Trail of Volcanoes

The Jonny Cash song "Ring of Fire" was not the first incident of that expression, It was initially used, as early as 1906, to describe the somewhat circular series of volcanoes that dot the shores which ring the Pacific Ocean.

A different trail of "volcanoes" is meant here, though.

The opening verse-- of just four-- refers to carrying one's guitar "down to the crossroads." In the lore of the blues, this is where one meets the Devil, to sell one's soul to him in exchange for talent and success in a Faustian bargain. This is how Robert's Johnson's seemingly miraculous mastery of the blues guitar in a mere three years was explained; Johnson died at 27, making him one of the earliest members of the grim "27 Club." 

The list of musical references to crossroads is as long as the Devil's tail, and includes the title of Eric Clapton's box set; every act from Cream to Rush to Lynyrd Skynyrd to Dylan has covered Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues."

Simon says he carried his guitar "down to the crossroads," but then, "over the sea." This is likely a reference to his first trip to England and the beginnings of his folk music career... but also to everywhere in the world he has toured and recorded, from South Africa to Brazil.

We know this because the next verse is global in its scope: "Now, those old roads/ Are a trail of volcanoes."

Except they do not erupt with lava. These are "explosions" of "refugees." A rundown of sources of refugees as of this 2023 writing: Syria and Afghanistan in the Middle East, Ukraine in Europe, South Sudan in Africa, Myanmar in Asia, and Venezuela in South America. Pretty much every continent.

But, in a larger sense, Simon says, aren't we all refugees? Wasn't he one, sort of, when he left his declining pop music career in the US for a folk music career "over the sea" to the UK? 

Lastly, he speaks of volcanoes, refugee crises, and his own life, saddled with two kinds of regret at once. One, that he did so much "damage" at all. And, two, that now there isn't enough time to sweep up the ashes, reassemble the scattered communities, or make "amends" for all the eruptions he has caused.

Maybe he was a refugee of a kind, but what kind of refugee crises did he cause? Whose lives did he uproot, whom did he make to flee in panic? And, realizing now that he may have done so, there is not even time enough left to apologize, repent, heal, or make reparations. After all, this year he will turn 82 in the fall. 

Next Song: The Sacred Harp

Tell Tale Heart

This song is named, of course, for the famously eerie Edgar Allan Poe story. A murderer would get away with it, as he hides the body beneath his floorboards. But he hears the victim's heart still beating, ever more loudly... and he imagines his impromptu guests do as well. He is tormented by their nonchalance-- surely they must hear it too, and are taunting him with their blase chitchat! How it ends, you likely know; if not, I am not one for spoiling an ending.

Simon, writing here as Landis, uses the image of a heart that gives the game away as the inspiration for a romantic tale.

The speaker begins by explaining that, while he notices his ex-girlfriend with her new beau, with whom she is seen "everywhere," he only "pretend[s]" indifference. "Foolish pride makes me hide/ My tell tale heart." In fairness, simple good manners would probably dictate the same course of (in)action. She knows how he felt for her, but it's over-- what good would his mentioning it do?

He has moved on as well, it seems. But again, all is not as it seems beneath the, um, floorboards. "Other cheeks close to mine/ Make believe I can deceive/ The tell tale heart." This is unfortunate for his new significant other as she is led to believe that she has his full attention and affection, yet does not.

Through all of this deception, he knows his own truth, and he is now starting to believe that his masked emotion is not very well masked at all. His tell tale heart is going to tell tale-- or as we say now, "tattle tale"-- on him.

Here, the music, which was smooth and Latinate and accompanied by a hushed vocal, shifts dramatically into surf rock. "Many a romance may break up," our speaker realizes, "Many a teardrop will fall/ But the beat-beat-beat of a tell tale heart?/ That is the worst fate of all."

The "beat-beat-beat" in the case of the Poe story, and in the case of this tale, serve a similar purpose-- to reveal a secret that the speaker feels may be no secret at all. "Everyone can see through my outward calm and innocent mien; they all know my guilt," each feels.

At least our speaker has the nerve to admit to himself that, "Deep inside, I still know/ That I love, love you so." His conclusion? "It's clear I need you near/ This tell tale heart."

