Bad Dream

This song could just as easily have been called "Bad Dream Blues," given the melody.

There are several sorts of bad dreams discussed in the song. After each, a question is asked, prefaced by the words "I'm wondering." 

One sort of bad dream is a nightmare-- you fall asleep, and instead of imagining riding a horse in a field of tulips, you imagine being attacked by a bear in a cave. The speaker imagines all dreams being produced in a "factory," in which the executive decision is made-- will tonight's dream be sweet, or scary?

The first bad dream we encounter is of this type. In the dream, a "giant shadow" is imagined by a child to be enveloping and smothering him to the point of suffocation. Since it was a form of darkness that was the problem, the solution was "the morning sun." 

The dream happened while he was "asleep, but still awake," which could refer to REM sleep. It could also, I guess, refer to "lucid" dreaming; generally, one in this state can direct the course of the dream's narrative, which doesn't happen here, but then this dreamer is a child who may be unaware of that option.

Since the person relating this nightmare is an adult remembering it from his childhood, the question is: "Where is the doorway to yesterday's secrets?" Frustratingly, the adult remembers the dream but not the experience that triggered it. If only he could access those memories, he could finally understand the dream.

Simon co-wrote (and co-sang) this song with Edie Brickell, his wife. She takes a turn, offering, she says, "a woman's perspective." What she says is brief, but powerful, and also remembered from childhood:

Ever since I was a little girl
They all said, "Don't go out alone at night

It's a hungry, dangerous world"

For vulnerable minorities, the world is a "bad dream" even when they are awake. Their nights are filled with waking nightmares of constantly incessant pursuit by the appetites of society. Since this hunger is inescapable and insatiable, the only solution (admittedly not much of one) is to avoid danger as much as possible. 

Her question is: "Where is the shelter for runaway angels?" Pure innocence is, sadly, one of the most attractive targets, but where can true safety be found? It is as elusive as an inaccessible memory.

The final scenario is also brief. A "backwoods" man crashes a rodeo, carrying many bibles, then wailing. This is a "dream," also, but whose? Notably, while the other scenarios were followed by the words "a bad dream," this one is followed by just "It's a dream." Meaning that, for some, this could be a good dream-- someone messianic bringing order (religion) to chaos (a "rodeo"), not someone unwelcome imposing restrictions on revelry. 

Is this a "bad dream"? Depends who you ask. 

This time, the question is "Where is the country I promised my children?" Clearly, Simon is of the camp that sees this "backwoods" character as a wet-blanket killjoy. Simon is, famously, one of the voices of the Civil Rights movement (see "A Church is Burning," "He Was My Brother," "The Sound of Silence," etc.) and this song was written when the US was dealing with the MAGA movement. 

There is a structure here that may seem familiar to Simon's fans; we saw it years ago in the song "Slip Sliding Away." The first verse, there, was about a man, the second about a woman, and the third about a father. (Interestingly, Springsteen's "Glory Days" is the also same, structurally: verses about a man, then a woman, then-- in a "missing" verse-- the speaker's father. The final, familiar, verse is about he speaker himself.)

In this song, we have a man remembering his childhood nightmare, a woman remembering the fear instilled in her as a girl... and then a verse about society at large dealing with a figure who is a harbinger of doom to some, but a herald of salvation to others. 

The three kinds of "bad dreams" delineated are the sleeping kind, the waking kind... and the kind that people will tell you wasn't a nightmare at all. Having your own perceptions questioned, and even suspected, sounds pretty nightmarish, too.

The Werewolf

Of all the classic movie monsters, the werewolf is obviously the most animalistic. A vampire can be fought with a whole arsenal of weapons, and a zombie like Frankenstein's monster or a mummy is ploddingly slow. But a werewolf is not undead-- he's very much alive, completely relentless, and full of teeth and claws.

We never really know what the werewolf in this song represents. (In an interview, Simon said it was planetary environmental disaster, but that's not even hinted at in the lyrics themselves.) If anything, the song implies it's an impending economic collapse-- the rich will either cause it by greed, or the poor by revolt.

But let's start where the song does. In Milwaukee.

A man who lives there with a "fairly decent" life, career, and wife is-- seeming out of nowhere-- stabbed and killed by that wife: "Now they are shopping for a fairly decent afterlife." Why does it say "they," which means she is dead, too? Was it a murder-suicide? Was she caught, convicted, and executed?

We don't know if the wife kills her husband because she is dominant and he won't submit, or because he is domineering and she kills him out of rebellion. The fact that he only feels she's "fairly decent" might anger a spouse, but to the point of murder? What about couples' counseling, or divorce, first?

Now we get into the economic point: "Life is a lottery a lot of people lose." And "the winners"? They "eat all the nuggets and order extra fries." OK, there is a class war: the rich declared war on the poor, and easily, handily won.

Next comes the first ominous mention of the Werewolf. All we know is that it's "coming," by the sounds of its "howling" and "prowling." "The Werewolf is coming," the speaker tells "Bill" and "Joe." These seem like easy rhymes, but they also personalize the threat (Springsteen, by comparison, often refers to the listener with the anonymous "hey there, mister."). It's not just coming, it's coming for you.

The problem--whatever it is-- is "national" The sides are staked: "Ignorance and Arrogance, a national debate." This could refer to certain political parties, and how they see each other. And these two sides will debate-- any issue-- agreeing on nothing.

But as Simon said in "The Coast," "that is worth some money." How? "Put the fight in Vegas-- that's a million-dollar gate." The take "could be healthy." But who wins? Well, the box office revenue "all goes to the wealthy" no matter the victor in the ring.

So, this is a problem! Not to the speaker: "I know it's raining, but we're coming to the end of the rainbow," presumably where the pot of gold awaits.

This point is never paid off. Instead, we shift to a quick jab at the pervasiveness of surveillance: "The lying and the spying through." This results in a retreat into privacy, isolation, and anonymous screen names: "Oh, you don't know me? OK, I don't know you."

