In a small space, Simon creates a character who is in misery and wants company. Even though no one will interact with him, he'd rather be alone among people than truly alone.
And a bar is a good place for that.
Next Song: Cool Papa Bell
Each verse is three lines, the last two of which rhyme. The whole thing is less than three minutes long.
The show is set at a bar, and as in the theme to Cheers, the speaker seems to be a patron thereof.
"Hell no, I can't complain about my problems," he says. "I'm OK the way things are/ I'll pull my stool up to the bar/ At Horace and Pete's." Which sounds like he wants to complain, but feels the need to ask permission. He is hoping to hear: "No, go ahead, man, get it off your chest."
Either he has been given the go-ahead but is still reluctant to simply start in, or he has not... so he speaks in generalities. In either case, he offers: "Sometimes, I wonder, 'Why do we tear ourselves to pieces?'"
And... no response is forthcoming. Twice rebuffed, he decides the sour-grape approach, that he really didn't want to interact anyway. "I just need some time to think," he says. Ha! He wasn't rejected... he rejected them! He didn't want to talk anyway.
But he still wants to be around people, even as he sulks, so he adds, "Or maybe I just need a drink/ At Horace and Pete's." As Billy Joel put it in his song Piano Man, also set at a bar, "They're sharing a drink they call 'loneliness'/ But it's better than drinking alone."
In a small space, Simon creates a character who is in misery and wants company. Even though no one will interact with him, he'd rather be alone among people than truly alone.
And a bar is a good place for that.
Next Song: Cool Papa Bell
Monday, December 23, 2013
Looking at You
"Just one look/ That's all it took," sang newly minted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Linda Ronstadt. Love at first sight has long been a favorite topic of songwriters, but here all that happens is two people looking at each other.
Oh, and noticing that the other one was looking back.
The line "I was looking at you when were you looking at me" is the first and third of every chorus. They repeat so often, it took several listens to realize that in the last chorus, the clauses reverse: "You were looking at me when I was looking at you" [emphasis mine]. In other words, "Oh, so you were looking at me as much, and in the same way, as I was looking at you."
Perhaps a more accurate word would be "scoping," or even "ogling," in the sense of "evaluating positively." Or, the pre-teen speaker rates her: "I was looking at you while you were looking at me/ Baby, you're OK!"
Cupid's arrow is swift, indeed: "It took just one glance... I didn't stand a chance," he admits, and "I took one look at you/ My heart took flight/ I saw those eyes of blue/ All I did was... sigh."
There are no missing words at that ellipsis, just a dramatic... pause. It is also to be noted that most song subjects are blue-eyed, if only because more rhymes with "blue." In "Brown-Eyed Girl" and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," those phrases do not end on, and so force the songwriter to rhyme, the word "brown."
We also find out the precise time frame for this tennis game of glances happening: "My heart began to pound/ When class did start/ When class was through, I knew/ I had lost my heart." So, an hour or so, when they were supposed to be listening to the math teacher.
On the next chorus, we have the question, "Did you catch my eye?" when we know for absolute certain that she did, because that is the entire message of the song. It could be rhetorical... or just amateurish. A better phrasing might be, "You sure caught my eye." Or even, "Oh, did you catch my eye" inflected to mean, "Did you ever!"
This time, the story has a happy ending-- the interest seems mutual: "The bell rang, you got up/ And walked out of the door/ Then you glanced back at me/ Now I know for sure."
Simon deserves praise for not writing "walked right out the door," which would have been obvious and lazy, but would have sent the entirely wrong message-- that she was upset at having been ogled, and stalked off, nose skyward. But he would have to learn that "glanced back" is too hard to sing.
During class, he was trying to catch her looking at him without her catching him trying to-- a near impossible game of cat-and-mouse. But then she glances back and him and he feels reassured. And of course, extremely happy that his interest is returned, and by such an "OK" person at that.
He saw her "looking at [him]" when he was "looking at [her]", and bang-- without a word exchanged-- they are in a relationship. "Now I know you're mine," he smiles, confidently.
Yes, folks, it's just that easy.
Whole textbooks have been written about the communicative nature of sight. Seeing is powerful, which is why animals have such incredible vision and why people have spy-scopes. Being seen is weak, which is why animals have camouflage and people have tinted windows.
Except when, of course, when being seen is powerful, which is why birds have stunning plumage and we have stages and TV cameras.
The fact that she is willing to let her see him look back at him lets him know that the attraction is mutual. If he plays his cards right when he actually speaks with her, and he pays off his positive first impression, his confidence may prove out.
It would be interesting to use this song as a catalyst for class discussion about the way seeing and being seen are communicative by themselves, even without words: How do you present yourself; what do you want people to think when they see you? How does it feel when people look at you positively, or negatively? What do you see, in the mirror? Are you careful in how you look at other people? How do you feel when you catch someone looking at you, like in the song?
And how are all of these questions answered differently by teenage boys and girls?
These are all things we know intuitively, yet saying them openly might really help kids, well, watch how they are looking!
Next Song: Lighthouse Point
Oh, and noticing that the other one was looking back.
The line "I was looking at you when were you looking at me" is the first and third of every chorus. They repeat so often, it took several listens to realize that in the last chorus, the clauses reverse: "You were looking at me when I was looking at you" [emphasis mine]. In other words, "Oh, so you were looking at me as much, and in the same way, as I was looking at you."
Perhaps a more accurate word would be "scoping," or even "ogling," in the sense of "evaluating positively." Or, the pre-teen speaker rates her: "I was looking at you while you were looking at me/ Baby, you're OK!"
Cupid's arrow is swift, indeed: "It took just one glance... I didn't stand a chance," he admits, and "I took one look at you/ My heart took flight/ I saw those eyes of blue/ All I did was... sigh."
There are no missing words at that ellipsis, just a dramatic... pause. It is also to be noted that most song subjects are blue-eyed, if only because more rhymes with "blue." In "Brown-Eyed Girl" and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," those phrases do not end on, and so force the songwriter to rhyme, the word "brown."