Be that as it may, he does not have very many practical options for resolving his situation. He would have to overcome several obstacles-- ending his new relationship, getting his ex to end hers, and then making it work now with someone it did not work with before.

Yes, he must move on. But first he must get over her, or risk having his love for her poison every relationship he has going forward. And first of all, he must admit to himself that he is not over her, a realization his relentlessly throbbing heart has driven home.

This is a remarkably sophisticated song, even beyond its literary reference. In a very short space, Simon has sketched out a classic tale of love, longing, and regret. It is full of pain and sadness, and even fear... of being discovered, and having his personal anguish leak out and hurt others.

This is a very emotionally mature and self-aware work, especially from one so young.

Next Song: Little Doll Face

Our Song

In 1957 and 1958, Simon and Garfunkel were still known as "Tom & Jerry." They released some singles under that moniker in those years, collecting them in an album called simply Tom & Jerry (10 tracks, two of which are instrumentals). I cannot find the release date of this album definitively, only one site that estimates: "1958?"

Since we have, in this blog, been dealing with whole albums as much as possible, we will discuss these songs in the order in which they appear on this album, not in the order in which they were released prior to that as singles.

The first song on this album, "Hey Schoolgirl," has already been discussed, since it appeared on a box set. So we move directly to the second song, titled "Our Song."

Musically, it starts with a howl of sadness, stretching out the vowel in "She's go-o-o-one." Then it jolts into a speedy clip, about as fast as "Wake Up, Little Susie," which it sustains until the end. The song is certainly a rock song, but there is a touch of country twang in some of the guitar solos.

The song itself is about that special kind of torture that happens when a song that was "our song" is caught coming out of the radio, long after the "our" has ceased to be. The speaker is trying to move on, but the radio will not let him, so he is upset with "every DJ on the radio."

He mentions a practice which I am not sure still exists, that of "playing dedications." A listener could call in to a radio station and request that a certain song be played, "dedicated" to a certain other party the listener was sure was also listening. In this way, people could flirt, strengthen a relationship, tell a third party to back off, or even break up, depending on the message the given song contained. Someone might dedicate a song to an entire group, such as one's fellow graduates, as well. The DJ would say something along the lines of: "And here's "Earth Angel," dedicated from George to his angel, Martha."

In our speaker's case, the song he shared with his girlfriend is one popular enough to be dedicated with regularity. So he not only keep hearing the song, but mentions of couples who still share the song, while he no longer does... adding to his torment: "He (the DJ) doesn't know/ That once upon a time/ Our song made two hearts chime/ When you loved me so/ Won't they ever let me forget/ The day that we met."

Then comes a two-line bridge that seems out of place: "What will our friends say/ When they know that you've gone, gone away?" How would they know, relative to the content of this song? By the lack of his dedicating the song for her? By his reaction when the song comes on once again?

Functionally, the line only serves to remind the listener again of "Wake Up Little Susie," which it resembles strongly, and which contains the line "What're we gonna tell our friends/ When they say 'oo-la-la'?"

Our song, "Our Song," ends with this sliver of ironic hope: "...somehow I know/ She's bought the radio/ That's playing our song." He's fairly certain that she is not coming back, but at least she has to listen incessantly to this now-painful song, too. He doesn't want to actively make her feel bad, but if she does...

Next Song: That's My Story

The Shine

Paul Simon is listed as the third writer on this track. The first, naturally (this is on his album), is Harper, is son with his first wife, Peggy Harper. The second? His second wife, Carrie Fisher. With three writers' ideas involved, this is the longest track on the album (it's also in 3/4 time, appropriately enough).

It's incredible that these three people are able to write a song together, given their tangled histories. But perhaps not so surprising that the song is a break-up song full of regret, a number of the "how did we let it fall apart?" variety.

It begins with the idea of twilit space, "between waking and sleeping/... where the land meets the sea" (shades of "Scarborough Fair": "...find me an acre of land/ between the saltwater and the sea strand.") There, speaker says, "the shadows are keeping/ the shine that you once kept for me."

It's an interesting idea, taking the idiom "she's taken a shine to you" and imagining that "shine" as an entity of its own. The time between wakefulness and sleep is also the time of stars and moons, which also shine, and which appear in the next verse. Their shine is outside, however, while his former lover's, from her "sun" has "abandoned [his] room."

