Insomniac's Lullaby

The song is about a lullaby, but we have to get to that in a minute. Because the song, while about a lullaby, is itself a prayer.

After all, it starts: "Oh Lord," and anything that starts that way is a prayer. And what is the insomniac's prayer? "Oh Lord, don't keep me up all night."

It'd be a lonesome vigil. The only other one up would be the Moon, what that only has "desolate eyes." And to journey all those "miles [to] the sunrise" with only such "sockets" as "travelling companions" [OK, so that's from "Graceland," but still] would be too much to bear.

But the darkness "invites" a tune. Simon has been personifying Darkness since he called it his "old friend" all those decades ago, and maybe now we finally know why they are so long acquainted. After all, Darkness would be an insomniac's friend, or at least a familiar face. Anyway, the tune the darkness invites seems to be this very tune.

While he is awake, he hears a "siren" sound "in the distance," but instead of being upset by it-- after all, it means someone is in trouble-- he calls it a "song." To let us know he is being facetious, he complains that the sound "rattles the old window frame."

And then, something unexpected happens: "Gradually, angels reveal their existence." So, they were there the whole time, only now they are letting themselves be seen. The fact that he does not elaborate about these divine visitors, as the listener might expect, leads us to believe that the thin wisps of light that must seep into his dark room resemble angels. "There's nothing and no one to blame," he says, worried that we might accuse him of abusing alcohol (etc.), or having a tumor, what with him seeing angels and all. Maybe he could see what was really causing these angelic apparitions if he put on his glasses..? Lack of sleep can cause hallucinations, after all.

Even if this is a prayer, these visions are not angels. If they were, the speaker would not be talking so much about being alone, as he does before when he says the "desolate" Moon is his only companion, and later when he... well, let's get to that part right now.

Now comes the prayer again. This time, the thing he fears is not the daunting distance until dawn but coldness of some sort also lasting a too-long time: "winter that lasts until June." This may be the lack of human companionship... at least the sort that is awake. So again, he's alone, with no angelic company. (Also, Simon just rhymed "Moon" with "tune" and "June" so slyly we didn't notice.)

Now, two choruses and a verse into the song, we finally learn what the Insomniac's Lullaby is. It's a song that turns out to be one word long:

"Sleep."

Well, of course. What else do you need?

The next verse seems to be about death. "They say all roads lead to a river." While I have never heard "they" say any such thing (all roads lead to Rome, I thought) it is true that every major city is built around a river-- every city more than 100 years old, at least. A river was necessary as a source of water, but also transportation of people and goods.

But, "they" supposedly continue, "one day/ The river comes up to your door." Well, there are plenty of places that don't flood, so this must mean something else. What comes to every door? Only, as Franklin said, "death and taxes."

Hearing this axiom, the speaker asks, "How will the builder of bridges deliver us all/ To the faraway shore?" This is less sincere doubt than simple amazement. When watching a magic trick or feat of athletic prowess, we mutter, "How does he do it?" but only rhetorically.

This is a much nicer metaphor for death than some hooded skeleton reaping our souls with a huge blade, isn't it? A walk across a bridge, is all death is. (Or, if you're Jacob or Robert Plant, you may prefer a ladder or stairway.)

In the next iteration of the chorus, the speaker again asks for sleep, but now so that he can avoid having to face "questions [he doesn't] understand" and "wrestle [his] fears." This is completely understandable. Who wants to do that, all night?

"The sound in my ears/ Is the music that's sweeping the land/ The Insomniac's Lullaby." Maybe the "lullaby" is the agglomeration of sounds coming from everyone insomniac's radio and stereo. Or maybe it's his own radio, and he's listening to contemporary pop (on his headset, so as not to wake his wife) for inspiration. After all, a musician likes to stay current.

Finally, he arrives at dawn, the "light from the East." It is "soft as a rose," and that color, too. "As if all is forgiven," meaning that the questions and fears of the night are resolved, or at least feel that way.

"Wolves become sheep" at this time. The nocturnal animals, like wolves and burglars, are replaced by pleasanter ones, like sheep and ice-cream truck drivers. Also, the menacing gray clouds of night are supplanted by white, woolly ones.