We also find out the precise time frame for this tennis game of glances happening: "My heart began to pound/ When class did start/ When class was through, I knew/ I had lost my heart." So, an hour or so, when they were supposed to be listening to the math teacher.
On the next chorus, we have the question, "Did you catch my eye?" when we know for absolute certain that she did, because that is the entire message of the song. It could be rhetorical... or just amateurish. A better phrasing might be, "You sure caught my eye." Or even, "Oh, did you catch my eye" inflected to mean, "Did you ever!"
This time, the story has a happy ending-- the interest seems mutual: "The bell rang, you got up/ And walked out of the door/ Then you glanced back at me/ Now I know for sure."
Simon deserves praise for not writing "walked right out the door," which would have been obvious and lazy, but would have sent the entirely wrong message-- that she was upset at having been ogled, and stalked off, nose skyward. But he would have to learn that "glanced back" is too hard to sing.
During class, he was trying to catch her looking at him without her catching him trying to-- a near impossible game of cat-and-mouse. But then she glances back and him and he feels reassured. And of course, extremely happy that his interest is returned, and by such an "OK" person at that.
He saw her "looking at [him]" when he was "looking at [her]", and bang-- without a word exchanged-- they are in a relationship. "Now I know you're mine," he smiles, confidently.
Yes, folks, it's just that easy.
Whole textbooks have been written about the communicative nature of sight. Seeing is powerful, which is why animals have such incredible vision and why people have spy-scopes. Being seen is weak, which is why animals have camouflage and people have tinted windows.
Except when, of course, when being seen is powerful, which is why birds have stunning plumage and we have stages and TV cameras.
The fact that she is willing to let her see him look back at him lets him know that the attraction is mutual. If he plays his cards right when he actually speaks with her, and he pays off his positive first impression, his confidence may prove out.
It would be interesting to use this song as a catalyst for class discussion about the way seeing and being seen are communicative by themselves, even without words: How do you present yourself; what do you want people to think when they see you? How does it feel when people look at you positively, or negatively? What do you see, in the mirror? Are you careful in how you look at other people? How do you feel when you catch someone looking at you, like in the song?
And how are all of these questions answered differently by teenage boys and girls?
These are all things we know intuitively, yet saying them openly might really help kids, well, watch how they are looking!
Next Song: Lighthouse Point
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Changing Opinion
Remember when Philip Glass provided a piece of music to end the song "The Late Great Johnny Ace?" Well, Glass went on to record an album called Songs from Liquid Days. He provided the music for all the tracks, with lyrics by Laurie Anderson, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne...
...and Simon, whose is the first song on the album.
Glass' form of music is called "minimalism," and Simon's song reflects the idea of doing a lot with a small amount of sound. Because, you see, the song is all about a sound: "Gradually/ We became aware/ Of a hum in the room/ An electrical hum in the room/ It went mmmmm." This "mmmmm" hum is repeated at the end of each verse.
The people in the room try to locate the source of the sound. The even thought the sound may be coming into the room from outside it: "We pressed our ears/ Against the walls... And put our hands on the floor." The sound seemed to almost willfully elude them. It would vary in frequency, and even "seemed/ To disappear" then reappear: "It would roll around the sofa/ A nimbus humming cloud."
As they traverse the room, the seekers offer possibilities to its source. The logical ones guess it might be a "refrigerator." More psychologically inclined think that the voices are in their heads, or memories: "Maybe it’s the hum/ Of our parents’ voices/ Long ago in a soft light... in a dim light."
(The song is available on Simon's website, but only to this point. In the Lyrics book [and on the album], there is more; the song runs onto a second page and concludes as follows:)
"Maybe it's the hum/ Of changing opinion/ Or a foreign language/ In prayer/ Maybe it's the mantra/ Of the walls and wiring/ Deep breathing/ In soft air."
The "foreign language" hypothesis is intriguing-- maybe the sound is merely a hum to us, but interpret-able communication to others. Or maybe the "refrigerator" idea is only half-right, and should be combined with the "foreign language" idea. Maybe the physical entities in the house, the ones with current running through them, are communicating, humming their "mantra" whether we can understand it or not.
But all suggestions of these presume that a sound is actually being, or was, made. By electricity, by people, by something. The suggestions assume that people in the room are hearing, or remembering having heard, sound waves striking their eardrums.
Simon seems to indicate, through the title, that the "hum" is none of these, but the one idea that was not elaborated upon beyond being stated: "Maybe it's the hum/ Of changing opinion."
In other words, when a paradigm shifts in the forest, it does make a "sound." In any case, we all somehow seem to sense it. If we try to pinpoint the source, it will elude us, because it does not come from any one place. It comes from around us, and then resonates within us. It's like that sound we don't hear, then with "a quarter-turn of the head," we do.
"Wait! Just then...! Did you hear that? I thought I heard something... No, I guess not, nevermi... there! There it is again! I think it's coming from over... wait..."
My feeling is that this song led the album because it captured the purpose of the album. The concept of an elusive sound sneaking around us and calling us to play hide-and-seek with it perfectly opens an album meant to introduce the marginalized minimalist genre to the mainstream.
(The song is on YouTube; search for the title and Philip Glass. The track is about 10 minutes long. The vocalist is Bernard Fowler. Paul Dunkel is on flute, and Michael Riesman on piano.)
When Simon won the Gershwin Award from the Library of Congress, there was a concert in his honor (Simon's, not Gershwin's). The last performer was Glass, with a solo piano performance of "Sound of Silence." Well, what other Simon song would a minimalist pick?
Next Song: The Obvious Child
...and Simon, whose is the first song on the album.
Glass' form of music is called "minimalism," and Simon's song reflects the idea of doing a lot with a small amount of sound. Because, you see, the song is all about a sound: "Gradually/ We became aware/ Of a hum in the room/ An electrical hum in the room/ It went mmmmm." This "mmmmm" hum is repeated at the end of each verse.
