Wristband

On February 6, 2016, on Prairie Home Companion, Paul Simon debuted this song.

When someone gives the ticket-taker their tickets at concerts these days, they receive a wristband, a paper strip with a bit of tape to seal it to itself, as a bracelet. It serves as a ticket stub, allowing those who leave to return.

In this song, the hapless narrator is the performer. He "stepped outside the backstage door" into the alley or parking lot behind the theater, to "breathe some nicotine" (which is to say, smoke a cigarette) and check his phone for messages...

...when he heard an ominous "click." Yes, he had locked himself out of his own theater. Now, he resigns himself to walking around to the front to get back in.

Only, once there, he is confronted by a bouncer who will not let him in without, you guessed it, a wristband: "A wristband, my man... If you don't have a wristband/ You don't get through the door."

Now, the speaker's dander is up: "My heart beats like a fist/ When I meet some dude with an attitude/ Sayin' 'Hey, you can't do that, or this."

There is no grappling with him, physically, either: "The man was large, a well-dressed 6-foot-8." And he takes his job very seriously, "Like St. Peter, standing guard at the Pearly [Gate]."

Brawn being out of the question, the speaker opts for brains, and tries reason: "I don't need a wristband/ My band is on the bandstand." This is my show, sir-- kindly let me inside where I can perform it.

We imagine the situation is eventually resolved-- the performer had his phone on him because he was checking his messages, remember? He probably called someone inside to come let him in.

But we don't get to hear that part of the story. Instead, the speaker realizes that he is in a situation that others know all too well-- that of being shut out from access to the better aspects of life, all for want of a "wristband."

And so the song takes a turn: "The riots started slowly/ With the homeless and the lowly." And after the economically disadvantaged, came the rural dwellers in small towns: "It spread into the heartland/ Towns that never got a wristband."

Then it spread still further, to the poor teens: "Kids that can't afford a wristband/ Whose anger is a shorthand/ For... 'If you don't get a wristband, my man/ Then you don't get through the door,'" and, by the way, "You'll never get a wristband."

This irksome incident, or not being able to enter his own concert for lack of a wristband, was just the basic disenfranchisement of whole swaths of society writ small. But it takes someone with the compassion of a Paul Simon to make that connection.

Musical Note:
The rhythms here are flamenco ones. Simon had been listening to this music and incorporated an actual flamenco troupe, from Boston, for this and other tracks on the album. It was actually two years between the recording of these performers-- a dancers, rhythmic clappers, and a percussionist-- and the writing of this track.

One of the other tracks that used the flamenco troupe was "The Riverbank." That song and this one share the same clapping rhythm and the same bass line.

Speaking of clapping, an Italian musician who goes by Clap! Clap! also contributed to this track. His real name is Digi Alessio and his genre is electronic dance music.  He also contributed to "Werewolf" and "Street Angel."

Next Song: Horace and Pete.

Funny Little Girl

This is somewhat a gender-flipped version of "My Funny Valentine," about a man whose looks are "laughable/ unphotographable." Yet, she loves him anyway: "You're my favorite work of art."

Here, the speaker says about his girlfriend that "you wouldn't call her smile a work of art." She also has "freckles," which some consider unattractive (personally, I could never see why), and has a "funny way she wears her clothes." All in all, she's "a cute and funny little girl."

Yet, it's not despite these quirks, but because of them, that our speaker is drawn to her. Her personality is winning-- she's "such a honey"-- and as to her un-artistic smile? He finds it "funny how it breaks [his] heart."

This is an unfortunate use of the term, which almost always has negative connotations. Here, he means that he finds her heart-wrenchingly lovely.

Yes, he does not just find her merely adorable, but arousing! "Every time we meet on the street/ Well, I just have to catch my breath... a little glance from her can set me all a-whirl."

Then, we are surprised by a clever way of describing the "heart in one's throat" feeling of intense emotion: "An elevator ride starts inside/ And it scares me half to death!" This is a very innovative and clever way of describing this feeling, at once startling and refreshing, yet instantly recognizable and familiar. Colloquial, but undeniably poetic.

In case we thought that his heart was breaking because he loved her from afar, and that their street-meetings were accidental, we have this affirmation: "I thank the Moon above and all the stars that shine/ That this funny little girl is mine."

A slight song, but what a relief it must be to the "plain Janes" of the world that they can find a nice man who will over the moon about them, even if they don't look like the starlets described in all the other songs.

Also, the song stresses the importance of a sense of humor. How many comediennes became huge stars based on their quick wits, despite having less-than-model-perfect features? And how long do such superficial things last, in any case?

The speaker is smart enough to know that "she has a great personality" is not necessarily damning by faint praise, but some of the strongest praise there is.

Next Song: Tell Tale Heart

A Charmed Life

This is an interesting song, because it seems as it it may go one way, but in fact goes the opposite.