It might be a reference to his song "Pigs Sheep and Wolves," but more likely it's a circling-back to the "Werewolf" of the opening track.

Alternately, one famous sleep aid is "counting sheep"; the idea of imagining sheep jumping a fence, and counting them doing so, is said to help one drift off. This connection of sheep and sleep is possible because of how the song ends: "We are who we are/ or we're not" but either way, "At least we'll eventually all fall asleep."

Like any good bedtime story, the song-- and the album-- end with a yawn and a "nighty-night."

Is the song about death? Is "we'll all fall asleep" about... the Big Sleep, as it is in Hamlet? I don't think so. There are no insomniacs when it comes to death, no "in-necr-iacs." Some people complain, "I just can't sleep," but no one complains, "I just can't die." So this is about sleep, and to the degree it is about the lack thereof, it is about the resolution of that issue.

It's also a very pretty song.

Simon has recently stated that he is retiring from music. If he is, he has earned it. But I can't imagine he is. Music has been his entire life. Now, he is 75. He just finished working on an album and touring the world in support of it. He's tired, is all, and he's talking like a tired person. Once he has a vacation, I bet we'll get another album-- or two-- out of him yet.

I just think that if he stops making music, he'll die. And he isn't ready to do that yet.


MUSICAL NOTE: Bobby McFerrin does the background vocals. In pop circles, he is considered a one-hit wonder because of the dippy-- but perfectly so-- song "Don't Worry, Be Happy." In jazz circles, he is considered a living legend and one of the greatest vocalists ever to live, able to create whole arrangements with just his voice and body slaps. In classical circles, he is that fun conductor who sings the notes along with the instruments and harmonizes with them. Just go on YouTube, type in his name, and enjoy.

Some of the instruments were invented by a man named Harry Partch, who could hear 43 tones to an octave; most mortals can hear only 12. So had to invent instruments to make those sounds. They have names like: cloud chamber bowls, sonic canons, kithara and the chromelodeon. The original instruments are at Montclair State University, in New Jersey, where the song was recorded. (More in the entry on the Seven Psalms album).

Next Song: Like to Get to Know You

Stranger to Stranger

The title track to this album is a love song, and a lovely one, at that. Simon married singer-songwriter Edie Brickell in 1992, so this song comes nearly 25 years into their marriage.

He asks if they would fall in love again if they met now: "If we met for the first time/ Could you imagine us falling in love again?" The language echoes his song "Old Friends": "Can you imagine us, years from today/ Sharing a park bench?"

(Side note: in that song, he muses, "How terribly strange to be 70." The year this album was released, Simon was 74.)

This song continues: "Words and melody... fall from the summer trees," he says, "So the old story goes." I have never heard the story of songs falling from trees... if any of my readers have, I hope they share that story with me.

Why is this here? Perhaps he means to say that he and his wife pair as well as words and melody, and as naturally as leaves falling from trees.

In any case, how wonderful and amazing that, after two decades and more, he still awaits her very "walk[ing] across his doorway." He is "jittery" with "joy," even. She is like a drug to him: "I cannot be held accountable for the things I do or say," when she is near.

He finds their relationship an "easy harmony," and it must be something when two such great singers actually do harmonize. And when there is a problem, the "old-time remedies" still work.

And oh, problems do happen. Some can be compared to repetitive-stress injuries: "Most of the time/ It's just hard working/ The same piece of clay / Day after day." The "clay" represents the banality of life... or, seeing as how Adam was made of clay, the banality of people.

Other problems lie not within the relationship, but its individual members: "Certain melodies tear your heart apart/ Reconstruction is a lonesome art." Some losses, like the death of a parent or a career downturn, affect one of them more than the other.

What else? "All the carnage." Again, this could refer to death or illness, but also fighting and saying hurtful things, separations and silences-- psychological damage. But these things are discreet and definable.

Others are more effusive and evasive: "All the useless detours." A couple could spend five years in a house neither likes, because each thinks the other one likes it. A couple could take years to decide to get married, or divorced, and just be living in a limbo of inertia.