The people in the room try to locate the source of the sound. The even thought the sound may be coming into the room from outside it: "We pressed our ears/ Against the walls... And put our hands on the floor." The sound seemed to almost willfully elude them. It would vary in frequency, and even "seemed/ To disappear" then reappear: "It would roll around the sofa/ A nimbus humming cloud."
As they traverse the room, the seekers offer possibilities to its source. The logical ones guess it might be a "refrigerator." More psychologically inclined think that the voices are in their heads, or memories: "Maybe it’s the hum/ Of our parents’ voices/ Long ago in a soft light... in a dim light."
(The song is available on Simon's website, but only to this point. In the Lyrics book [and on the album], there is more; the song runs onto a second page and concludes as follows:)
"Maybe it's the hum/ Of changing opinion/ Or a foreign language/ In prayer/ Maybe it's the mantra/ Of the walls and wiring/ Deep breathing/ In soft air."
The "foreign language" hypothesis is intriguing-- maybe the sound is merely a hum to us, but interpret-able communication to others. Or maybe the "refrigerator" idea is only half-right, and should be combined with the "foreign language" idea. Maybe the physical entities in the house, the ones with current running through them, are communicating, humming their "mantra" whether we can understand it or not.
But all suggestions of these presume that a sound is actually being, or was, made. By electricity, by people, by something. The suggestions assume that people in the room are hearing, or remembering having heard, sound waves striking their eardrums.
Simon seems to indicate, through the title, that the "hum" is none of these, but the one idea that was not elaborated upon beyond being stated: "Maybe it's the hum/ Of changing opinion."
In other words, when a paradigm shifts in the forest, it does make a "sound." In any case, we all somehow seem to sense it. If we try to pinpoint the source, it will elude us, because it does not come from any one place. It comes from around us, and then resonates within us. It's like that sound we don't hear, then with "a quarter-turn of the head," we do.
"Wait! Just then...! Did you hear that? I thought I heard something... No, I guess not, nevermi... there! There it is again! I think it's coming from over... wait..."
My feeling is that this song led the album because it captured the purpose of the album. The concept of an elusive sound sneaking around us and calling us to play hide-and-seek with it perfectly opens an album meant to introduce the marginalized minimalist genre to the mainstream.
(The song is on YouTube; search for the title and Philip Glass. The track is about 10 minutes long. The vocalist is Bernard Fowler. Paul Dunkel is on flute, and Michael Riesman on piano.)
When Simon won the Gershwin Award from the Library of Congress, there was a concert in his honor (Simon's, not Gershwin's). The last performer was Glass, with a solo piano performance of "Sound of Silence." Well, what other Simon song would a minimalist pick?
Next Song: The Obvious Child
Monday, January 9, 2012
I Know What I Know
This song records the kind of vapid conversation, disguised as witty repartee, that occurs at cocktail parties.
It starts with a man realizing he is being, as they say, "checked out" by another party-goer. He can tell by her assessment that she is only approaching him because he is one of the least unappealing people in a roomful of people with limited appeal altogether. He uses the shrugging words "guess," "thought," "all right," "limited" and "off-night."
This is hardly the response, say, the Caribbean Queen has to the speaker of the Billy Ocean song of that name at another get-together: "She said I was the tiger she wanted to tame."
The woman in question here, seeing no tigers worth taming, opts for our speaker and leads with a version of, "Haven't I met you someplace before?" In her case, it's the more sophisticated version: "Don’t I know you from the cinematographer’s party?" (A "cinematographer" being someone expert in the technical aspects of film-making, possibly also with an eye toward their artistic possibilities).
Now, our speaker may or may not know a cinematographer. He may or may not have been to this party, and he may or may not have met this woman there. Even if he did, he may or may not remember her. But he can't tell her this. And anyway, it doesn't matter-- she knows him now.
If I say "no," he thinks, the conversation is over. But I can't give a definite "yes," either. So he obfuscates. He says something like, "Sure, why not just say so, if it means we can talk?" But in this case he opts for the more poetic, more off-handed, "Who am I to blow against the wind?"
The woman knows this is an obfuscation, so she sets him up by insulting him somewhat, and vaguely: "There’s something about you/ That really reminds me of money." Now, there is no way this a good thing, but he is unsure in which way she means it as a bad thing! Does she mean he is materialistic? Opportunistic? Elitist? He knows he is being insulted, and so thinks: "She is the kind of girl who could say things/ That weren't that funny." But he doesn't know how he is being insulted.
Trapped, he has no choice but to ask for clarification: "What does that mean..?" To which she shoots his own line back at him: "Who am I to blow against the wind?" now meaning both, "Hey, that's the way it is, I can't control how I feel about you," but also, "How does your own medicine taste, mister?"
He is stung, but impressed at her wit. Also, she seems very lithe: "She moved so easily/ All I could think of was sunlight." (And isn't that a beautiful line!) But he can't say anything that overtly sensual at this point. So instead he compliments her intelligence, asking “Aren't you the woman/ Who was recently given a Fulbright?”
A Fulbright scholarship is an extremely prestigious honor. It means that you are so excellent in your field, so innovative, that you are being sent by a Presidential panel to study and teach at a key institution or research station somewhere in the world. It is like being a Rhodes scholar.
She brushes off the question, responding that she is sure she knows him from that other party. He still refuses to answer her directly with either, "Yes, in fact, and I'm glad to have run into you again," or "Actually, no, but I'm glad I met you now." He replies again with, "Who am I to blow against the wind?"
The chorus is much more straightforward than all of this bandying about, but it gives a clue to this hesitancy and around-the-bush verbal dance the speaker is doing. He is certain of something-- that all things end.
Decades after the closing verse of "Leaves That Are Green" was written, Simon is still saying "Hello, hello.../ Goodbye, goodbye.../ That's all there is." Only here, he says it more succinctly: "We come and we go."
Life ends. Relationships end. There will be a "goodbye," a "go"-ing, no matter what. So the "hello" had better be worth it. If I am going to spend some of my limited time on Earth with you, he implies, I want it to be something that has a long and good time until the "goodbye."