But wait-- what about... what was it? Oh, right, the Werewolf. It's still coming! So we prepare for disaster: "You better stock up on water, canned goods." But be a dear about it, won't you, and "loot some for the old folks who can't loot for themselves."

And now, the wolf is at the door: "Doorbell's ringing... it's probably the werewolf." It's a "full moon," people, and it's already "a quarter to twelve." (We should also probably mention that this Werewolf is, right at the end of the song, revealed to be female, which ties it in with the murderess at the start of the song.)

So, what is the werewolf? It's any big issue that people refuse to deal with because of how big it is-- poverty, the deficit, environmental calamity, the wealth gap-- you name it. It could be a national issue, or some rage your spouse has toward you that you have no idea about until the "sushi knife" is making sashimi of your aorta.

"Life is what happens while you're making other plans," mused John Lennon. And the werewolf is what's coming when you refuse to deal with it before the moon is full, or even during daylight.

So let's not wait until "midnight... when the wolves bite."


Musical Note:

Flamenco music was a major inspiration for Simon on this album, especially the rhythmic stamping and clapping. One of his percussionists, Jamey Haddad, introduced him to a Boston flamenco troupe. They ended up recording the basic rhythm tracks for four of the songs: this one, "The Riverbank," the title track "Stranger to Stranger,"  and the first song to debut from the album, "Wristband."

The twangy sound that opens the song (and the whole album) is made by an Indian instrument called the "gopichand." That twang sounded, to Simon, like the word "werewolf."

As if Spanish and Indian music were not enough, an Italian EDM (electronic dance music) composer who goes by Clap! Clap! (his birth name is Digi G'Aleessio) also collaborated on this track (and also "Wristband" and "Street Angel") via the Internet from his studio on the island of Sardinia.

Next Song: (Street Angel.
Here's the thing. Werewolf is the third track Simon has released before the new album in its entirety drops. Which, as of this writing, is just over a week away. So probably no more freebies before then, is my guess. The whole album is only 11 tracks long.

This track is the first on the album and Wristband is the second; those have been released and I have written about them [Cool Papa Bell is Track 10]. The third is The Clock, but that's an instrumental. So the one after that is Street Angel.)




  

Cuba Si, Nixon No

The only version of this song available in full is on an S&G concert album titled Back to College, a recording of a performance in November of 1969. The college in question was Miami University of Ohio. As I learned when visiting that school, it was named for the Miami tribe of Native Americans, whose territory ranged from that area, in what is now Cincinnati, to the current city of Miami in Florida.

The song itself, as the title indicates, is one of Simon's most overtly political, and therefore one of his most dated, tracks. Only his songs "He Was My Brother," which mentions the Freedom Riders, and "Desultory Phillipic,"  which name-checks then-current newsmakers, come close in that regard (sadly, this does not apply to "A Church is Burning"; attacks on houses of worship persist well into the 21st century).

The song seems to be about a US airplane hijacked and flown to Havana, Cuba, forcibly rerouted from its intended destination, New Orleans.

In case it is unclear, the "he" for the duration of the song is the pilot-- the one who is supposed to be in the cockpit, not the pistol-packing one who forced his way in: "He's got 120 passengers he'd like to get them back alive/ [unclear but sounds like] Pistol man is talkin'; he don't believe the man is jive." 

Does the song depict a specific incident? There was a huge string of US planes hijacked to, or from, Cuba, starting in the 1950s and running through to 2007. They peaked between 1968-1970... with more than 30 such hijackings in 1969 alone! Many of the planes originated in the Southern US, naturally, but some from as far away as New York.

Still, I did not see any, as described in the song, specifically bound for New Orleans but forcibly rerouted to Cuba.

The nearest approximation was a Boeing 727 flight from New Orleans to Cuba hijacked in November 1968 by one Raymond Johnson. (One from Dallas was landed in New Orleans, and another from New Orleans was bound for Atlanta... but that one did not occur until 1980.) The passengers numbering "120," as the song indicates, does match the idea of a smaller plane; the 727 generally carries 150-190 people (a 747 can carry more than 400). 

But even the Johnson case is not a decent match. That particular case came a full year before the song was performed, for one. Also, the song describes the following scenario: "You know he's sitting in the cockpit, feels like he's in a dream/ Because he's heading to Havana, he should be goin' to New Orleans/ Pistol-cockin' senor, talking very slow and mean."

So it's seemingly not a "Raymond Johnson" doing the dirty hijacking deed. To drive the point home, the narrator points out: "The Spanish-speaking people have a different way of running the show."

Lastly, this hijacking took place in late 1968, while Nixon did not assume the presidency until January 1969. Now, he might have been president-elect at the time; elections are held in mid-November, and the Johnson hijacking was also that month. Unfortunately, I don't have the exact date of the crime. But it may not matter; "Nixon no" might be in protest of a potential or impending Nixon presidency.

The only logical conclusion is that this song was not intended to refer to a specific incident, but was a scenario cobbled from pieces of the many such incidents that had occurred.

Even though a planeload of US citizens is being hijacked, Simon seems to side with the desperado doing the hijacking: "Cuba si, Nixon no." (This may sound like language-switching, but the Spanish word for "no" is also "no.") It may seem odd that an American would side against an American president and in favor of a Communist regime run by Fidel Castro, and one that had aimed nukes at the US (back in 1962, in the Cuban Missile Crisis) at that.

But by then, people had a good idea of who Nixon was, too. And, you can be against both sides of a debate (as Shakespeare put it: "a plague o' both your houses!"). If more people had said "no" at that point-- even without also saying "si" to Cuba-- US history would be very different indeed. 