But despite all these thing, he still believes: "Love endures." The song ends with Simon repeating "I love you" over and over in waltz time, then: "Words and melody/ Easy harmony." When they are in tune, what a beautiful song.

"I love to watch you walk across my doorway," he tells her-- still crazy about her, after all these years.


Musical Note:
This is one of the four songs Simon spiced with flamenco on this album; the others are "The Riverbank," "The Werewolf" and "Wristband." In this, some of the rhythms are actually recordings of the dancer's steps.

Some of the guitar was done by Cameroons native Vincent Nguini, who has been with Simon since Rhythm of the Saints.

Next Song: In a Parade

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

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

Play Me a Sad Song

Yet another song with the "Earth Angel" chord progression.

Today, a "DJ" is someone who makes music by running someone else's album under a needle and moving it back and forth rhythmically. But once-- when the radio was used as a music-listening device instead of a political megaphone-- a "disc jockey" just played someone else's records over the air and let us listen to them. For free (well, there were always commercials).

These DJs would often take requests, answering the listener's phone calls and playing what he or she wanted to hear. This was true at least up through the 1980s; after that, radio content was largely pre-selected by national corporations that owned stations nationwide (the better to sell the airtime for those commercials).

The speaker here doesn't even call the DJ. He just sort of wishes his request at the radio: "Play me a sad song, please Mr. DJ/ Play me a sad song tonight."

One can hardly blame the poor kid for his despondency. As Sam Cooke would later bemoan, it's a classic case of: "Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody... I'm in an awful way."

Our speaker puts it: "Saturday night... Don't have a date... don't want to hear a lullaby/ I can't sleep, I just sit and cry."

Of course, going out "stag" is out of the question. It would just publicize his undesirability: "Don't you think I want to go where other kids go?.. I've got nobody to hold me tight."

So he's alone with the radio, which is "playin' the Top Tunes tonight." From Top of the Pops to American Top 40, one of the most popular formats was a simple countdown of that week's most popular songs, as measured by albums sold, requests made, or some other such metric.

Our speaker is not up for such fare. He knows that other teens are playing this countdown at their parties and get-togethers, commenting on the worthiness of that week's rankings.

Instead, he agrees with Elton John, who in "Sad Songs Say So Much," opined: "It's times like these when we all need to hear the radio/ 'Cause from the lips of some old singer/ We can share the troubles we already know." In short, misery loves even virtual, musical company.

So our left-out boy wishes for, not dance tunes or lullabies, but "a song of love/ 'Cause that's all that I'm thinking of."

"I bet I'm the loneliest boy in the world," he sighs. Of course, any one of the thousands of people who have heard this song have had that exact same thought.

Eventually, he despairs even of despair, which is both tiring and tiresome. "Sitting here crying won't get me a girl... Oh, what's the use? Guess I'll turn off the light."

He pulls up the covers, murmuring as he drifts off, "I feel so lonely." Maybe things will look better on Sunday morning? There're always color comic strips on Sunday mornings...

Next Song: Teenage Blue

Loneliness

Among the hundreds of words Shakespeare is credited with coining, one of the most popular must be "lonely." In fact, it can be shown by a catalog of his lyrics that Sting would not have had a songwriting career without this word. Simon himself has many titles that use the word in some form, and both songwriters-- now on tour together-- have explored the idea in great depth and breadth.

This is actually quite an affecting little song. It's melancholy without lapsing into lugubriousness.The lyrics are pitched a bit above the average teeny-bop reading level, making it poetic without being academically so.

This time, we have a speaker lying in bed thinking about his lost love: "Loneliness/ You're gone and I must confess/ My nights are spent in misery/ Only my sorrow lingers with me."

In the next verse, Simon uses imagery that Smokey Robinson later would in songs like "Tracks of My Tears" and "Tears of a Clown," of the person who is only smiling on the outside: "Although I laugh, it's just a pose/ Inside I cry, but nobody knows."

He explains that he is "playing a part," but he "can't deceive [his] heart," let alone laugh his way out of his doldrums.

Then he poses a paradox:  "There's no one to share my loneliness," he says. Yes, but if someone were there, wouldn't that mean he would not be lonely in the first place? This is similar to the idea Stevie Nicks poses, in "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?" with her lyric: "I'd rather be alone/ Than be without you."