On the one hand, she is attractive, or at least graceful. And she's not entirely unintelligent, as she did sting him back with his own barbed comment.
But there is something unattractive about being someone's "you'll do." ("Weird" Al Yankovic has a very funny song about this called "Good Enough for Now.") Read the opening lines again-- she doesn't truly want him, and will leave as soon as someone better shows up. Wouldn't it be better if he treated her fairly coldly and she just left him now, before the heartbreak and break-up?
The comment about her receiving a Fulbright wasn't a compliment-- it was a test. Of course she didn't receive a Fulbright; she doesn't even know what one is. When she doesn't answer directly, he thinks, "...Aaaand that's what I thought." Now he doesn't have to feel bad about not being good enough for her looks-wise... because she's not good enough for him brains-wise.
At all times, "in the back of [his] head," he remembers that things end. It's a good thing to keep in mind, because it stops him from beginning things that have the seed of their end before they even start.
And so he should only start up with people who are worth his time. Maybe he'll find one at the next cocktail party.
Next song: Gumboots
It starts with a man realizing he is being, as they say, "checked out" by another party-goer. He can tell by her assessment that she is only approaching him because he is one of the least unappealing people in a roomful of people with limited appeal altogether. He uses the shrugging words "guess," "thought," "all right," "limited" and "off-night."
This is hardly the response, say, the Caribbean Queen has to the speaker of the Billy Ocean song of that name at another get-together: "She said I was the tiger she wanted to tame."
The woman in question here, seeing no tigers worth taming, opts for our speaker and leads with a version of, "Haven't I met you someplace before?" In her case, it's the more sophisticated version: "Don’t I know you from the cinematographer’s party?" (A "cinematographer" being someone expert in the technical aspects of film-making, possibly also with an eye toward their artistic possibilities).
Now, our speaker may or may not know a cinematographer. He may or may not have been to this party, and he may or may not have met this woman there. Even if he did, he may or may not remember her. But he can't tell her this. And anyway, it doesn't matter-- she knows him now.
If I say "no," he thinks, the conversation is over. But I can't give a definite "yes," either. So he obfuscates. He says something like, "Sure, why not just say so, if it means we can talk?" But in this case he opts for the more poetic, more off-handed, "Who am I to blow against the wind?"
The woman knows this is an obfuscation, so she sets him up by insulting him somewhat, and vaguely: "There’s something about you/ That really reminds me of money." Now, there is no way this a good thing, but he is unsure in which way she means it as a bad thing! Does she mean he is materialistic? Opportunistic? Elitist? He knows he is being insulted, and so thinks: "She is the kind of girl who could say things/ That weren't that funny." But he doesn't know how he is being insulted.
Trapped, he has no choice but to ask for clarification: "What does that mean..?" To which she shoots his own line back at him: "Who am I to blow against the wind?" now meaning both, "Hey, that's the way it is, I can't control how I feel about you," but also, "How does your own medicine taste, mister?"
He is stung, but impressed at her wit. Also, she seems very lithe: "She moved so easily/ All I could think of was sunlight." (And isn't that a beautiful line!) But he can't say anything that overtly sensual at this point. So instead he compliments her intelligence, asking “Aren't you the woman/ Who was recently given a Fulbright?”
A Fulbright scholarship is an extremely prestigious honor. It means that you are so excellent in your field, so innovative, that you are being sent by a Presidential panel to study and teach at a key institution or research station somewhere in the world. It is like being a Rhodes scholar.
She brushes off the question, responding that she is sure she knows him from that other party. He still refuses to answer her directly with either, "Yes, in fact, and I'm glad to have run into you again," or "Actually, no, but I'm glad I met you now." He replies again with, "Who am I to blow against the wind?"
The chorus is much more straightforward than all of this bandying about, but it gives a clue to this hesitancy and around-the-bush verbal dance the speaker is doing. He is certain of something-- that all things end.
Decades after the closing verse of "Leaves That Are Green" was written, Simon is still saying "Hello, hello.../ Goodbye, goodbye.../ That's all there is." Only here, he says it more succinctly: "We come and we go."
Life ends. Relationships end. There will be a "goodbye," a "go"-ing, no matter what. So the "hello" had better be worth it. If I am going to spend some of my limited time on Earth with you, he implies, I want it to be something that has a long and good time until the "goodbye."
On the one hand, she is attractive, or at least graceful. And she's not entirely unintelligent, as she did sting him back with his own barbed comment.
But there is something unattractive about being someone's "you'll do." ("Weird" Al Yankovic has a very funny song about this called "Good Enough for Now.") Read the opening lines again-- she doesn't truly want him, and will leave as soon as someone better shows up. Wouldn't it be better if he treated her fairly coldly and she just left him now, before the heartbreak and break-up?
The comment about her receiving a Fulbright wasn't a compliment-- it was a test. Of course she didn't receive a Fulbright; she doesn't even know what one is. When she doesn't answer directly, he thinks, "...Aaaand that's what I thought." Now he doesn't have to feel bad about not being good enough for her looks-wise... because she's not good enough for him brains-wise.
At all times, "in the back of [his] head," he remembers that things end. It's a good thing to keep in mind, because it stops him from beginning things that have the seed of their end before they even start.
And so he should only start up with people who are worth his time. Maybe he'll find one at the next cocktail party.
Next song: Gumboots
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tenderness
"Response songs" are songs that respond to others' hits. Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" is a response, for example, to Neil Young's "Southern Man" (read the lyrics to both-- Young's first-- and see). The response, interestingly, was a much bigger hit.
Liz Phair's CD Exile in Guyville is a song-by-song response to The Rolling Stones' album Exile on Main Street. There are even band who give themselves response names, like The Celibate Rifles... a response to The Sex Pistols.
So my theory is that Billy Joel's "Honesty" is a response to Paul Simon's "Tenderness." Consider:
Simon writes, in a song released in 1975:
"You say you care for me
But there's no tenderness
Beneath your honesty"
Billy Joel, in a 1978 song, seems to respond:
"If you search for tenderness [emphasis mine]
it isn't hard to find...