It's only 90 miles from a US coast to Cuba. By plane even the New Orleans-to-Havana flight is a very short journey indeed, just under 2 hours. This is reflected by the song saying that "there's Havana on the radio," meaning that even in mid-flight, they are within radio range of the Havana airport. 

Musically, the song is raucous. It's a gut-bucket blues heavily influenced by Chuck Berry, along the lines of "Johnny B. Goode"... but lyrically it is snidely political, like a Dylan or even a Phil Ochs number.


Musical Note:
It seems Garfunkel was against performing it. Given that there is only one recording of it altogether, it also seems that Simon agreed to retire it almost immediately. It is also reported that the song was written for the Bridge album but left off of the final version. It remains a curious... curiosity in Simon's catalog.

Next Song: Carlos Dominguez

Wartime Prayers

This is one of Simon's best, strongest songs. It ranks-- in terms of its sheer poetic quality, its moving melody, and its profound insights-- with his finest work overall.

Does Simon believe in God? Well, that depends on what you mean by "believe in." In the sense of "Do you believe in angels?" it seems so. In the sense that a coach means when he says, "I believe in you," to a nervous little-leaguer, perhaps not. Even in his first song with Garfunkel, "Bleecker Street," he believed that there was a "fog" that "hides the Shepherd from His sheep."

Yet, here, it seems Simon does believe in, does put stock in, prayer! It may seem disingenuous to say that prayer works if God is unresponsive. But again, it depends on what you mean by "works." Does God answer all prayers the way we wish? Well, no. Does praying help us feel better? It can.

The speaker, probably Simon himself, starts here by delineating the difference between peacetime and wartime prayers. Peacetime prayers, he says, focus on "appeals for love"-- maybe romantic, or familial, or even Divine-- or "love's release," a less clear idea. Is this a release from love? Does it mean that we pray to stop loving someone, or that they stop loving us? Or is this "release" in the sense of salvation-- yes, we have love, but we wanted it to save us, and it has not! (And perhaps it is a release of a more, ahem, physical nature.) In any case, peacetime prayers are "silent" and "private" and seem to take safety for granted, now upping the request for fulfillment.

Simon, unlike Springsteen, did not write an immediate response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still raging when he wrote and published this song, with what seems a clear reference to those attacks-- "the fires"--  which targeted his beloved New York.

In an post-9/11 world, "people hungry for the voice of God"-- one of commanding reassurance-- "hear lunatics and liars." These unspecified miscreants must include politicians, pundits, and clergy of all faiths, all in full-throated condemnation of each other, accepting no blame unto themselves.

So these days, we have "wartime prayers," given "in every language"-- including ours and those of our enemies! And not for love, anymore, but "For every family scattered and broken." All sides in a war send soldiers away... and either do not receive them back at all... or the same. Such families no longer take basic safety for granted. No longer is the prayer "please let him/her love me," but "please let him/her not get blown up."

Having defined his terms, Simon dismisses the notion that he has any answers to the situation, even cynical, public relations-style ones: "I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind with a genius marketing plan."

He does, however, lay out his personal plan of action. He acknowledges that prayers are not accepted from a less than pure heart: "You cannot walk with the holy if you're just a halfway decent man."

First, let us pause to find the source of this expression, "walk with the holy." In the early part of The Book of Genesis, we meet Noah, who it says is "a man of righteousness, perfect in his generation." The next line? "With God walked Noah." Noah was a man who also lived at a time of great destruction, yet was able to rise above it, both figuratively and literally.

Back to our speaker. What is the plan for achieving a higher state of decency, and thereby, holiness? To seek a source of "wisdom," to "rid [his] heart of envy," and "cleanse [his] soul of rage." So it is a matter of adding some more knowledge and insight, making room for these by ridding himself of some distasteful traits (that happen to be two of the Seven Deadly Sins, "rage" and "wrath" being synonyms).

"Wisdom" is more than just "intelligence," the ability to think. And it is more than "knowledge," the accumulation of facts. Wisdom is the result of the application of intelligence to knowledge-- what you think about what you know. This is such a laborious process that the speaker is willing to settle for "a little drop" of wisdom! (John Gorka's song "Wisdom" is very good discussion on this matter.)

"Envy" is the wanting of what someone else has. Not just ambition, wanting what you don't have, but wanting you to have it... and them not to. And "rage" is such a high level of indignation that one becomes undignified altogether. So both are self-consuming passions, devouring much while producing nothing.

Returning to current events, yes, there are wars, repression, and recession, "But everyone knows/ all about hard times." So what's your plan to cope? "Well, you cry and you try to muscle through/ And try to rearrange your stuff." Realizing your powerlessness over global events, you focus on yourself and your immediate world. (This passage echos the Serenity Prayer, which speaks of the "serenity to accept what I cannot change" and the "courage to change what I can.")

But then comes the breaking point. When that is reached: "We wrap ourselves in prayer." And so Simon comes back to his theme.

The image of "wrapping" oneself "in prayer" may come from the religion Simon was born into-- Judaism. The Jewish prayer shawl is called a "talit" (tah-LEET) in Hebrew, from a word meaning "to cover." To don the shawl, one wraps oneself in it, pulling it across one's shoulders all the way around one's bowed head. Once so cocooned, one utters the blessing regarding the commandment "to wrap" ourselves in this garment.

Nevertheless, the metaphor of being wrapped in prayer is so easily understood that the Jessy Dixon Singers are able to sing the line in soaring gospel harmony without, one assumes, guessing that it may have a specific ritual origin, let alone a Jewish one.

The song closes with none of the global geopolitics or moral philosophizing of the above verses. Rather, we see a "mother" allowing her babies to share her bed; she is falling asleep and "draws [them] closer." She nuzzles and "kisses" them. Then, "To drive away despair/ She says a wartime prayer."

Where is her husband? If this is the prayer she whispers, hers must be one of those "families scattered and broken." So he is at war.