There's a line in the film The Philadelphia Story in which a man tells his would-be lover: "You're lit from within," and that idea mirrors the next set of images: "Your luminous smile.../ glows from your bones deep within/ Auroras were born on your skin." Women have been described a "radiant" before, but this woman is almost radioactive in her intensity.

Next, we have some technological imagery, relating to the speaker's regret. He wishes to "rewind our lives" as if it were a videotape and "erase the danger with a magnetic pen." This verse loses the light-based metaphor of the previous verses, but perhaps there is no way to convey a return in time with such imagery. Light is light, yesterday as today.

The next verse has a very simple, but very poignant couplet: "Maybe I didn't love you the way that you wanted/ But I've never loved anyone more." Well, we found the "danger," then, didn't we. This relationship was doomed from the outset; while the amount of love was never in question, the way the love was conveyed was not what its recipient required.

"It dazzled from your sun to mine," is how that love was transferred. Perhaps that was the problem. A sun does not need to receive light, and so both participants in this relationship were so busy "shining" love forth from themselves, they did not stop to receive any of it from the other. "I've never loved anyone more" sounds wonderful, until you realize that too much light is not necessarily illuminating but, after a point, a blinding light (compare to a "deafening noise").

The speaker concludes that he needs some, as we say today, "alone time," now that he realizes that "nothing I say seems to change your mind." Again, perhaps what he should be doing, instead of saying anything, is listening.

Unfortunately for a song that has been fairly lovely to this point, it ends on an unsavory joke. The dismissive expression "(stick it) where the sun don't shine" tells the listener to please deposit his opinion in a part of the human anatomy that is, shall we say, rarely in need of sunscreen.

Had the song ended, "Everywhere I look is just a canyon/ Where the sun will never shine," well, fine then. It would have been sad-- and fitting, since the bulk of the song was about being in his lover's "shine," and now he is relegated to the shadows.

Instead, the last line is about a canyon "where the sun don't ever shine." This "don't," I'm sure, is meant to merely sound casual, which was a wrong choice on its own, given the lovely poetic language we have had thus far: "The stars are all laughing and twinkling/ In a language they share with the moon." Sadly, instead of simply being colloquial, the word conjures up the above colloquialism.

Up to this point, the song is as pretty a break-up song as they come, a lullaby a heartbroken soul sings to himself as he fitfully drifts off to sleep, alone in the dark, after the shine has worn off.

Next Song: The Girl For Me

[Note to readers: This concludes Simon's current output to date. As was discussed, when this point was reached, this blog will circle back around to Simon's first, 1950's-early 1960's work... and progress forward again until his first official Simon and Garfunkel album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., until the promise in the blog's title-- Every Single Paul Simon Song-- is fulfilled.]

Everything About It Is a Love Song

This song moves backward and forward in time. It is about the inevitability of regret, which itself is an aspect of memory, of looking backward through time. Since we can't actually go back in time, all we can do is promise to try to not make that mistake again in the future.

But we will make some mistakes, either that one again or a brand new one. And so we know now that we will, in the future, regret some of what we do now. Regret is inevitable.

The song starts, however, with another of Simon's musings about the difficulties of songwriting. As early as "Kathy's Song," he spoke of "words that tear and strain to rhyme." Here, we see the problem complicated further by the additional dimension of music: "Locked in a struggle for the right combination/ Of words in a melody line."

But, once we have heard the song once through, this is not about songwriting at all, but living. The melody is time-- once defined, it proceeds along in its pattern. What changes, what the artist is more in control of, is the wording. The "melody line" is set; what he is looking for is the "right combination/ of words" for it.

The song is mostly set, if it has a place, in Simon's own head, "[his] imagination." Specifically, along the riverbank," a combination of land and water, like solid words and flowing melody. He also imagines combinations in the sky, with "golden clouds" intermingling with "sunshine." As he is "locked in a struggle" of words versus music, maybe he imagines the ease with which land and water, sun and cloud, simply get along, and wonders if he can do the same with word and music.