Honesty [emphasis mine] is hardly ever heard.
And mostly what I need from you."
Even if Joel did not have Simon's song in mind, it is very interesting to compare the two. Simon wants honesty, yes, but doesn't want it bluntly. Joel, meanwhile, asks his listener to spare the "tenderness" and just give it to him straight.
Interestingly, Simon wrote about a Boxer-- while, before his musical career-- Joel was a boxer. I'm not a psychologist, but I think if you can take a shot to the face, you're the kind of person who prefers directness.
Joel goes so far as to associate pulling one's verbal punches with dishonesty: "I don't want some pretty face to tell me pretty lies." But Simon pre-empts this argument-- that "tenderness" is somehow inherently dishonest-- with the line: "You don't have to lie to me/ Just give me some tenderness beneath your honesty."
Another point Simon makes is that arguing is not necessarily, well, necessary. "Right and wrong/ Never helped us get along," he states, explaining that you can "agree to disagree," as the sayings go, and even "disagree without being disagreeable." What if both are right?
There is an old Jewish joke: A rabbi is acting as marriage counselor and agrees to see a couple, but one at a time. The wife carries on about the husband, and the rabbi nods, over and over: "You're right! Of course, you're right." In his session, the rabbi tells the husband: "Yes, you're right. What can I say-- you're right!" After they leave, the rabbi's assistant, who heard it all, asks: "Not to be rude, Rabbi, but how can they both be right?" To which the rabbi responds: "You know what-- you're right!"
Simon adds, in his song: "You say you care for me/ But there's no tenderness." The listener is not very caring in the way she (or he) shows caring.
Simon also does something that Joel does not, which is hold forth an olive branch: "You and me could make amends/ I'm not worried." In this, one wonders if "Tenderness" is not, perhaps, itself a response to The Beatles' "We Can Work It Out," which doesn't get at the way the discussion happens, just asks that it might to begin with.
"Honesty/ It's such a waste of energy," concludes Simon. If he is supposed to change because of the criticism being leveled at him, well, a barrage is not going to do anything but make him buttress his defensive fortress. He is trying to help the other person help him; "If you say it nicely, I will be much more receptive and likely to alter the behavior of mine you find problematic."
Aesop's fables includes the one in which the Wind and Sun wager as to which could make a traveler remove his coat more quickly. The Wind's attempts to blow off the coat only result in the man pulling his coat tighter. The Sun's warming rays, however, soon coax the man to remove the coat himself.
In other words, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. So try some honey, Honey.
Musical Note: This song features wordless, doo-wop backup vocals by the gospel group The Dixie Hummingbirds. If they sound familiar, it is because in the last track of this album, they show up again on "Love Me Like a Rock."
On his last line, Simon briefly leaves off the smooth vocal style that he has carried throughout the song to soar into a gospel mode, a nod to the group's preferred style.
Next Song: Take Me to the Mardi Gras
Liz Phair's CD Exile in Guyville is a song-by-song response to The Rolling Stones' album Exile on Main Street. There are even band who give themselves response names, like The Celibate Rifles... a response to The Sex Pistols.
So my theory is that Billy Joel's "Honesty" is a response to Paul Simon's "Tenderness." Consider:
Simon writes, in a song released in 1975:
"You say you care for me
But there's no tenderness
Beneath your honesty"
Billy Joel, in a 1978 song, seems to respond:
"If you search for tenderness [emphasis mine]
it isn't hard to find...
Honesty [emphasis mine] is hardly ever heard.
And mostly what I need from you."
Even if Joel did not have Simon's song in mind, it is very interesting to compare the two. Simon wants honesty, yes, but doesn't want it bluntly. Joel, meanwhile, asks his listener to spare the "tenderness" and just give it to him straight.
Interestingly, Simon wrote about a Boxer-- while, before his musical career-- Joel was a boxer. I'm not a psychologist, but I think if you can take a shot to the face, you're the kind of person who prefers directness.
Joel goes so far as to associate pulling one's verbal punches with dishonesty: "I don't want some pretty face to tell me pretty lies." But Simon pre-empts this argument-- that "tenderness" is somehow inherently dishonest-- with the line: "You don't have to lie to me/ Just give me some tenderness beneath your honesty."
Another point Simon makes is that arguing is not necessarily, well, necessary. "Right and wrong/ Never helped us get along," he states, explaining that you can "agree to disagree," as the sayings go, and even "disagree without being disagreeable." What if both are right?
There is an old Jewish joke: A rabbi is acting as marriage counselor and agrees to see a couple, but one at a time. The wife carries on about the husband, and the rabbi nods, over and over: "You're right! Of course, you're right." In his session, the rabbi tells the husband: "Yes, you're right. What can I say-- you're right!" After they leave, the rabbi's assistant, who heard it all, asks: "Not to be rude, Rabbi, but how can they both be right?" To which the rabbi responds: "You know what-- you're right!"
Simon adds, in his song: "You say you care for me/ But there's no tenderness." The listener is not very caring in the way she (or he) shows caring.
Simon also does something that Joel does not, which is hold forth an olive branch: "You and me could make amends/ I'm not worried." In this, one wonders if "Tenderness" is not, perhaps, itself a response to The Beatles' "We Can Work It Out," which doesn't get at the way the discussion happens, just asks that it might to begin with.
"Honesty/ It's such a waste of energy," concludes Simon. If he is supposed to change because of the criticism being leveled at him, well, a barrage is not going to do anything but make him buttress his defensive fortress. He is trying to help the other person help him; "If you say it nicely, I will be much more receptive and likely to alter the behavior of mine you find problematic."
Aesop's fables includes the one in which the Wind and Sun wager as to which could make a traveler remove his coat more quickly. The Wind's attempts to blow off the coat only result in the man pulling his coat tighter. The Sun's warming rays, however, soon coax the man to remove the coat himself.
In other words, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. So try some honey, Honey.