Perhaps the babies are in the bed for their sake; they might be having nightmares with him gone. Or maybe they are there for her. Maybe she needs them close because of her own loneliness and fear; she is also at the point of "all that she can bear."

Does prayer work? It must, on some level. Otherwise, we would not keep doing it after thousands of years. As long as there are love and war, it seems, there will be prayer. Whether Anyone is listening or not.

MUSICAL NOTES
Jessy Dixon, along with his backup singers, performed with Simon in many contexts, including on his television special, on Saturday Night Live, and his Still Crazy and Live Rhymin' albums. Dixon died in 2011 of cancer, but not before writing for female superstars like Diana Ross, Cher, and Natalie Cole.

On piano is Herbie Hancock, a jazz legend. While he played with the challenging Miles Davis, he was remarkably accessible in his own work, integrating electronics and funk into jazz. He had a hit video with his instrumental "Rockit," and in 2008 won the Album of the Year Grammy for a Joni Mitchell tribute album.

Next song: Beautiful

Sure Don't Feel Like Love

While this song purports to be about "love," there is no story here of a relationship. Well, a reference to one toward the very end, but nothing like "Train in the Distance" or "Dangling Conversation," which also don't feel like love but at least are about love.

No, here we first hear about "register(ing) to vote." We know how Simon feels about the political process from the lines in "Mrs. Robinson": "Going to the candidates' debate... every way you look at it, you lose." So when he tells us he "felt like a fool" even though he registered out of a sense of obligation, we aren't surprised.

But then he says, self-referentially: "Thing about... 'felt like a fool'?/ People say it all the time/ Even when it's true." So... is he saying that he meant it, or that he didn't? If he would have stopped with "people say it all the time," then the listener would think, "Oh, so he didn't really feel like a fool, he just thought it would sound uncool to say that voting was cool."

Only now, we have "Even when it's true" [emphasis mine]. Which means, "Yes, I know people throw that phrase around-- but sometimes they do mean it, like I do now."

The next line implies that a "conscience" is a person, or at least the kind of entity that could be referred to as a "who." The one that comes to mind (I think is does for most of us) is Jiminy Cricket, the embodiment of the conscience we are all familiar with from the 1940 Disney version of the Pinocchio story (In the original 1883 Italian version, Pinocchio kills the cricket, but its ghost still advises him. In that version, the cricket has no name, but "Jiminy Cricket!" is one American euphemism for the interjection "Jesus Christ!" among many, ranging from "Jeepers Creepers!" and "Judas Priest!" to "Cheese and rice!").

Perhaps Simon is familiar with the original Pinocchio version after all, for in this song, the conscience ends up "sticking on the sole of [his] shoe" like a squashed bug! Does he stomp on the conscience intentionally, or is he so unaware that he has one that he trod upon it unknowingly-- is he immoral or amoral? Either way, it is silenced.

And "it sure don't feel like love." The pressure of a stepped-on thing underfoot, we must agree, is not the sensation we associate with love. Nor is (depending on what "it" refers to, what its antecedent is) registering to vote, or feeling like a fool.

Still, we are not sure why we need to be told this-- were we supposed to expect that these things should feel like love? Perhaps, insofar as voting, yes. Perhaps we are supposed to feel love for, and feel loved by, the person leading and protecting us and making laws and decisions on our behalf. Yet, we don't.

The next verse gives us a short lesson on biochemistry: "A teardrop consists of electrolytes and salt." This bit of trivia reminds us of the line from "Senorita" about the cure-all frog. But Simon again says that tears, "blame" and "fault," all do not feel like love.

How does a conscience feel, then? Simon asks as much, responding: "Feels like a threat/ A voice in your head that you'd rather forget." A conscience is less of an unconditional affection type and more of a potentially punishing, always-scolding nag. And while it is a "voice," it is an internal, "in-your-head" one and so "unspoken." Nevertheless, its harangues can make you "sick."

Well, if a pebble-in-your-shoe, thorn-in-your-side, bee-in-your-bonnet conscience doesn't feel like love, what does? "Some chicken and a corn muffin." Simple sustenance, nurturing nourishment. It's called "comfort food" for a reason! Being told that you are OK and being taken care of-- fed warm, handmade food-- that feels like love. Mothering, not smothering.

Not the "Yay! Boo!" of the cartoon angel and devil on one's shoulders. Doing the right thing because you "had to do it," because of a carrot or stick, doesn't feel like love. Doing something because you want to does.

Being scolded makes you feel awful. You aren't just "wrong," and then told, that, however, you are mostly, usually right and that this is the exception. No, you are told you are "wrong again" [emphasis mine], that being wrong is the pattern... and just look, you have learned nothing after all your trials and errors.

As one does when one is told "wrong again!" Simon thinks about other times he was wrong, proving his accusing conscience's point. He immediately hits upon "August 1993." Not sure what else he was working on then, but his multi-disc box set dropped in September of that year, so perhaps it related to that. For is next example, he cites "one of [his] best friends turned enemy," which might be Garfunkel, but there is too little to go on-- it could be many people, including one his biographers don't even know about.

Then he remembers a fleeting assignation-- at least, that's what "this one time" sounds like-- in a "load-out," a military-supply storehouse. We can imaging anything happening such an unromantic place would not "feel like love," either (although he stops short of saying that he felt the incident was "wrong"!).

Of all songs, this makes me think of "Beat on the Brat" by The Ramones, a song lambasting the inanity of corporal punishment and the mindless sort who practice it. There, the response to a "brat" is to "beat" him "with a baseball bat." This sounds like the kind of thing this conscience, as described in our song, would do. Its response, asked if that were the proper recourse, would be: "What can you do/ With a brat like that?"

Well, there are other things you can do with a brat, actually! Have you tried, instead a baseball bat... maybe a corn muffin?

Next Song: "Wartime Prayers"

Hurricane Eye

This is actually a very "political" song. It is about, mostly, environmentalism and civil rights, and the people who ignore these issues... at their own peril.