The chorus is just two lines: "Some people, some people never have no storm or strife/ Some people, some people, they lead a charmed life."

This implies that it's other people who do, not the speaker. So we settle in for a rehash of Hank Williams' "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive," another shrugging litany of "I've had a lot of luck, and it's all been bad."

This expectation is nurtured by the music, which is as sad as a sigh in a fog.

The first verse is about these "some people," using the third person, again fostering the notion that, as Rod Stewart sang, "Some guys have all the luck,"... and it's not us: "When Trouble knocks upon their door, they always show such cheerfulness/[Trouble] scratches his head and away he goes, saying, "Guess I have the wrong address."

The rest of the song is about how, in fact, it is the speaker and people like himself who do in fact lead a charmed life. For instance: "A wealthy fisherman can hold all the equipment in the book/ Then people like us, we just come along-- catch 'em with a pole, a string, a hook." The next example is of a farmer who "nearly kills himself with toil," but when "people like us" start to scratch the same dirt, "What do they discover? Oil!"

The next verse is unclear. The story it tells seems like bad luck. "A man like me, he picks out a girl and she buys her wedding gown/ Their wedding day comes but his luck holds out-- just as he arrives, the church burns down." The implication is that he is lucky that the wedding could not take place. It seems he didn't want the wedding to happen, perhaps because she was rushing the relationship so much.

[Later, in the song "A Church is Burning," Simon would treat the subject of a burned-down church with an entirely different attitude.]

Then a female singer comes in and says that it's "kids like us" who are saved from the final exam-- the one they didn't study for-- by the arrest of the teacher by the police.

The last verse summarizes, in politically incorrect fashion: "A raggle-taggle gypsy band who never stays where they are put/ That's us-- and we're glad that we're us, because we're as lucky as a rabbit's foot."

It's hard to know what to make of this song. The happy, even comical, scenarios it relates are at odds with the doleful melody and harmonies. It is clever, but it would have been better served by a more upbeat presentation, like The Everly Brothers' "Wake Up, Little Suzie." Someone as charmed as the speaker claims to be should be more, well, charming.

Also, why talk about "some people" having a charmed life, implying others do... when it's the speaker and his own band of merry gypsies who are in fact charmed?

This track shows a humorous side of Simon that one wishes was packaged more humorously.

Next Song: Forever and After

You Can Call Me Al

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender looks over and says, "What is this, a joke?"

"Call Me Al" is the song that put Simon back on the map-- all over the globe. And yet it is not only one of the sunniest, but one of the funniest songs in his entire catalog.

It starts off like a hundred other songs, from Fats Domino's "I'm Walking" to Huey Lewis' "Do You Believe in Love"... to "The Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady. It could also be the set-up for a joke: "A man walks down the street..." (Probably the most common song opener is: "Well, I woke up this morning...")

The song then continues with a question the man asks himself about his physique: "Why am I soft in the middle?" The question contains the answer; "soft in the middle" is a phrase that might appear in the ad for a snack food. Then there is a pun on the word "hard" in its dual meanings of "not soft" and "not easy."

A "photo opportunity" is a staged setting in which photographers are invited to come take pictures of a celebrity, often of a politician or candidate, making a speech, opening a mall or kissing babies. And then another pun: "shot" means both "chance" and "photograph." "I want a shot at redemption," refers to the idea that such a redemption, actually a private spiritual matter, now takes place at photo opportunities, through public apologies and grand gestures meant to assure the public that a new leaf has been turned over. This is to avoid ending up as a "a cartoon/ In a cartoon graveyard,” presumably a political cartoon showing that his career is dead.

The next word, "bonedigger" can either be a metaphor for the kind of journalist that digs up old scandals and finds skeletons in closets of celebrities... or a kenning for the "dogs" in the next line (a kenning is a kind of metaphor found in such poetry as Beowulf, in which the sea is called a "whale-road").

Yet, it does not seem that the man is actually famous. He lives a building superintended by, or at least located past beyond, a man who is even softer in the middle, who does not have pastries to thank but alcohol ("Mr. Beerbelly") and also has a whole pack of noisy, pushy dogs.

"You know, I don’t find this stuff/ Amusing anymore." This can be a continuation of his comments his alcohol-loving neighbor, or a "this stuff" can be the kinds of shenanigans he feels he has put up with too many of already in life.

The chorus seems to be a conversation not involving the "man" at all. The song started with a narrator, who now seems to turn to the listener and draw us into a closer relationship: "If you’ll be my bodyguard/ I can be your long-lost pal." This role-playing is indicative-- the speaker seeks protection, and in turn offers friendship. One can't offer protection in return, if one already feels vulnerable.