It gets to the root of why Shakespeare needed the word to begin with. "Alone" is one thing; it just mean "solitary." Some people, like Norma Desmond, even want to be alone. But if being alone is a problem for you, then you are "lonely"... even in a crowd. If "alone" is just "1," then "lonely" is "2 minus 1."

Stevie Nicks would rather be simply "alone" altogether-- with no one at all, and no emotional loss-- than be "without" the one she loves. To her, it is, despite the saying, better to have "never loved at all" than to have "loved and lost."

And Simon, here, could have a friend or brother, similarly heartbroken or longing for love, and at least have someone to "fill the emptiness" and talk about how lonely they are.

The song closes on a note of despair: "I can't forget your memory/ At night, it haunts my reverie."
Maybe things will look better in the morning? "Without your love, I can't endure." Maybe not.

This is not a song of agony, of gnashing teeth and tearing hair. It is not a song, like Sting's "Every Breath You Take," of rage and possessive revenge.

It is simply a long sigh. It's the song of the dull, continuous ache of an endless-seeming, solitary night, spent staring at the ceiling, in a bed with only one's regrets for company. While our speaker's eyes may be welled with tears, he's past weeping. Now, it just hurts.

The bass backup singers presage Simon's use of such groups as the Jesse Dixon Singers and the Dixie Hummingbirds. Meanwhile, the twangy bass-line on guitar  recalls that of early Johnny Cash.

Simon's delivery is a major part of the song's success. He doesn't emote much, or even moan. He's too wrung out, emotionally, for that. He returns to this delivery in songs like "Hearts and Bones" and especially "How the Heart Approaches What it Yearns." This song is a lost, understated gem.

Next Song: Dreams Can Come True

The Lone Teen Ranger

The fictional vigilante known as "The Lone Ranger" has been part of American culture for decades. Basically Robin Hood reconfigured as a cowboy, he is a former Ranger, and as such usually traveled with a group of fellow Rangers. But his unit was ambushed and wiped out, save for himself. This is why he considers himself the "Lone" Ranger, even while he is always accompanied by his Native American sidekick, Tonto. Together, they fight criminality as it crosses their path, always on the hunt for the gang that left him an "orphan." The masked character has been a mainstay of American popular culture, his stories told on the radio (he debuted there in 1933), television, books and comic books, and film... even to this year (2013), his 80th anniversary.

This explains the gunshots, ricochets and galloping hooves heard in "The Lone Teen Ranger." Having explored the idea of adolescent loneliness in several other ways, Simon turns to the popular icon and adapts his "lone" status for this purpose. Only this time, the one called "Lone" has legions of followers, while the speaker is the one abandoned by his girl for the Ranger.

The song begins with the bass vocal intoning, "Hi-yo, Silver-- away!" which was the Lone Ranger's catchphrase for galloping off on his shiny white steed, Silver. It ends with the speaker asking "Who was that masked man?" another catchphrase from the show, asked by a witness as the Ranger speeds off into the sunset. Even the sax solo at the break is taken from The William Tell Overture, used as the show's galloping theme song.

The song is one of the few to register a common teen complaint-- a girlfriend's attentions stolen away by a teen idol such as a musician or actor. While totally inaccessible to the teenage girl, this figure's flashing eyes, wavy hair, and dreamy voice are nothing the average acne-ridden teenage boy can compete with for attention.

"Oh, he rides around on a big white horse/ He's as cool as he can be/ And my baby fell in love with him/ When she saw him on TV," laments the abandoned, now-lonely boy. "And since that day... She hasn't had time for me," he continues, "To save my soul, I can't get a date."

He points his finger directly at the character: "You know who's to blame!" Another reading is "You-know-who's to blame," as in, "you know whom I mean without my having to say his name, which I cannot bear to repeat in any case."

The bridge has the line "The Lone Teen Ranger stole my girl/ He left Tonto for me." Meaning not "he abandoned Tonto and chose me instead," but "left" in the sense of "He drank the water and all he left, for me, was the empty pitcher."