Then comes the first mention of (imagined) time travel, married with regret: "If I ever get back to the 20th Century... With its catalog of regrets." He knows there were things that should not have been done but were, and vice versa. His plan, should this occur?

Repentance. It is too late to ask forgiveness, evidently, from some of the people he wronged. So, he says, he will have to "think about God/ And wait for the hour of my rescue."

But what about the future? It will be much the same, inevitably: "We don't mean to mess things up, but mess them up we do."

And then there is an image of younger lovers at at birthday party. "Make a wish and close your eyes/ Surprise." This is, of course, the source of the title of the entire album.

But what is the "surprise"? Well, everything! The next second is, in fact, entirely unpredictable. There could be an earthquake or a phone call or a car crash or a new baby (like the one on the album cover) that was complete unexpected, but changes everything. So "make a wish," and plan, but don't expect it to come true in the way you though it might or should. Every next moment, there could be a "peek-a-boo."

If the opening of the song was about the struggle to assert control over one's life, by now that idea has been somewhat abandoned as, at least, impractical, and at most, foolhardy.

Nevertheless, life must be lived, and so Simon continues to write. Even though he knows he has lived most of his life already-- "Early December... Frost creeping over the pond"-- he continues to create: "I shoot a thought into the future... through my lifetime and beyond."

(But who or what is "brown as a sparrow"? Grammatically, it refers to the speaker: "Brown as a sparrow... I shoot..." I am not sure why he would be "brown," especially in the winter. It may refer to the other meaning of "brown," as in "in a brown study." Or it may refer to the "frost," which is usually thought of as white, but when still thin and clear, would be the color of the muddy water of the pond it covers. Overall, the verse recalls "Hazy Shade of Winter" in its imagery.)

Earlier, Simon imagines going back in time. Now, he imagines going further forward than his own death, to his reincarnation. "Resurrection" means "coming back alive as yourself," while here he means "reincarnation," coming back as, he shrugs, "a tree or a crow/ or.... dust."

In "That's Where I Belong," Simon says he belongs "on a dirt road." Here, he says if comes back, you can "find [him] on the ancient road." Where will he be? "In the song, when the wires are hushed." We assume he means the electrical and telephone wires along the road. Such wires hum, but Simon says that noise would block the sound of the song that would otherwise be audible-- the sound of nature, the sound of, well, lack of wires. Interesting that he feels that this is where his self-song lies, given that this album is is exploration of electronic sounds! But we know that Simon's true love is acoustic music; maybe he is reassuring us, and himself, of that fact.

"Hurry on and remember me," Simon urges. Don't wait for him, just move forward and claim your own future (Is this line to his children? His audience?). He will "remember you," too, as you leave him behind. But is it more important to go forward than to go together.

Now, Simon returns briefly to the "golden clouds" of the earlier verse... only to rush upward, "above" them to outer space. This place was once though empty but now, we know, it pulsates with dark energy and other radiation: "the darkness vibrates." And what does every astronaut see? "The Earth is blue."

The poet Archibald MacLeish, seeing photographs of Earth from space, remarked that our home is "whole and round and beautiful and small." Simon sees things musically, and says, "Everything about it is a love song."

This song starts off about the "struggle" of words and music, then continues about the struggle between life and our attempts to shape it. Almost immediately, Simon realizes that Nature has no such struggle. Nature doesn't worry about the words fitting the music. It just... sings. And by the end, Simon knows that this is where the music is. It's in the hush of the man-made, binding wires. It's in everything that is there without us having put it there.

But what about regret? Well, how can there be any, when everything was always... a surprise?

Musical Note:
On electric guitar is experimental jazz-guitar master Bill Frisell. His music integrates everything from folk and country to classical and world sounds. He is a virtuoso at finding new sounds in his instrument, wielding technology with a craftsman's touch.

Next Song: Outrageous

Lazarus/Last Drop of Blood

(Note: This time, the "/" does not designate two songs being discussed in the same post-- it is part of the song's title.)

Lazarus has been part of Salvador's story ever since his mother consulted the Santero (fortune teller) back in Puerto Rico. "I see [Salvador] staggering through the desert/ But he must not break his chain/ Till Saint Lazarus, in his mercy/ Turns his thirsty soul to rain."

