Love Is Like a Braid

The problem with a famous person quoting a less famous person is that, when you look up the source of the quote, you can only find the famous person having said it... not the person they quoted.

So when Simon writes: "Love is like a braid, some say," I cannot find, now, who that "some" is. Every reference to the expression I see online is a reference to this selfsame song. 

And I can see how relationships are like braids, in that they are interwoven-- the same person may be a parent, a child, a spouse, a friend... their one life interwoven with many others. Even the connection between computers is called the Internet or the World-Wide Web. 

But even one love, one relationship, has many layers of want, need, interdependency, trust, vulnerability, and so on, all interwoven. So in that sense, love can be plaited and braid-like.

This braid is then ornamented, he suggests, like hair can be-- with cowrie shells (those small shells that are also used to make a gourd rattle called a "shekere") and jade combs. That one is typically African and the other Asian is the point; our culture, whatever it is, "decorates" our relationships, beyond its own characteristics.

The song takes a turn here to focus on the story of one life. "I lived a life of pleasant sorrows," sounds like an oxymoron, but it is just a set-up. These sorrows may be pleasant in that they are the downsides of a generally positive thing, like the mixed feelings of pride, hope, fear, and loss experienced when a child leaves for college or gets married.

They are a set-up, though, for "the real deal," which "broke him like a twig." Biographically, I do not know what sorrow this refers to, but it was significant, even life-defining; depending on its outcome, either "all is lost, or all is well."

It involved a period of uncertainty: "A jury sat deliberating." This could be a real courtroom jury or any group of a decision-making people, such as a cadre of doctors discussing a patient's treatment options. 

This period was marked by both "prayer" and "reason," and that resonates. In times like these, we try to face facts, but we also hope to bend fate in our own favor.

The next verse holds some clues as to the event in question. The "real deal" may very well have been an illness or death of a parent. Coming "home," he is "shocked" to find: "I'm a child again, entwined in your love." You think you are an adult. You even have your own children. And then, when you lose a parent, you remember being their child, and for a while you are one again.

Simon's father and mother passed away in 1995 and 2007, respectively. But in approaching his own death, he undoubtedly thought back to theirs. 

And... there is our metaphor again. We began with the image of a "braid." We seemed to have dropped it for two verses. But no, that was just to get us to here, where we find it again, in the word "entwined." 

The word "doorstep" may be significant; the only other songs I know of to use the word are ones of hope. One is is "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. In it, three birds come to his doorstep to sing "Don't worry about a thing/ Every little thing/ Is going to be all right." Such assurance might be welcome in a sad hour like this.

The other is "The Sunny Side of the Street," which urges: "leave your worries on your doorstep/ Just direct your feet/ To the sunny side of the street." 

The speaker now presents another dichotomy. We have had "pleasant sorrows," "prayer [active] and waiting [passive]," "doubt and reason," "all is lost [or] well."

But in each of those pairs, one is good and one is bad. Remembering the parent? All was good. Either he was in the parent's "light" or their "cool summer shade." In this case, the opposite of "light" is not an ominous "shadow," or a hopeless "darkness," but their protective "shade."

I once interviewed a rising singer whose father was a very famous singer himself. I asked if she felt she was performing in his shadow. "No," she replied, "in his light."

The song ends with yet another good/bad dichotomy: "The garden keeps the rose and thorn." Life has both good and bad in it, he decides, but there are choices. And, even if you chose wrong and picked a thorn,  "what's left is/ Mending what was torn."

Life has both pleasantness and sorrow, both roses and thorns. So does love. 

And maybe those are what is braided; maybe that is how love is like a braid. It contains both the good and bad in ourselves, in those we have relationships with, and of the relationships themselves. 

You may love someone without loving everything about them. Maybe they snore, or lack punctuality, or have a morbid sense of humor. But you're not perfect, either... and they love you anyway, also. 

You may love someone, but not love the idea of losing them. But you love them anyway. 

The thing about braids, though? They are much, much stronger than individual strings. Which is kind of what you would want, and hope, from something like love. 