The first four lines make fun of the whole idea of "history" as a definitive thing-- it is, at base, a story with an author, with all of the bias that implies: "Tell us all a story/ About how it used to be/ Make it up and then write it down/ Just like history."

Simon fixes on a particular story, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," which, he posits, is about "Nature in the crosshairs."After all, didn't a human invade and disrupt a perfectly happy animals' abode in that tale? In this reading, Goldilocks might as well have, in Joni Mitchell's image, "paved Paradise and put up a parking lot."

But how did humans come to be outsiders in Nature? After all, "we all ascended/ From the deep green sea," according to evolutionary theory. Citing Goldilocks' desire for a perfect balance in porridge temperature-- "not too hot/ Not too cold"-- as a guideline, "Where it’s just right and you have sunlight," then, Simon explains, "we’re home/ Finally home."  In other words, when the chemistry is optimal and a source of energy is available, life can blossom.

But what if we are "home" in the sense of "at the height of evolution" but are "home in the land of the homeless," and not everyone has a literal home? Then we have reached a physical peak, but fallen short of a moral one.

The song continues in this social justice vein, with one person voicing concern over the state of society-- "Oh, what are we going to do?"-- and the other not accepting this "we" at all: "I never did a thing to you." Why do I have to help fix this injustice-- I didn't cause it!

The next line is a cautionary one "Time peaceful as a hurricane eye." A hurricane's eye is peaceful, but it is only the calm before the rest of the storm arrives after the first edge. It is, as they say, a false sense of security. You have to help fix this injustice because, even if you did not cause it, you are still affected by it!

The next verse seems to be about the oppression of the Native Americans. "A history of whispers" is fair enough; most history lessons are about the Western expansion of the Whites, not about the Reds they swept aside. This "White cloud," came in, followed by the "black crow," the carrion eater. Again, the image of the Western "Crucifix" conflicts with that of the Native "arrow," only it was the Natives crucified this time. All that's left are "a shadow of a horse" and "faces painted black in sorrow and remorse." The Natives feel sorrow, and the Europeans the remorse. We know this is about the Natives, again, because it is "the oldest silence," before the other American slaveries and discriminations.

Then Simon offers this bit of passive-resistance advice: "When speech becomes a crime/ Silence leads the spirit/ Over the bridge of time." This applies to the silence of all martyrs, from before the Holocaust up through the age of AIDS. How do we know that a mass death happened? Well, where are all those people? Where are the children they would have birthed, the works they would have created? Silent. It is simply the absence of these people that creates the memory of their loss. It creates a vacuum that our very nature abhors.

"Over the bridge of time," Simon repeats, "I’m walking with my family/ And the road begins to climb." It is supposed to get easier, but instead the incline becomes steeper. This is a possible reference to advancing age; the road is the same, but it feels steeper.  

"And then it’s, oh, Lord, how we going to pray/ With crazy angel voices/ All night/ Until it’s a new day." It is unclear, from the word "with," whether these voices are their own resembling those of "angels," or those of angels praying alongside their own. But it hardly matters. After such a steep climb, how can one find the energy... to pray for the energy for the next day's hike? And what does this "new day" look like? Well, it's "peaceful as a hurricane." Not the eye, mind you!

OK, so we have all of these problems. Well then, let's do something! Oh, so  "you want to be leader?/ You want to change the game?" Counter-intuitively, Simon advises: "Turn your back on money/ Walk away from fame." This is certainly the approach followed by everyone from Buddha, Moses, and Jesus to Gandhi, King, and Schweitzer. 

"You want to be a missionary?/ You got that missionary zeal?" Don't start a church, Simon says, but join the Peace Corps: "Let a stranger change your life/ How’s that make you feel?" 

And "You want to be a writer/ But you don’t know how or when?" Well, Simon is one of the best writers we have, so yes, we'd like his advice! "Find a quiet place/ Use a humble pen." The advice in any case is the same-- be "humble." Seek to learn, not to teach... to be of service, not to be served.

With "you want to talk, talk, talk about it/ The ocean and the atmosphere," Simon returns to the environment. "Well, I’ve been away for a long time/ And it looks like a mess around here." This could refer to Simon's long hiatus between albums, or his long hiatus from political songwriting. In either case, its does not seem to him that things have substantially improved, environmentally, since the beginning of that movement.

"And I’ll be away for a long time," probably means "...once I'm dead." Knowing this, Simon feels obliged to sum up his life's learning and pass it on: "So here’s how the story goes." We lean forward to listen...

...and hear a nursery rhyme! "There was an old woman/ Who lived in a shoe." But his version is different: "She was baking a cinnamon pie." Well, pies figure in many nursery rhymes, from "Little Jack Horner" to "Sing a Song of Sixpence" to "Simple Simon."

The rhyme now ends: "She fell asleep in a washing machine/ Woke up in a hurricane eye." Few places are as agitated as the inside of a washing machine. In fact, the pole with angled fins inside the top-loading kind is called an "agitator." When our old woman woke, though, there was calm. Or, at least, calm where she was. 

The song as a whole is about the activists' mission: to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Throughout, we have characters who think they live in a world of calm. Well, their world might be calm, but the whole world is not! We have "nature in the crosshairs." Homelessness. Genocide and forced expulsions. 

There is a hurricane of trouble out there! And we should know this, even if it we live in the eye. If for no other reason than that the hurricane moves... and we could at any moment find ourselves not in calm but in 75-mile-an-hour winds.

Next Song: Quiet

Pigs, Sheep and Wolves

The animal fable is at least as old as Aesop. And Simon himself used animals as human stand-ins in the song "At the Zoo."

But the most famous modern example is probably Orwell's Animal Farm. Here, Simon uses a similar set of creatures to represent various aspects of humanity.