The speaker is determined to win back his girlfriend's attention, and affection. His plan? "Gonna wear a mask and ride a horse/ And carry a six-gun too/ She's gonna love me, too."

The poor sap thinks it's the Ranger's accouterments that attract her notice-- the costume and accessories. He couldn't be more wrong. It's the raw masculinity, the brave feats of derring-do, and the flouting of authority that attract her.

Tarzan has no mask, gun, or horse-- barely any clothes, in fact-- yet he manifests the same attraction. D'Artagnan, Zorro, Batman... James Bond, Indiana Jones, Wolverine... back to Robin Hood himself, all such heroes are cut from the same shadowy cloth. Heroic rogues go back even further, to be sure, to Hercules, Pericles, Bellerophon, Thesus, Perseus, and the warriors on both sides of the Iliad conflict.

The song itself is light-hearted novelty fare, full of sound effects, silly vocals, and lines like "She even kissed the TV set."

Yet, even underlying all the ridiculousness, we find another signature Simon teenager abandoned and alone, "unlucky in love." Why, he can't even compete with a fictional cowboy. At least this time, instead of "Cry, little boy, cry," we get the line ""I'm gettin' mad" and an attempt, albeit misguided, at fighting back.

Maybe instead of finding himself a Halloween cowboy costume, our hero will find himself a young woman with standards that are less... two-dimensional.


Next song: Lisa

Cry, Little Boy, Cry

We start off with a disclaimer of an introduction, perhaps to allay our avoidance of the song due to its title: "Listen to my story/ It's got a happy ending."

It starts of lugubriously, then the drums kick in and, despite the dreary content of the song, an up-tempo rhythm begins.

And I do mean dreary: "Every night, I sat up in my room/ Feeling the silent gloom/ Of my lonely heart." [We pause to take note of the decision to have a rhymed couplet followed by an unrhymed line. This is rare in popular music, and perhaps indicates that the speaker, too, feels like an unrhymed line, while everyone else is in a couple(t).]

We also meet the isolated, alone-in-his-room character we encounter so often in Simon's songs with Garfunkel, like "I Am a Rock," "A Most Peculiar Man," "Patterns," and even "Kathy's Song." He also shows up as Sonny in "The Obvious Child."

Our speaker here is not entirely lonely. This sad young man is befriended by a "a voice [that] cried out/ From deep inside." Rather than offer encouragement, the voice suggested: "Why don't you cry, little boy, cry?"

So he does. A lot. The line "and so I cried" repeats several times in the chorus... for a total ten utterances of the word "cried."

The next verse finds him so despondent in his isolation that he nears the brink of utter despair: "I'm alone in this world/ Without the love of a girl/ Sometimes I felt that I could not go on."

The voice is still no help: "Everywhere I went/ That voice inside of me/ Kept saying 'Cry, little boy, cry'."

If he is crying literally everywhere he goes, he is really going to stay alone, we think. Misery loves company, but often does not find it. Also, it does not add to his attractiveness that he thinks of himself as a "little boy," defenseless and helpless. Today, the boy's parents would probably intervene and guide him toward therapy. Or at least get him a hobby.

Now, the promised "happy ending" arrives, in the form of another person who was "lonesome, too": "You seemed to understand just how I felt."

This relationship progresses remarkably quickly; the next thing we know, they are somewhat intimate: "And as I kissed you then/ I knew I loved you when/ You said, "Don't cry, little boy, don't cry."

And he agrees that he won't. Just as vehemently and repeatedly as he cried before, he now insists, "I won't cry." Happy ending achieved.

Is this a stable relationship? Probably. Is it a healthy one? That is another matter entirely. If anything should happen to her, we can only brace ourselves for what would happen to him. His entire happiness depends on her; hers, on making him happy. It's a model of what we today call codependency.

However, having been a teenager myself, I can certainly commiserate with the speaker. The feeling that everyone else is in a relationship except you and it will never happen to you so you will always be alone is both powerful... and popular. Well, maybe a better word is "widespread." This feeling also affects adults, of course, as demonstrated in the opening scene of the movie Bridget Jones's Diary.