Next Song: My Professional Opinion

Getting Ready for Christmas Day

When a musician tries on a new style or sound, an excited album often results. By the time of the follow-up, the boil has died down to a simmer. But that just means more focus, not less energy, once the new techniques have been mastered and controlled. For instance, after the ebullient Graceland, Simon returned with the relatively subdued Rhythm of the Saints. Similarly, after the kid-in-a-candy-store sound of Surprise, he came back with the more contemplative So Beautiful or So What. Now, the electronics have been stirred into Simon's alchemy, along with the folk, gospel, world, and other sounds he had already added.

While this song is ostensibly about Christmas, we can expect that it will not find its way onto any Yuletide compilation or caroling songbook. That is because, as Christmas songs go, it is not only somber but frustrated and even cynical in tone. The rewrite of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" contains the line "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough," but the original line was "We'll have to muddle through somehow." Which is more the tone here.

It starts with a man bemoaning how "money matters" are "weighing" on him. The timing of this financial crisis is in line with Christmas-gift buying season. Even before he mentions the holiday, he speaks of "merry" music, then explains that "Santa Claus is coming to town," and of course someone has to buy that bagful of presents: "It all comes down to working man's pay."

Then the song takes an unexpected twist. We shift to the voice of a preacher, one Rev. J.M. Gates, in a sermon he recorded back in 1941. Based in Atlanta, Gates released some 200 recordings-- both sermons and songs-- over nearly two decades. This homily comes from late in his recording career.

For Gates, Christmas Day sounds more like Judgement Day. He says that, while you are "getting ready for Christmas Day," so are the "undertaker... jailer, lawyer, [and] police."

The workingman now returns, this time telling about his nephew, a soldier fighting the War in Iraq. In fact, he has returned to battle no fewer than three times! His uncle wryly opines that the fighter will be defending our freedom of religion while "eating [his] turkey dinner/ On some mountaintop in Pakistan." As for the war, for all of the carnage and expense, it's "ending up the way it began."

Now it's Gates' turn again. This time, he says you might be planning a trip for the holiday. However, you just as easily "be laying in some lonesome grave" by then. You never know, he shrugs, "where you'll be." You could be saying "I'm going and see [sic] my relatives in a distant land," thinking you mean that literally, when in fact that "distant land" might be Heaven... where we all have relatives.

Then the workingman has the final word: "If I could tell my Mom and Dad"-- "if" implying that he can't, as they have passed on-- "the things we never had/ Never mattered." Yes, he and his siblings never had much... but, he says, "we were always OK." But here he is, knocking himself out with two jobs to buy presents. So what is he doing?

Christmas is a time of expectation that almost never matches, in reality, the fantasy it engenders. Undertakers, police officers and soldiers work on Christmas, and at grim jobs at that. The presents received are almost immediately forgotten (or broken) no matter how long it took to earn the money for them.

Further, the "merry" music piped into the stores and our of our televisions drowns out the sacred meaning of the day. Forget the gift-wrapping, the cake-baking, and the tree-trimming-- Jesus is about to be born! How are you getting ready for that?

Musical Note:
Simon has been married to Edie Brickell since 1992, and he co-produced her first solo album, 1994's Picture Perfect Morning. However, her backing vocals here may be the first time they have been recorded singing together.

Brickell, of course, is a singer-songwriter in her own right, having scored hits with her band New Bohemians; their best-known track is "What I Am," with its famous line: "What I am is what I am-- are you what you are, or what?" She is now the lead singer of The Gaddabouts, named after its founder (and longtime Simon session player), master drummer Steve Gadd.

And in 2013, she released a song with another longstanding friend of Simon's, comedian and bluegrass banjo player Steve Martin.

In addition to the Gates sermon, the song also samples "Me Deixa Em Paz (Leave Me Alone)" by Brazilian singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento, with whom Simon has collaborated before, notably on "Spirit Voices." Literally, the title of the sampled song means "leave me in peace."

IMPACT:
Simon is still on tour for this album, as of this writing. It was very successful, reaching #4 in the US (and Sweden) and #6 in the UK (and also Croatia, Denmark, and the Netherlands), going all the way to #2 in Norway. It also hit the Top Ten in Canada, The Czech Republic, and Ireland... the Top 50 in other EU nations and Australia, and even #75 in Japan.