Musical Note: This song features wordless, doo-wop backup vocals by the gospel group The Dixie Hummingbirds. If they sound familiar, it is because in the last track of this album, they show up again on "Love Me Like a Rock."
On his last line, Simon briefly leaves off the smooth vocal style that he has carried throughout the song to soar into a gospel mode, a nod to the group's preferred style.
Next Song: Take Me to the Mardi Gras
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Dangling Conversation
Simon is on record as saying, in interviews, that this is one of his least favorite of his own songs; the other I am aware of is "I Am a Rock."
The two share a sense of unease with the world, and a retreat into literature as a way of avoiding social contact. In "I Am a Rock," the speaker declares: "I have my books and my poetry to protect me." Here, the tone is softer, but the result is the same: "You read your Emily Dickinson/ And I my Robert Frost/ And we note our place with bookmarkers/ And measure what we've lost."
This song also shares an image with "Bleeker Street," which says, "I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand." Here, "I only kiss your shadow, I cannot feel your hand."
And again, "Sounds of Silence," in which communication is lost in "the wells of silence," in an nightmarish, abstract dreamworld. Only here, the setting is a parlor of some sort, and communication just drifts off, time and again.
There are three types of communication this time. There is silence, which is uncomfortable. Then there is the meaningless, yet high-sounding and academic "conversation" about "analysis" and "theater" and the popular poets they are reading. Both of these do happen.
But the scholarly chitchat only serves to break the silence, which itself replaces the third subject. It is that which really should be talked about, only no one wants to. And that's that this relationship is in serious trouble. That conversation is yet to get started.
"We are verses out of rhythm, couplets out of rhyme," he explains, using the metaphor of the poems they are reading instead of talking about their relationship. "I cannot feel your hand/ You're a stranger now unto me."
The silence in "Sounds of Silence" was bad enough. Now, as there, we have "people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening." But here, it is not society at large that suffers in the abstract, but two lonely people making believe to be keeping company.
Why can neither speak of the distance they feel? Partly because it would not be proper. Partly because it is easier to pretend to converse than to truly interact, in the "Honey, we need to talk" sense.
But mostly, because of their basic "indifference" to one another. They don't care enough about how little they care about each other to trouble the silence with a whole discussion about how they'd rather be with other people. Better to be together with the pretense that all is fine than rattle the coffee cups and upset the "curtain lace."
Except that, while they are reading to themselves, they "measure what we've lost." The time spent in this limbo-like relationship is time lost. The passion, the romance, is not there; they do not write poems to each other. And so the conversations start, and then trail off, leaving both of them "dangling"-- attached at only one end.
Lyrically, there is only one jarring image. Everything else in the poem follows the metaphor of things found in a living room-- bookmarks and poetry, watercolors and coffee cups. And then there is the word "couched"-- again , a living-room image-- but one followed by beach images of "shells," the "shore," and the "ocean." Pretty, but out of place.
As to the music, the sound is lush, and the orchestration seems like one of the chamber pieces this couple must enjoy. But once again, the beauty of the music belies the emotional turmoil in the lyrics...
...Just as this lovely drawing room with its polite erudition is, in reality, awash with "shadows," barricaded with "borders," and permeated with frustration and resentment.
Simon explained that he did not like this song because he felt it sounded like a college student wrote it. But it could just have easily been because it was hard to talk about, well, not talking about things.
Next song: Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall
The two share a sense of unease with the world, and a retreat into literature as a way of avoiding social contact. In "I Am a Rock," the speaker declares: "I have my books and my poetry to protect me." Here, the tone is softer, but the result is the same: "You read your Emily Dickinson/ And I my Robert Frost/ And we note our place with bookmarkers/ And measure what we've lost."
This song also shares an image with "Bleeker Street," which says, "I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand." Here, "I only kiss your shadow, I cannot feel your hand."
And again, "Sounds of Silence," in which communication is lost in "the wells of silence," in an nightmarish, abstract dreamworld. Only here, the setting is a parlor of some sort, and communication just drifts off, time and again.
There are three types of communication this time. There is silence, which is uncomfortable. Then there is the meaningless, yet high-sounding and academic "conversation" about "analysis" and "theater" and the popular poets they are reading. Both of these do happen.
But the scholarly chitchat only serves to break the silence, which itself replaces the third subject. It is that which really should be talked about, only no one wants to. And that's that this relationship is in serious trouble. That conversation is yet to get started.
"We are verses out of rhythm, couplets out of rhyme," he explains, using the metaphor of the poems they are reading instead of talking about their relationship. "I cannot feel your hand/ You're a stranger now unto me."
The silence in "Sounds of Silence" was bad enough. Now, as there, we have "people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening." But here, it is not society at large that suffers in the abstract, but two lonely people making believe to be keeping company.
Why can neither speak of the distance they feel? Partly because it would not be proper. Partly because it is easier to pretend to converse than to truly interact, in the "Honey, we need to talk" sense.
But mostly, because of their basic "indifference" to one another. They don't care enough about how little they care about each other to trouble the silence with a whole discussion about how they'd rather be with other people. Better to be together with the pretense that all is fine than rattle the coffee cups and upset the "curtain lace."
Except that, while they are reading to themselves, they "measure what we've lost." The time spent in this limbo-like relationship is time lost. The passion, the romance, is not there; they do not write poems to each other. And so the conversations start, and then trail off, leaving both of them "dangling"-- attached at only one end.
Lyrically, there is only one jarring image. Everything else in the poem follows the metaphor of things found in a living room-- bookmarks and poetry, watercolors and coffee cups. And then there is the word "couched"-- again , a living-room image-- but one followed by beach images of "shells," the "shore," and the "ocean." Pretty, but out of place.
As to the music, the sound is lush, and the orchestration seems like one of the chamber pieces this couple must enjoy. But once again, the beauty of the music belies the emotional turmoil in the lyrics...
...Just as this lovely drawing room with its polite erudition is, in reality, awash with "shadows," barricaded with "borders," and permeated with frustration and resentment.