Then the speaker reveals more-- he is talking to a woman, and he suggests they take on pet names: "I can call you Betty/ You can call me Al." According to Simon, the names come from a mistake the French composer Pierre Boulez made at a party, calling Paul "Al" and and his then-wife Peggy "Betty." So even this line is an in-joke.

The next verse kicks off with another pun, this time on the word pair "short" and "long." (Simon's website is again incorrect. The line is "whoa, my nights are so long," while the site has it as "woe.") The man (which could be the same one or not) now has a problem, a "short little span of attention" but "long" nights to fill.

"Where’s my wife and family?" It's odd that he doesn't know, even if he is divorced. If they had in fact run off or been taken away by surprise, he would have contacted the police! So a better interpretation is neither "Where is the family I have" nor "Where is the family I once had" but "Where is the family I should have by now?"

And what if he never finds love? What if he should "die" before it happens? And worse, he has no one to turn to for guidance, as his "role model is gone." Panicked, he grabs the first opportunity at any sort of relationship or connection, with no standards or thought for consequences: "He ducked back down the alley/ With some... girl." Something that happens too often with politicians and others, one might add.

Well, the consequences happen anyway, even to the non-famous: "There were incidents and accidents... hints and allegations." His reputation, whatever it was, is ruined. (The phrase "Hints and Allegations" has since become the title of a poetry collection, a novel, and a Collective Soul album.)

The final verse takes the man away from familiar streets and local alleys. It sets him down "in a strange world." There is the Old World, or Europe... there is the New World, or the Western Hemisphere (which is old, too, but not to Europeans) and then there is the "developing world"-- mainly Africa and southern Asia-- which used to be called "The Third World" until that expression was determined to be demeaning. ("Maybe it's his first time around" could be a reference to reincarnation, in that he is a new soul, one with no past lives and so no experience.)

This time, the man is entirely out of his element-- "He doesn't speak the language/ He is a foreign man." Wait, where's the pun? In the second line: "He holds no currency," which means that he has no local form of money... but this is also an expression that means he "has no importance" here, no weight or influence.

The man is not surrounded by the concerns of notoriety or self-fulfillment that he was at home. No, he is "surrounded by the sound" of this new-yet-older place, with its "cattle" instead of cars, "orphanages" instead of families, and "angels in the architecture" instead of corporate logos or gargoyles.

His response? To be received in grace-land, actually. His head starts "spinning." Then he has an epiphany, a religious awakening: "He says, 'Amen!' and 'Hallelujah!'"

The word "scatterlings" also appears in the song "Scatterlings of Africa," by South African singer-songwriter Johnny Clegg. The album Third World Child came out the year after Graceland did, and the song hit England in 1987, then was used in the 1988 American movie Rain Man. It is possible that Clegg picked up the word from Simon, or that they both took it from a third source, or the local dialect. Most likely, the word means "rootless people, exiled from their land." Clegg uses it to mean all of humanity, which began in Africa and scattered from there.

Back to our speaker, who is a foreign man, yes... but so is every one else! Here, he is just another one of the "scatterlings," not like in his home country where everyone has to live under the twin pretenses of stability and upward mobility. He finally comes to a place where no one has a place, and so everyone does. Even him.

There is a wonderful song by Dar Williams called "What Do You Hear in These Sounds?" about therapy. In it, her realization feels like this: "The wall came down/ And there, they stood before me/ With their stumbling and their mumbling/ Just like me."

The secret is that there is no secret. The epiphany, what he has found, is that everyone is lost. Everyone is "soft in the middle" and vulnerable. Everyone is "short of attention" that they can pay, and that is paid to them.

The last verse can be seen as Simon's version of "Amazing Grace"-- A sweet "sound" brings salvation and inner peace to a lost wretch. As for Simon himself, he had forever been searching for the origins of the music he loved as a child-- early rock, doo-wop, and gospel-- and he seems to have found it. Amen and Hallelujah indeed.

IMPACT:
This upbeat song remains one of Simon's most popular, a quarter-century on. It is used as a fanfare for everyone from athletes named Al to once-VP-candidate Al Gore.

The musicians are from his South African ensemble, made of up members of several local bands. The famous bass solo is by Bakithi Kumalo, first played forward then backward.

Also, Adrian Belew sits in on guitar synthesizer, Randy Brecker plays one of the driving trumpets, and jazz flutist Morris Goldberg has a solo on penny whistle.

It went to #23 in the US charts and #11 in Canada, but all the way #6 in New Zealand, #4 in the UK, #2 in Australia and also #2 in Ireland, where they know a well-played penny whistle when they hear one. The song has been covered by a few acts, but none whose names I recognize.

The seemingly offhand line "hints and allegations" has become something of a catch-phrase. It is used in the title of an album by Collective Soul, as the title of two books of poems-- one each by William M. Kunstler and Amanda J. Bradley-- and a book by Kimberly Dascenzo. Even more books use the phrase "Incidents and Accidents" in their titles.