First, we meet a pig. He's a "barnyard thug" who usually gets his way: "...nobody's gonna argue with him/ He's a half a ton of pig meat."

(This verse notes that the pig sleeps on straw but calls it a "rug," This line or two always seemed forced to me, existing only to rhyme with "thug." Simon must have agreed, because the entire concept is ditched in the In the Blue Light version and is now just "makes his bed in a puddle of mud." This, in turn, is somewhat pedantic and unnecessary-- we all know pigs sleep in mud-- but at least it isn't forced and distracting.)

Next, the wolves. While wild, they pose no threat to anyone in the farmyard: "Never did no harm/ Sleep all day/ Hunt till four/ Maybe catch a couple of rodents /You know, carnivore."

Last are the sheep, passive and pacific. And then, one day, like the sheep that wandered away from Moses' biblical flock: "One of the sheep wanders.../ Separated from the flock/ Where'd he go?"

Sure enough, he gets picked off. A crime scene is declared. Is there any evidence that might point to a potential suspect? "Got a gash as big as a wolf's head." Well, there you go. Case closed.

Except... what's the pig doing? "Wallowing in lanolin/ He's rubbing it into his pigskin." Lanolin is "wool grease, especially when refined for use in ointments and cosmetics." (m-w.com) Yes, lanolin comes from sheep.

But no one is looking for the pig! "Police going crazy/ Say, let’s get him/ Let's get that wolf." Of course, the wolf has his day in court, but sadly the "court-appointed lawyer wasn't very bright/ Maybe it was just a late night/ And he files some feeble appeal."

The wolf has one chance left-- the governor can stay his execution. But would why he, and be tagged as soft on crime... in an election year at that? "The governor says, “Forget it/ It's a done deal/ It’s election, I don't care, election!/ Let's give that wolf a lethal injection." (The In the Blue Light version is cleverer. Instead of repeating the word "election," the line is now "Objection? I don't care-- election!")

"Here comes the media"-- well, likely they have been there all along-- "Asking everyone's opinion/ About pigs, sheep and wolves." At least they suspect that the pig was involved. But it seems that they are shouted down.

From his wallow, the pig laughs. “This is hilarious/ What a great time/ I'm the pig who committed/ The perfect crime.”

But there is hope. "All around the world/ France and Scandinavia/ Candlelight vigils/ Protesting this behavior./ It’s animal behavior/ It’s pigs, sheep and wolves." (Let's pause to give Simon a nod for his "Scandinavia/behavior" rhyme! In the In the Blue Light version, France becomes "Japan," making the popular reaction less Euro-centric and better paying off the "all around the world" notion.)

The allegory works in many directions. The pigs seem to be the ones in power, whether governmental, financial, military, religious, or some combination thereof. The wolves aren't even in the barnyard-- they are the outcasts of society, minorities, useful as (to mix our metaphors) scapegoats... because we all know about those people and what they are like. And the sheep are the good citizens who try to go about their business and stay out of trouble... who get screwed over no matter what they do. 

Yes, sometimes the "wolves" do commit crimes. But a mugger can only rob one person at a time, and then only of whatever cash they have on hand. An embezzler can steal millions, from millions, and no one notices for decades. Yet, anyone who dares suggest that a business be a responsible citizen-- and not lie, cheat, steal, pollute, or impoverish people--  is declared "anti-business" and even "anti-American." 

A great book that is not a fable despite its title, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches by Marvin Harris (which predates Freakonomics by 20 years), argues that-- to use Simon's metaphor-- pigs stay in power, remaining "big and fat," by keeping sheep afraid of wolves. I doubt Simon has read Harris' book, but I imagine he would agree.

Next Song: Hurricane Eye

Manhunt/ Can I Forgive Him?

[Note to readers: Someone asked if a more complete soundtrack than Songs From had ever been released. Here is the full answer, from a 2006 piece for Playbill.com by Andrew Gans: "The original Broadway cast recording of Paul Simon's The Capeman — the short-lived musical that featured Ruben Blades, Marc Anthony, Ednita Nazario and Sara Ramirez — never made it to record stores, but interested listeners can now download tracks from the recording on iTunes... All 39 songs from the Simon musical are available for download... The Dreamworks SKG original cast album of Paul Simon's Broadway musical The Capeman was originally scheduled for release in spring 1998. The recording, which was never released, featured the entire Broadway cast singing the full score, which was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Original Score. A CD of Simon, Blades, Anthony and Nazario singing selections from the show was released in fall 1997. The cast album includes much material not on the Songs From The Capeman CD."]

There is no song about the crime in progress, just the aftermath. The song "Manhunt" begins with adult Salvador recalling the events' conclusion: "I see two bodies lifted high/ As angels in their shroud."

A cabdriver recalls picking up "them Puerto Ricans," and where, and also where he dropped them off, a neighborhood called San Juan Hill, which we assume is named for Puerto Rico's capital. "The little guy with the stingy brim/ Looked mean enough to kill," the cabbie adds. We recall a "stingy brim" hat being discussed in "Shopliftin' Clothes." (This just means the brim is smaller than standard.)

The Chorus takes part in this song. At first, they cry, "Run, Spic, run!" This slur comes from the way native Spanish speakers tend to pronounce the word "speak," especially in explaining that they "don't speak English." Those who could would mock their accent.

Then the mayor arrives for a press conference. He blames the lack of "parental guidance," and "the courts," with their "leniency for animals that lead a life of crime." He concludes by saying the police force will add 1,400 officers.

Carlos, young Sal's positive role model, was "at the scene," and it seems he fingered Sal; we are also reminded that Sal was 16 at the time. Now Sal himself takes over the narration, explaining that he and Umbrella Man "vanished in the Bronx/ Taking food from garbage cans" until Sal is caught by a cop... and admits that, yes, "I'm the one who used the knife."