Simon explained that he did not like this song because he felt it sounded like a college student wrote it. But it could just have easily been because it was hard to talk about, well, not talking about things.
Next song: Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The Sound of Silence
The entirety of the song is the tale of a recurring dream. One might imagine yet another occurrence of this "restless" dream-- a nightmare, truly-- shaking the speaker awake again while it is still night. Alone in bed, he has no one to tell the dream to but the "darkness" of the room itself, which he finds an "old friend," a welcome comfort from the bright but disturbing images of the dream. (In a later song, Simon will describe a couple of "Old Friends," both human.)
"Darkness," the absence of light, may be a "friend," but "silence," the absence of sound, is "like a cancer." The song as an entirety is an exhortation against the dangers of silence, so it is fitting that the song is wholly a conversation: "I've come to talk with you again." The dream is so disturbing that the only relief is speech, even if only to the darkness of the nighttime bedroom.
The dream, the "vision," describes two scenes. The first is one only of the speaker. The second is of a crowd, and the speakers attempt at interaction with it.
The first scene is very short, confined in some four lines. The speaker is "alone," in "narrow streets." The "streets" are not smoothly paved, but "cobblestone," an image both archaic and tumultuous-- anyone who has walked on cobblestones knows they are uneven and uncomfortable. The light is dim, from a lone "streetlamp," yet it is somehow authentic, even holy-- the glow is described as a "halo." The only protection from the "cold and damp" is the "collar" of his coat. The image altogether is one of isolation and discomfort. The scene is also somewhat British: narrow cobblestone streets, a gaslight shimmering in the infamous London fog, a trenchcoat's collar pulled up ever more snugly against the mist.
The second scene is its complete opposite. It is announced by rending, slashing pain, a "stab," a "split." It is a "flash" of synthetic, "neon" brightness. The speaker is suddenly in Times Square or the Las Vegas Strip.
This new light is also no holy "halo." No, it is "naked." This may be reference to the nakedness that caused the expulsion from Eden. If so, the next image is that of the shiny Golden Calf: "The people bowed and prayed/ to the neon god they'd made."
The speaker, in this new, bare light, sees an enormous crowd: "ten thousand people, maybe more" (a concert audience?). But they are even less communicative than the darkness the speaker "talk[s] with" at the beginning. They "talk" without "speaking." Worse, they "hear... without listening." And worst of all (at least, one may guess, to a songwriter), they write "songs that voices never share." Somehow, they even manage to "pray" quietly.
Why? They do not "dare/ disturb the sound of silence." Yes, but again, why? Why not interact? What is so important, or intimidating, about this "silence" that it must not be breached?
The speaker, new to this realm, finds no ready answer, and so breaks the silence with a jeremiad. He warns the assemblage against the dangers of distancing themselves from each other: "silence like a cancer grows." He tells them there is a solution in communication--"hear my words"-- and offers himself as an example, teacher, and confidant: "Take my arms, that I might reach you."
He might as well have said nothing, as all they heard from him was silence; his proffered "words" are but "silent raindrops." He might have expected as much-- he asked them to "hear" his words after he had observed them "hearing without listening." But the danger of silence forced him to try anyway.
And here is a chilling double irony-- what are these misdirected throngs worshipping? A sign that is "forming" "words". And words about what? "Words"! But as they are formed out of neon lights, they are not spoken, sung, or even heard. These words, whose light can "touch... the sounds of silence," are silent themselves.
"The sign said: 'The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls." (To find out what those words may be, we need to see a later song, "A Poem on the Underground Wall.")
Who are the "prophets"? The disenfranchised, the downtrodden of the "tenement." Here, Simon engages in a bit of inverted logic. If no one listens to prophets, and if no one listens to these people, then these people must be prophets. And, in fact, no one will listen to them, even if they did have a voice, which they do not. The speaker, addressing the oblivious crowd with prophetic, outstretched arms, is just another street urchin with nothing to his name but a threadbare coat. He is invisible beside the overwhelming flash of the neon sign, and his words merely "echo" in the bottomless "wells of silence."
The men who sleep in the alleys of Bleeker Street were truly poor. The Sparrow was a metaphor for the homeless and ignored. But this "vision" shows a new level-- depth, rather-- of alienation. But the people here could speak, listen, and sing together. They are not kept silent out of disenfranchisement or poverty.
They are kept silent by the simple fear of communicating. Of opening up, being vulnerable, possibly mishearing or mis-speaking... and then what? No, better to keep chit-chat cursory and instead focus on the "neon" of the bar sign, the Times Square advertisements, the jukebox... the television tube or movie screen (or computer monitor..?).
The streetlight's halo contrasts with the neon flash to show the difference between radiance and radiation, brilliance and mere brightness. The speaker alone in his room-- with his only "friend," the darkness-- has more company than the myriads of silent worshippers.
The song does not explicitly wrap around; the speaker, having told the darkness his dream, does not ask the darkness for an interpretation of the dream. He does not thank the darkness for its attention and companionship, then rise to greet the day's rising sunlight.
Still, there is closure. The song begins with a wakeful dreamer retelling his dream to the darkness. It continues with the dream of the loneliness of aloneness, then with the loneliness of anonymity.
But it ends by noting that the "words of the prophets" are also "whispered in the sounds of silence." A whisper is the barest hint of speaking, but also the most intimate. The wisp of a whisper might carry the messianic power of prophecy... and connection.
IMPACT:
This was the first Simon and Garfunkel hit, and it remains one of the most popular songs in Simon's entire catalog. He still closes shows with it, to this day. For Simon, it meant the beginning of his folk songwriting career, and that Simon & Garfunkel were a hit-making duo.
It reached #1 in 1965, and stayed on the charts for 12 weeks altogether. It would go on to be one of the top-20 most performed songs of the 20th Century (as far as could be tracked for royalty purposes). Rolling Stone magazine ranked it in its top 200 songs "of all time," and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The Library of Congress (which would later bestow upon Simon its first George Gershwin Award) inducted the song to its National Recording Registry, meaning that it was to be preserved indefinitely.