Critically, it was Rolling Stone's #3 best album of 2011, and received high praise all around.

Next Song: The Afterlife

Father and Daughter

Properly, this song should be labeled a "bonus track." It was not conceived or written for the Surprise album, but for an animated movie spun off the Wild Thornberrys cartoon TV show (the family in the show has the surname "Thornberry.") As the movie is set in Africa, it is understandable that Simon was approached to provide the theme song. Not surprisingly, it is closer in sound to Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints than any of the electronic-based tracks on Surprise.

The straightforward theme of the song is contained in its chorus: "There could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you." This "love" is presented in the song is several ways.

One is in the form of protection. The song begins with the image of a child awakening "in the mirror of a bad dream," the implication perhaps being that the subconscious mind acts as a "mirror" to what is going on in the conscious world.

The father admits that he "can't guarantee there's nothing scary hiding under [her] bed." Yet, he vows to protect her from such terrors: "I'm gonna stand guard like a postcard of a golden retriever." This is an odd locution. One can image a father comparing himself to a faithful watchdog. But why a "postcard" of one? Postcards usually depict landmarks... while family pets are depicted in photographs, and such images are not sold at souvenir stands. Further, an actual animal would provide some actual protection, even if only to soothe the child's fear of the dark.

Perhaps Simon means that, since the object of the fear is itself a dream-- a "mirror" image of reality-- only the image of a protector is necessary to defeat it. The implication, then, is that even when the child does not have her father close by, the knowledge of his desire for her safety should be soothing, and perhaps even give her the courage to face her fear alone.

The song's last verse closes with this promise as well: "You don't need to waste your time/ Worrying about the marketplace/ Trying to help the human race/ Struggling to survive its harshest night." The father vows that his daughter will not have to "worry" about business or money. She will not have to develop a "savior complex" and dedicate her life to fixing others' problems, but be able to focus on her own development. And she will not have to be frightened of having to "survive" some natural catastrophe, man-made genocide, or crushing oppression. Her father will protect her from all of that.

Following through on this protection is the promise to be protective even after the danger has passed. The father says that he will not only comfort his daughter when she is shocked awake by a nightmare, but will stay until she returns to sleep peacefully.

Another way the father shows love is through the connection of shared memories. She should know she loves her because he always has. All she needs to do is "follow [her] memory upstream"-- that is, back toward its source, its earliest point. There, she will find the recollection of watching a meteor shower with her father one night. The image of a father sharing the sight of an nighttime astrological wonder with his child was also presented in Simon's earlier lullaby, "St. Judy's Comet."

Still, for all of this involvement and shielding, the father does want his daughter to be able to care for herself. He has faith in his daughter's own good judgement: "Trust your intuition," he tells her. She should not be afraid to take chances or be ambitious; "Cast your line and hope you get a bite," he encourages.

And he knows how to hold her loosely enough to allow her room to develop on her own. "I'm gonna watch you shine/ Gonna watch you grow." He is going to invest his time and care in her... and then step back and watch her succeed and become better on her own.

"I believe the light that shines on you will shine on you forever," the father says, "I'm going to paint a sign/ So you'll always know." It is the words "forever" and "always" that give the child what she truly needs: Security. Confidence. Once she has absolute trust in her father's faith in her, she can have faith in herself.

And so we see why she only needs a postcard of a dog to protect her. That's enough to call to mind the memory and knowledge of her father's belief that he has given her what she needs. He is always there, because she can think of him whenever she needs to.

Musical Notes:
While the song is about a father and daughter, it is Simon's son, Adrian, singing backup.

Vincent Nguni, with Simon since Graceland, plays rhythm guitar here (and not elsewhere on the album).

Also, it should be noted that longtime Simon accompanist Steve Gadd was the principal drummer on the album.

IMPACT:
This pretty lullaby was nominated for the 2002 Oscar for Best Song (it lost to Eminem's "Lose Yourself").

It broke the Top 50 in Ireland and reached #31 in the UK, but did not chart in the US.

Next Song: Getting Ready for Christmas Day

Beautiful

While there may be some question as to whom the speaker is on various songs on this album, I am fairly certain Simon has not adopted-- as the speaker here has-- three babies from overseas.