Now the Chorus, who has first told him to "run," chant "Kill the spics!" Sal reacts with outward toughness: "I don't care if they fry me/ My mother could watch me burn."

"Can I Forgive Him?" (Track 7) has got to be one of the saddest songs Simon ever wrote.

Esmerelda, Sal's mother, comes to see Mrs. Young and Mrs. Krzesinski, the mothers of the murdered teens. She asks them to see past the "savage boy... with the sneer," to the child she "nursed and bathed." In a weird way, she tries to paint herself as somewhat of a victim, too. After all, her "fated" son too is "gone... the state will see to that."

Mrs. Young replies first, with racist overtones-- as if people born in America didn't also kill!-- "You Spanish people... nothing here changes [you]... Ungrateful immigrants." Then she lashes out at the courts, media and society in general that "makes a cartoon of crime... a glorification of slime."

Mrs. Krzesinski speaks more to the point. "My religion asks me to pray for the murderer's soul/ But I think you'd have to be Jesus on the cross/ To open your heart after such a loss./ Can I forgive him?/ No, I cannot."

Esmerelda grudgingly accepts this logic: "Only God can say, "Forgive"/ His son, too, received a knife/ But we... have to live/ With this cross we call our life." Again, while she is suffering, she does not acknowledge that her suffering is not the same as theirs, with her use of "we."

Mrs. Krzesinski says that one of the hardest parts is the sympathy of others, which is not entirely selfless: "The trembling flowers they bring/ Fear in the roots and the stem/ What happened to me... could happen to them."

And both speak of the unending nature of the pain. Mrs. Young uses the metaphor of a "bomb" with "wave after wave [of] aftershocks.] Mrs. Krzesinski calls it a "nightmare/ From which you can't wake."

The victims' mothers repeat "Can I forgive him/ No, I cannot"... while Esmerelda still insists that their pain and hers, being two sides of the same coin, entitle her to sympathy from them, too.

It is very presumptuous of Esmerelda to approach these women at all. And then, instead of apologizing, she straightaway tries to excuse Sal's murderous behavior-- "He's really a good boy!" She tries to shift away blame from herself-- "I nursed and bathed and mothered him as best I could!" Lastly, she sighs, "Yes, isn't it terrible what we all are all going through-- together and equally-- what with our sons' deaths and all."

It is not hard to wonder if this lack of empathy-- "Hey, I have to live with the fact that my son is a murderer! Where's my compassion?"-- isn't a touch, well, out-of-touch on Esmerelda's part. If so, did she impart this insensitivity to Sal somehow?

I do fault The Capeman this far-- although this issue may have been addressed on the stage and just not in the lyrics-- it ignores the role of fathers. Sal's birth father is never seen, and his adoptive father seems distant and unrealistic. Boys look for male role models, and Sal found two-- Carlos and Hernandez. But Carlos was busy with Yolanda, and Hernandez took an interest. So naturally, Sal wanted to please and impress Hernandez.

Everyone is pointing fingers at the mothers, at the courts, the media, and society. But not one word about the lack of positive, involved male role models. Here, the positive one was not involved... and vice versa, the involved one was so in a less-than-positive way.

And where is Sal's righteous, holy stepfather in the middle of all this? Does he want to distance himself from Sal's crime so as to save his church's reputation? Why is he not pleading with the mothers of the victims, or the judge or the mayor or the press? As clumsy and self-serving as she is about it, at least Esmerelda is trying to do something for her boy.

One thing Sal did know-- how to, eventually, own up to what he did. When confronted, he admits his guilt. This trait is one he did not, it seems, learn from his mother.

Next song: Adios Hermanos/ Jesus Es Mi Senor

Citizen of the Planet

Quotable speakers from Socrates to Woodrow Wilson (also FDR and JFK) have said that they consider themselves "citizen[s] of the world." Generally, this expression means that one is an internationalist rather than an isolationist, that one can think in terms of one country's impact on the world instead of just focusing on matters inside one's own nation.

So we think we know what to expect when Simon begins his song: "I am a citizen of the planet." While "world" is often a geo-political term, "planet" tens to be favored by environmentalists (and of course astronomers), so we expect an oration on each person's duty to safeguard Mother Nature.

The next line seems to continue in this vein, but maybe not: "I am entitled by my birth/ To the treasures of the earth." OK, so each person is entitled to the "treasures of the earth," as in natural resources-- water, food, etc.-- right? And so next we are going to hear how in return, we owe the earth our stewardship or something.

Nope. "No one must be denied these [treasures]/ No one must be denied/ Easy dreams at the end of the day." This is not a song about, to paraphrase an above-mentioned president, "...ask what you can do for your planet," we now realize. This time it really is: "Ask what your planet can do for you."

As if to drive home the point, Simon uses an unexpected adjective: "At the end of a chain-smokin' day." So this is also not about remote tribes of Brazil being exploited by rainforest-destroying corporations. This is not a "hippie" song at all, even.

No, it is about the rights of even the "chain-smoking" factory and office workers, who fill the air with tobacco fumes and the ground with the discarded butts, being entitled to their slice of the planetary pie. This song is as much about work boot-wearers, and copy machine operators, and even their bosses in industrialized countries, as much as it is about sweatshop workers and refugees in "developing" countries.

Next comes a pair of rhetorical questions. The first seems to be about governmental fear-mongering and military saber-rattling: "Who am I to believe/ That the future we perceive/ Lies in danger and the dangers increase?" The second is about a more diplomatic option: "Who are we to demand/ That the leaders of the land/ Hear the voices of reason and peace?"

Who are we? We'll tell you who: "We are the citizens of the planet," that's who. And maybe we are afraid of the future, but not because of each other. Maybe we're afraid of our own leaders, the very people who need us to be afraid in order to control us. They are the true source of the "danger."