Other artists continue to sample it to this day, from Rush and Nirvana to Eminem. In 2015, the heavy metal band Disturbed took their menacing cover version to #42 on the Hot 100, and #1 on both the Mainstream and Hard Rock charts.
Next Song: He Was My Brother
"Darkness," the absence of light, may be a "friend," but "silence," the absence of sound, is "like a cancer." The song as an entirety is an exhortation against the dangers of silence, so it is fitting that the song is wholly a conversation: "I've come to talk with you again." The dream is so disturbing that the only relief is speech, even if only to the darkness of the nighttime bedroom.
The dream, the "vision," describes two scenes. The first is one only of the speaker. The second is of a crowd, and the speakers attempt at interaction with it.
The first scene is very short, confined in some four lines. The speaker is "alone," in "narrow streets." The "streets" are not smoothly paved, but "cobblestone," an image both archaic and tumultuous-- anyone who has walked on cobblestones knows they are uneven and uncomfortable. The light is dim, from a lone "streetlamp," yet it is somehow authentic, even holy-- the glow is described as a "halo." The only protection from the "cold and damp" is the "collar" of his coat. The image altogether is one of isolation and discomfort. The scene is also somewhat British: narrow cobblestone streets, a gaslight shimmering in the infamous London fog, a trenchcoat's collar pulled up ever more snugly against the mist.
The second scene is its complete opposite. It is announced by rending, slashing pain, a "stab," a "split." It is a "flash" of synthetic, "neon" brightness. The speaker is suddenly in Times Square or the Las Vegas Strip.
This new light is also no holy "halo." No, it is "naked." This may be reference to the nakedness that caused the expulsion from Eden. If so, the next image is that of the shiny Golden Calf: "The people bowed and prayed/ to the neon god they'd made."
The speaker, in this new, bare light, sees an enormous crowd: "ten thousand people, maybe more" (a concert audience?). But they are even less communicative than the darkness the speaker "talk[s] with" at the beginning. They "talk" without "speaking." Worse, they "hear... without listening." And worst of all (at least, one may guess, to a songwriter), they write "songs that voices never share." Somehow, they even manage to "pray" quietly.
Why? They do not "dare/ disturb the sound of silence." Yes, but again, why? Why not interact? What is so important, or intimidating, about this "silence" that it must not be breached?
The speaker, new to this realm, finds no ready answer, and so breaks the silence with a jeremiad. He warns the assemblage against the dangers of distancing themselves from each other: "silence like a cancer grows." He tells them there is a solution in communication--"hear my words"-- and offers himself as an example, teacher, and confidant: "Take my arms, that I might reach you."
He might as well have said nothing, as all they heard from him was silence; his proffered "words" are but "silent raindrops." He might have expected as much-- he asked them to "hear" his words after he had observed them "hearing without listening." But the danger of silence forced him to try anyway.
And here is a chilling double irony-- what are these misdirected throngs worshipping? A sign that is "forming" "words". And words about what? "Words"! But as they are formed out of neon lights, they are not spoken, sung, or even heard. These words, whose light can "touch... the sounds of silence," are silent themselves.
"The sign said: 'The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls." (To find out what those words may be, we need to see a later song, "A Poem on the Underground Wall.")
Who are the "prophets"? The disenfranchised, the downtrodden of the "tenement." Here, Simon engages in a bit of inverted logic. If no one listens to prophets, and if no one listens to these people, then these people must be prophets. And, in fact, no one will listen to them, even if they did have a voice, which they do not. The speaker, addressing the oblivious crowd with prophetic, outstretched arms, is just another street urchin with nothing to his name but a threadbare coat. He is invisible beside the overwhelming flash of the neon sign, and his words merely "echo" in the bottomless "wells of silence."
The men who sleep in the alleys of Bleeker Street were truly poor. The Sparrow was a metaphor for the homeless and ignored. But this "vision" shows a new level-- depth, rather-- of alienation. But the people here could speak, listen, and sing together. They are not kept silent out of disenfranchisement or poverty.
They are kept silent by the simple fear of communicating. Of opening up, being vulnerable, possibly mishearing or mis-speaking... and then what? No, better to keep chit-chat cursory and instead focus on the "neon" of the bar sign, the Times Square advertisements, the jukebox... the television tube or movie screen (or computer monitor..?).
The streetlight's halo contrasts with the neon flash to show the difference between radiance and radiation, brilliance and mere brightness. The speaker alone in his room-- with his only "friend," the darkness-- has more company than the myriads of silent worshippers.
The song does not explicitly wrap around; the speaker, having told the darkness his dream, does not ask the darkness for an interpretation of the dream. He does not thank the darkness for its attention and companionship, then rise to greet the day's rising sunlight.
Still, there is closure. The song begins with a wakeful dreamer retelling his dream to the darkness. It continues with the dream of the loneliness of aloneness, then with the loneliness of anonymity.
But it ends by noting that the "words of the prophets" are also "whispered in the sounds of silence." A whisper is the barest hint of speaking, but also the most intimate. The wisp of a whisper might carry the messianic power of prophecy... and connection.
IMPACT:
This was the first Simon and Garfunkel hit, and it remains one of the most popular songs in Simon's entire catalog. He still closes shows with it, to this day. For Simon, it meant the beginning of his folk songwriting career, and that Simon & Garfunkel were a hit-making duo.
It reached #1 in 1965, and stayed on the charts for 12 weeks altogether. It would go on to be one of the top-20 most performed songs of the 20th Century (as far as could be tracked for royalty purposes). Rolling Stone magazine ranked it in its top 200 songs "of all time," and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The Library of Congress (which would later bestow upon Simon its first George Gershwin Award) inducted the song to its National Recording Registry, meaning that it was to be preserved indefinitely.
Other artists continue to sample it to this day, from Rush and Nirvana to Eminem. In 2015, the heavy metal band Disturbed took their menacing cover version to #42 on the Hot 100, and #1 on both the Mainstream and Hard Rock charts.
Next Song: He Was My Brother
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