The song uses the activities of a growing family to mark the time. It begins with the image of a melting "snowman," so we can assume the time is either during the January thaw or in, say, March, assuming the speaker lives in the northern U.S.

The family depicted, two adults and one baby, must have built the snowman together. Now, this image of outdoor playfulness is falling victim to having "a little bit too much fun," and its snow head has evaporated. This symbol might serve as a reminder to the parents of the, well, head-erasing "fun" they used to have before the demands of childcare. Now, they "don't have time to waste."

Still, they must feel a fondness for parenthood, because the next thing you know, they (quite alliteratively!) "brought a brand-new baby back from Bangladesh." They name her "Emily" (not, say "Brenda" or "Bessie") and-- if they say so themselves-- agree she is "beautiful."

Yes, the snowman is headless, but he somehow retains a corpulent "belly" despite the lack of a mouth, which the speaker finds amusing. The adults are still doing laundry, stepping over their now "two [children] on the kitchen floor." This seems to imply that both babies are less than a year old, and are not yet walking.

But still, neither is "brand-new" anymore! So, they add one who is, adopting this time from China. This baby, another girl, "sailed across the China Sea," which seems like an unnecessarily long ocean voyage for a newborn. It is possible that the word "sailed" is used metaphorically, and she was flown. Be that as it may, it she traveled across the Pacific, that would seem to imply that our family lives in the western half of the US.

And now it is "summertime." (Simon throws in a Beatles reference, saying that you don't need a "ticket to ride" the children's go-kart.) No laundry this time-- just a "water-slide," "danicin' in the grass" and a trip to "the candy stand." And we have a "kid" in the grass, not a "baby."

While the earlier reference to danger only affected the snowman, now we have a more strident (repeated) warning: "You better keep an eye of them children... in the pool." Sadly, children have been known to drown even in the shallowest of pools, so this is sage advice: Try not to have "too much fun," kids.

It also opens up the realization that, as their mobility increases, the dangers children face increase and change as well.

Now, we see the couple adopt again, this time from the Balkan region of Kosovo. Only... this was not a new adoption. This was "seven years ago"! The implication seems to be that this was their first child, the one who was in the "nursery" in the first verse.

Then, this, about him: "He cried all night, could not sleep." Children are subject to danger even before they are old enough to build snowmen or go down water-slides. They are subject to war, poverty, disease, and any number of other threats. Why could this baby not sleep? Some trauma, either violence or being orphaned? Illness or colic?

Yet, as difficult as those sleepless nights were, the couple went on to adopt (at least! the song is only so long!) two more children, each from a dangerous part of the world. They brought them back to raise them in relative safety, calm and comfort.

Why? They cannot seem to be able to answer that themselves. Adoption is an expensive process, in terms of money, but also hassle and potential anguish. Perhaps they were infertile; perhaps they felt it was wrong to have their own children when so many already needed good homes.

Perhaps reasons are not at play, but emotions. Even though their Kosovar baby was sleepless (and made them so), they found his eyes "bright, dark, and deep." The found him-- and their other babies-- to be, in a word, "beautiful."

Yes, they will not bear children. Yes, adoption is a grueling struggle. As is baby-raising itself. When it is not tiresome, it's potentially terrifying ("Keep your eye on them children by the pool.").

And yet the answer to danger and drama is not to shut down or shut off. Yes, the snowman was doomed the minute he was patted together and adorned with button eyes-- but he did have some fun while he was around.

And yes, raising children is difficult, even dangerous. But the answer to fear is beauty. Even if life is fragile, it is still worth it. Even if the pool is hazardous, you still jump in-- you just make sure there is a lifeguard.

Is there war? Poverty? Death? Well, the answer to death is life, and more life. The answer to families being rent apart is families being sewn together. The answer to poverty and oppression and war is babies and beauty.

The answer to a melted snowman is to get some more snowman-builders, so you can build a bigger one the next time it snows, and he'll last longer. Or maybe you could build a whole snow-family, so even when they melt, they can all melt together and none has to face losing face (and head!) alone.

Oh, and my two-and-a-half year old already helps with the laundry. So there's that, too.


Next Song: I Don't Believe