Now, the question of whether or not to cry at all comes up again in Simon's solo work. The speaker of "Boy in the Bubble" consoles the listener: "Don't cry, baby don't cry." A later speaker, in "Further to Fly," refers to that one as "the great deceiver who looks you in the eye/ And says 'baby, don't cry'."

Yet another comes along in "The Cool, Cool River," resolving this dispute: "Sometimes, even music/ Cannot substitute for tears."

In other words-- if you have to-- cry, little boy. Cry.

Performance Note: Marty Cooper, the Tico of Tico and the Triumphs, sang lead on this track.

Next Song: The Lone Teen Ranger

Get Up and Do the Wobble

Earlier, we discussed "Dancin' Wild," which was about dancing in general, only mentioning the 'Applejack' step in passing. Here, we have Simon trying to come up with a new dance like the Twist, the Mashed Potato, the Pony, and so on. We think.

People haven't stopped trying to create new dance crazes, either. Before the Twist, there were the Foxtrot, the Lindy Hop, and the dance that gave New York the nickname The Big Apple. In pop alone, we've had everything from the Locomotion to the Macarena to the Harlem Shake since the 1950s. Once we can safely generate anti-gravity fields, all bets are off...

So, what is the Wobble, and how is it done? We never find out!

The problem is, the speaker can't find anyone on the dance floor to teach the dance to. He starts earnestly enough, calling: "Hey, get up! Get up and do the Wobble/ Oh, won't you you please/ Do the Wobble with me/ It's so easy to do/ Let me teach it to you."

But then-- no takers! The dance floor is already jammed with other acts performing their dance songs. "Dee Dee Sharp's doing that mashed potato," for one. Her song was called "Mashed Potato Time"; the dancer doing the Mashed Potato puts the ball of his foot down on an imaginary potato and mimes mashing it by twisting his foot. The step is not unlike someone grinding out a cigarette on the pavement with his shoe.

Next, the song refers to the long-running TV show American Bandstand. Hosted (from 1956 to 1989!) by perennial teenager Dick Clark, it featured several bands performing live, in turn, to a roomful of teenage dancers. Tom and Jerry themselves were on this show, performing "Hey Schoolgirl."

"Tune into Bandstand, tell me what you see?/ All the kids are dancing to 'Wha-Watusi'." That song went to #2 and stayed on the charts for three or four months. The Orlons performed it originally, but it was covered by everyone from Chubby Checker and Smokey Robinson to The Isley Brothers and even Mouseketeer Annette Funicello. Its dance was called the Watusi, and it's a poor approximation of a Hawaiian hula dance. (The actual Watusi are now called the Tutsi; they are an African tribe who we can safely assume dances nothing like this.)

Our speaker, meanwhile, remains partner-less: "Everybody's dancing they're as happy as can be/ There's nobody left to do the wobble with me." How sad!

He continues to list who else is doing what step: "Little Eva's is doing that Locomotion." Little Eva was Carole King's babysitter, and of course Carole King was one of the major songwriters of the era, ensconced in the Brill Building circle to which Simon aspired. Never has a babysitter had such great tip as when Eva's boss offered her her own massive hit!

Next is Chubby Checker (whose stage name was coined in homage to Fats Domino!). His dance hit, The Twist, is so popular is doesn't even need to be mentioned in this song. Last is someone named Little Joey, probably meaning Little Joey Farr, a doo-wop singer.

Since the speaker has no one to teach the Wobble to, he ends up simply lamenting his fate and teaching it to no one. Not even the listener! And so The Wobble is the dance craze that no one remembers... because it never even existed.

Turns out, it was only a way to name-check other dances, much like the songs "Land of a Thousand Dances" (the Pony, Boney Maroni, Alligator, Watusi, and Jerk) and "Shake a Tail Feather," (The Twist, Fly, Swim, Bird, Duck, Monkey, Watusi, Mashed Potato, Boogaloo, and Boney Maroni)...

...with a dash of the lonely-boy abandonment we have seen in several other early Simon songs thus far. Everyone else has a dance hit already, so what's the point of his trying for one? Just like the kid in the song with no one to teach the Wobble.