Next Song: Under African Skies

Shelter of Your Arms

Some of this song became "When Numbers Get Serious." The rest was unreleased until Simon included the song as a bonus track on his re-release of Hearts and Bones.

"Wrap me, wrap me, wrap me do/ In the shelter of your arms... I won't do you no harm," is more or less all that transferred to "Numbers." The line "I am ever your volunteer" was first "I'm an extraordinary individual," which aside from being a bit too egotistical for a protestation of love doesn't "scan" all that well.

Much of the song is, like its title, largely cliches: "I won't tell you no lies," "When I'm in the mood," "halfway around the block," "stop the clock," and "textbook case."

Then there are series of double takes. "I won't tell you no lies/ If you don't want me to./ But if you want me to..." Will he lie? In a manner of speaking: "If you want me to, I'll lie/ In the shelter of your arms." (In the words of today's teens, "I see what you did there...")

Here is another-- involving a phrase "deny the obvious" that shows up, years later, as part of "The Obvious Child." Here, it is part of this passage: "I could deny the obvious/ I could rest my case/ And I don't rest my case for no one..."

Which goes right into yet another: "...if I'm not in the mood/ When I'm in the mood...

The next line also could carry a double meaning: "Take a look at these laugh lines." This could either mean "these jokes," which could indicate that the speaker was trying to get the woman the song was addressing to smile... or it could mean the facial creases that come from a great deal of smiling. This would be a way of saying: "Look at how much you make me smile, I'm getting wrinkles already."

The next two lines are the best in the song, and it is surprising that they did not make it into another song; "I lived a year once in a hotel/ 'Cause I failed to read a sign." A joking line like that would have worked well in "Call Me Al," for instance.

The rest of the song also repeats itself: "For a long time I was miserable/ Then I felt just fine./ And now I feel so fine so often/ I'm like a textbook case/ Just a textbook of fine/ In the shelter of your arms."

"Textbook case" is likely supposed to rhyme with "I could rest my case" and "In the palm of your embrace." But the song's structure is so unusual-- with the chorus and verses folding into each other (embracing each other?)-- that it is hard to notice this rhyme unless you have the lyrics to read.

It is clear why the song failed to please Simon to the point of his releasing it. Aside from the cliches, the offhand tone of the lyrics is at odds with their tender intentions.

Some men might be self-conscious offering tender sentiments and so might feel more comfortable making jokes to impart their affections. But then, why would you need a poet and his song to help you express your feelings-- you could crack bad jokes yourself.

Next Song: Citizen of the Planet

Paranoia Blues

And here we find the second reference in Simon's work to Chinese food: "Lin's chow fon." The first, of course, was Mother and Child Reunion.

Here, the music provides much of the atmosphere. Rather than the pleasant strumming of most folk music, we have a bone-rattling bottle-neck guitar and a pair of honking horns. The sensation they create is one of jitteriness and surprise, fitting for a song about paranoia.

More correctly, paranoia blues. Which is to say, more than simply being paranoid, our speaker is upset about being paranoid, or upset about having to be paranoid, which it seems is a called-for reaction.

What is the evidence that paranoia is warranted? One piece is his "so-called friends," whom he believes are actually enemies. Another is the fact that he is sure he is going to get called aside at the airport for a personal search (we don't know if they did). And then, once, someone took his restaurant meal!

Clearly, evil forces are afoot, trying to "stick it to" him. Things seem to go awry when his "back is turned" or when he happens to "turn around." He cannot afford to avert his eyes even for one second.

Now, acting mistrustful is bound to get your friends talking behind your back and get your noticed for behaving suspiciously by airport security. And certainly, a busboy might have taken his turned back to mean he was done with his chow fon. And a reasonable person might be persuaded of these possibilities.

But none of these are truly the root cause of his anxiety. What is? "New York City." There, he is constantly being taken advantage of: "...they roll you for a nickel, and stick you for the extra dime." (Here, Simon plays off the cliche "being nickeled and dimed.")

Like "Papa Hobo," this song seems disenchanted with city life. But while that song was about business and government "getting one over on the little guy," here even the small-time shops like local restaurants or the average person you might befriend are also in on the con game.

While it might seem appropriate to compare this song to other songs about paranoia from Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now" to Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me," a more accurate comparison is to Jim Croce's "New York's Not My Home"; "Don't you know that I gotta get outta here," Croce laments. Meanwhile, our speaker says: "I just got out in the nick of time."

Musical Note:
This song is followed by a sprightly instrumental coda called Hobo's Blues. The lead instrument is the violin of jazz virtuoso Stéphane Grappelli, with Simon strumming accompaniment in the background. It is only on only a handful of instrumentals in Simon's catalog. Others include the solo guitar pieces Anji, by David Graham, and Simon Says, an early work.

Next Song: Congratulations