The final verse is also a pair of such questions. The first has two parts: "Who am I to deny/ What my eyes can clearly see / And raise a child with a flame in his heart?" First, we recognize Simon quoting himself, from "American Tune": "And high up above, my eyes can clearly see/ The Statue of Liberty..."

But then we have a question of our own. How can these two parts co-exist? They seem to be at odds. "Who am I to deny what my eyes can clearly see?" most likely means: "No, I can't deny what is so clear." I can't deny, in other words, the reality of what the above verses state-- we are being told to hate each other so our countries can stay at war and compete for resources, when we should really just share. So, I should not deny what I can clearly see.

The second part would be "Who am I to... raise a child with a flame in his heart?" The question is, what kind of "flame"? The Olympic runner's flame of light, which gathers all? Or the arsonist's flame of heat, which destroys and scatters all before it? The flame of compassion, we would hope. So, I should raise a child with a flame in his heart.

Now read the last two lines of the last two paragraphs again. The speaker seems to be saying, in one sentence, "Who am I to deny the obvious (which I should not do)... and raise a compassionate child (which I should)?" It can't be both.

So either he should deny the obvious (which makes little sense, both in general and from what we know of Simon's values, even stated elsewhere in this very song), or the "flame" in question is in fact the negative kind.

If this is the case, the lines mean: "Why would I deny that we are being sold a bill of goods about who the true 'enemy' is, and then sell it to my kid, myself?"

The last lines also need some untangling. Also a rhetorical question, they are: "Who are we to believe/ That these thoughts are so naive/ When we've all disagreed from the start?"

"Who are we to believe that these thoughts are naive?" implies that it takes bravery to believe they are naive. In fact, all those in favor or sharing resources, from Marx to, well, Lennon (in "The Communist Manifesto" and the song "Imagine," respectively) have been considered by many, if not most, world citizens to be very naive. It actually takes bravery to be a sharer.

Shouldn't it be something like: "Who are we to believe/ Dare we be so naive"? Because after all, those in favor of sharing tend to get shot and killed.

But isn't the whole point that we really don't need to "disagree"? That is, that we truly do agree? The song has already explained that we all are "citizens of the planet," and that we all need access to the same "treasures of the earth." So there isn't actually a problem, is there?

Except that not everyone sees this. Each side sees the other as "naive." Those who believe that there is enough for everyone, if we would just share it, feel that the hoarders of resources are being naive-- that they are needlessly willing to kill and die to defend, say, their wheat crop, when there is so much wheat that farmers are already paid not to grow it. Meanwhile, the hoarders think the sharers are naive, because after all, sharing only works if everyone does it... and not everyone does it.

In this sense, we have all "disagreed from the start"-- about whether to disagree or not! Some think we should not; some think we will anyway, or enough of us will, and so we need armies.

This simply worded song is actually very complex, but in the end simple in its message. Benjamin Franklin said, upon signing the Declaration of Independence, that the signers "must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Turns out, that goes for all "citizens of the planet." Now if only we could get rid of the rope altogether.

(This song was intended for "Hearts and Bones" and is now on the extended re-release.)


Next Song: Boy in the Bubble

Have a Good Time

Looking back over the last three songs, we find somewhat of a trilogy. In "Gone at Last," we find a sad person whose spirit was lifted when his "burden" was "shared" by another. In "Some Folks' Lives," we have a sad person who seeks solace from God.

In this song, the speaker is not sad, but by his own admission, he "should be depressed." Was his burden shared? Did he find religion? Nope.

He's just decided to have a good time.

There is a line in the movie (I know, again with the movie quotes) Spinal Tap that informs. Viv, the keyboardist, is asked by the interviewer, "What is your philosophy of life?" Viv responds, inserting a dramatic pause, "Have a good time... all the time." Rather than be seen as a call to hedonism (which it probably was), it could also be taken in reverse: "All the time, regardless of what is happening, try to enjoy the situation and find the fun in it."

We begin with an idea one seldom hears in a song. Rather than a song about a birthday, it's a song about a day after a birthday. Whether the ongoing sex our speaker has been "exhausted" by was in celebration of the occasion or has been going on for some time now is immaterial. The point is, he has neglected his health and his need for sleep in pursuit of immediate gratification. His body is begging him to take a break... "But a voice in [his] head says, "Oh, what the Hell-- have a good time."

In the previous number, the speaker began by speaking in general terms ("some folks") and moved to the personal ("Here I am") and back. In this song, the speaker starts with personal information and now moves to commentary on the State of the World.

He derides Midwestern puritanism as mindless, phobic "paranoia," and shrugs that the press is less interested in informing him than seducing him for his "dime." He is neither, he concludes, "worrying" about the news or his soul, nor "scurrying" along with the rat race up the corporate ladder (that is not a mixed metaphor-- rats can race up ladders if they want to, so there).

He does ponder that he might be imprudent in his unwillingness to care for himself, plan for the future, or consider his fellow man. His conclusion again is a shrug: "What can be done?" Nothing he is willing to do, certainly.

God is interjected here, but not in a prayerful way as in "Some Folks." Here, God is just another commodity, another convenience. The same way a carpet cleaner might be called to deal with a stain on the rug, God Himself is told to bless our things --"the goods we was given"-- and to bless "our standard of livin'." In between is the usual "God bless America" we hear at the end of presidential speeches.

Usually, it is Randy Newman giving us cynical songs about careless Americans whose attitude is that the world is a paper cup-- there for their convenience and disposal-- with songs like "It's Money That Matters" and "My Life is Good." Here, it is Simon taking the voice of a heedless, feckless boor.

Who is, nevertheless, having a good time. Until he truly runs that body down.

Musical note:
The sax solo is by jazz bebop virtuoso Phil Woods, who has recorded with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Thelonius Monk. But you most likely know his solo from Billy Joel's song "Just the Way You Are."

Valerie Simpson, of Ashford and Simpson fame, does the backup vocals on this track, too.

Next Song: You're Kind