Some credit this song to "Tico," which is odd since Simon wasn't necessarily Tico in Tico and the Triumphs; it does not seem to be Simon on lead vocals, at that. Others credit it to Jerry Landis, and it appears on several Tom & Jerry and Jerry Landis compilations.

Next Song: Cry, Little Boy, Cry

I'm Lonely

The title sort of sums this one up.

The speaker is a teenager-- he refers to other "kids"-- who is convinced that he is the only one in the world who is not in a romantic relationship: "Everywhere I look, kids are having fun... I'm the only lonely one." Oh, haven't we all been there...

Things are especially depressing on "weekends," when he ends up at "home." But there is a Catch-22 at work here. He can't go to a party or movie or whatever without a date. But unless he goes to social events, how is he supposed to meet anyone?

He's also tired of trying to distract himself: "Getting tired of the radio/ I can't watch another TV show... I might as well go and read a book."

In despair, he turns Heavenward for help: "Lord above, won't you hear my plea/ Send a girl to love me faithfully/ Then I won't be lonely."

The word "faithfully" might be here for two reasons. One is that he imagines a relationship to necessarily include fidelity. The other is that... well, that's why he's lonely. He wants a girl to love him faithfully-- unlike that last one.

Arrangement-wise, it reminded me of a 10,000 Maniacs song, with doleful lyrics set against uptempo music. Musically, it's another Latin-ate number of surprising sophistication, with resounding bass notes alternating with tripping, high, chiming ones. The music alone, which is somewhere in the mambo or cha-cha territory, would have been fine for a big-band dance number in the 1930s,

Next Song: I Wish I Weren't in Love

Ha Ha

This is a country waltz that examines three ideas on the nature of, as the title indicates, comedy. But it is a waltz, a dance for two, and we see how well a jesting joker (to mix my metaphors) dances with a queen of hearts.

One of the ideas of comedy is that of "schadenfreude," laughter at another's misfortune. As Mel Brooks put it: "Tragedy is when I cut my thumb. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer." The other is the truism: "Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone." The third ties them together, the idea of laughing at oneself-- of getting amusement out of one's own misfortune, which means the others are "not laughing at you, but with you."

The song begins with the first idea: "You'd think it's funny/ if I got a pie in the face/ One's man's disaster is another man's laughter."

In the chorus, the speaker explains, "laughing is all I do." However, the listener might think this is a reaction to his being single: "You've only known me since I've been lonely/ So you don't believe it's true." When attached, we assume, the speaker might be more serious; he assures us that no, he laughs even while in a relationship. Hmm.

The next line tweaks a saying by adding the word "an." The saying is "I don't know you from Adam," the Biblical primogenitor standing in for any random human.

He speaks to the listener, whom we now know is a woman, as he says he doesn't know her from "Eve." His pick-up line is: "We've only got boredom in common/ Why don't we... leave/ And go... laughing all over the town." A cheap date, to be sure.

But then he makes a counter-assertion to the one above. He repeats the idea that she might assume he is different when in a relationship... but this time confirms it: "I'm different when I'm fooling around." Well, not that different, if that is the expression he prefers for intimacy, and the level of intimacy (simply physical) that his is capable of achieving.

The next line is worthy of Shel Silverstein: "One time I laughed all the way/ From Flagstaff, Arizona to Baton Rouge," which not only rhymes on the beat instead of at the end of the line... but finds the two American cities named after, of all things, poles ("Baton Rouge" is French for "red stick"). He continues this shaggy-dog story by saying this trip wearied him so greatly that, on arrival, he slept, Rip van Winkle-like, "for nearly a year." This laughing-all-the-way story may have a double meaning-- it may represent a series of performances on tour, a series of dalliances during a journey... or both (not all groupie stories are untrue).

Now that he has made this confession, he also confesses his affection for the woman he is addressing: "I could have been dead," he says, at least emotionally, "But I met you instead/ Now everything's perfectly clear."

Uncharacteristically, we wind up with "the moral of the story," which is: "Laugh, or the joke's on you." (Would that Fat Charlie the Archangel, from "Crazy Love Vol II," would have learned this lesson so young!)

Then the song ends with that same assertion: "You've only known me since I've been lonely/ So you don't believe it's true." The antecedent of "it's" is unclear; she doesn't believe what's true? Is he saying that she doesn't believe in not taking oneself seriously? But what would that have to do with when she met him?

Or is he saying that she doesn't believe that he has absorbed this lesson, and that he feels that knowing her has been valuable? This must be what is meant. On the one hand, if one doesn't take anything seriously, how could one learn anything? On the other, if one doesn't take anything seriously, one doesn't take oneself seriously, either-- and so he did not need her to learn this insight at all; he already behaved that way.

He does try to assure her that he is different in relationships, but he falls short, by admitting he only sees them as a chance to "fool around." While she may feel glad that she has had somewhat of an impact on this speaker, and she is probably attracted by someone who can be self-deprecating, she should still be wary of a relationship with him.

After all, he has said outright and repeatedly that he takes nothing seriously: "Laughing is all that I do." If so, how could he take her, or their love, seriously? If it's true, it's nice for him that he has learned from her to laugh at himself. But that isn't the basis for anything... serious.

Musical note:
Sean Lennon, son of Paul Simon's contemporary John Lennon-- and so Harper's musical cousin of sorts-- plays celeste on this track.

Next Song: The Shine

Long, Long Day

Simon has dealt with the subject of weariness before. The song "American Tune," for instance, ends: "I'm trying to get some rest." Here, however, is a whole song on the matter.

The speaker seems to be homeless, at least at present: "Ain’t got no place to stay/ But any old place will be okay." So to whom is he singing, "Good night/ Oh, my love?" Why can't he stay with her, if he is so desperate? Evidently, he is speaking to her across some distance, by phone or in his mind,

Knowing that the character in the film singing the song is a travelling musician helps. This information is related in the next verse: "I’ve sure been on this road... You don’t see my face in Rolling Stone." (Meaning the music magazine, of course.)

Again, though, if he is with a tour, surely some arrangements have been made for his accommodations. It could be that his sense of homelessness is more metaphorical.

Also, this cannot be the first "long, long day"; this fellow has spent in his 14 years on the road. However, this particular day seems to have been particularly taxing.

The next verse-- more a bridge, really-- is in paulsimon.com's version of the song, but not in the film itself. The film version goes:

"Slow motion/Half a dollar bill/Jukebox in the corner/Shooting to kill."

On the website and in the Lyrics book, however, we see these words interspersed with what seems to be a potential woman's vocal (which I have in italics; the rest is in the film version):

"When I see him standing there (Slow motion)
I said, “Hey, there’s a guy who needs a laugh”
That’s what I said to myself (Half a dollar bill)

What the hell, we’re both alone
And I’m just standing here
Jukebox in the corner
Shooting to kill"

This version implies that, even though the singer is in "love," he is so desperate for companionship that he is willing to cheat tonight.

As this material is not in the film, however, I am not sure what to make of it. Going back to the film's version, which is, again-- "Slow motion/ Half a dollar bill/ Jukebox in the corner/ Shooting to kill"-- the sense is much more abstract, and it seems the jukebox is what is shooting to kill. It might be that, to a musician who hasn't made it, seeing others' songs on a jukebox is just another painful reminder of his lack of success. Either that, or a specific song it is playing proves heart-wrenching.

The phrase "half a dollar bill" is interesting as well. The usual phrasing is "a half-dollar," meaning either 50 cents or a 50-cent piece. But "half a... bill" implies a bill ripped in half. This might be a play on the saying "Another day, another dollar," implying "Today was only worth half a dollar." Another meaning could be, "I feel about a worthless as half of a dollar bill."

The last verse reiterates the loneliness that is part of the weariness the speaker feels. At last, he is so spent, this songwriter admits that he is out of words and apologizes for it: "I hate to abuse an old cliché."

The day has been exhausting, both physically and emotionally, and the best that can be said about it is that it is over.


IMPACT:
Not the most well-known song in Simon's catalog, he nevertheless sang it on his appearance on The Muppet Show, alongside his better-known hits like "Scarborough Fair," "50 Ways," and "El Condor Pasa." (Both the film and Muppet Show performances are on YouTube.)

Next Song: Soft Parachutes