Well, Lazarus has popped up now and again, but here, he has his first full song. And Salvador has been in the actual desert, jumping parole ("breaking his chain"?) to meet with his lover, whom he had so far only known through letters.

Lazarus appears to Salvador now and tells him that his past is still very much with him-- "Your shadow like a cape"-- and that there is no escape, no joining with his lover, until he starts his "confession."

As if this is not enough riding on the matter, Lazarus tell him that there are immigrants waiting to come into America who will not do so until he confesses. A chorus, perhaps these huddled masses on the Rio Grande at the Mexico-US border, sings: "Break a branch to cross the river there/ To deliver us salvation." Surely, this is meant to also evoke the biblical River Jordan, all that lies between the Wilderness and the Promised Land.

Until now, and as we saw in the previous song, Salvador has always maintained his innocence. But is it the murder that is Salvador's sin? Or is there more?

Salvador's response is to go on the offensive. He says that, if he is a sinner, then he has nothing; "That's all a sinner receives." He says even his freedom does not amount to much, although it was enough to "light" the way across the country. (We also learn that Lazarus was disguised as a "stranger" on the bus the whole way, and only now has revealed his true nature.)

Now, Salvador comes to his point, and recalls the Santero's prophecy: "Where is the rain you promised me?" Oh, yes, Salvador says in effect, you thought I wasn't paying attention, that I was just a "monkey-wild" kid, but I was listening! And then, he says, he waited in prison for 16 years, and no longer believes in "childhood's prayers."

Lazarus shoots back: "You killed and then you smiled." So Lazarus does believe that Sal killed that fateful night. And that yes, even after all the loss and all the miracles of his life (his sentence being commuted from death to life, his eventual parole, his finding love, etc.) he has still not dealt with reality. All of this suffering has been for naught, and all of these gifts have failed to make him see the truth.

Or did it? This verse is key, so I will quote all of it:
"I know remorse would be a river/ In the desert of my heart/
Whose loss is God, the giver/ But my tears won't start./
The State of New York imprisoned me/ The State of New York will set me free/
I break this chain, its pain and memory."

Salvador understands what Lazarus means. He killed and smiled... but he should have wept! He was defiant and defensive, when he should have been remorseful and regretful. The Santero was not talking about actual rain, but tears! How else does a "soul turn to rain"?

Salvador did kill those other teens that night. He has spent the last decade and more denying that he did and, if so, so what? He spent his years blaming everyone and everything from his poor fathering to poverty to racism.

And now Salvador says to Lazarus that he knows that he should cry, and for what reasons-- remorse, confession, re-connection with God, relief, release. He knows he should cry, but he won't. The State-- not God, not his crime-- is what locked him up, and so when the State releases him, he will consider himself "free."

But while Salvador has finally unlocked the Santero's riddle with regard to "rain," he has yet to realize that the "chain" part does not refer to his literal prison shackles or the State's hold on his physical freedom. His chain is the guilt of his crime. He says he has broken his chain, but he has not. For words cannot break it, only tears.

The Santero's prediction is still valid. Until Salvador repents and cries, a chained prisoner he shall remain. Not as a punishment, just a natural consequence. To use another metaphor, you can cover a stained shirt with a jacket and pretend the stain is not there. But you can only remove the stain with soap and effort.

At this point, a voice from the past is heard. It is the mother of one of the victims. She wishes she had died that day, and every year lights a memorial candle on her son's birthday, "for the life he never tasted." Then she tells Salvador: "I've grown weary... but I'll never be at rest/ 'Til the murder that you did is paid for/ With the last drop of blood."

Lazarus has still failed to turn Salvador's soul to rain. And so Salvador's chain remains unbroken. Now Lazarus tells Salvador the price of his intransigence: "Go live in an empty room/ And study the wallpaper... No wife, no child... Let your solitude frighten your neighbor."

"...And write in your book," Lazarus continues, mocking Salvador's literary pretensions, "How arrogant you are/ how ordinary." Then, this, again the logical end to his inability to atone: "Neither pardon nor parole/ Will ever bring you peace."

The chorus moans again for "healing" and "salvation." But none comes.

Next Songs: Wahzinak's Last Letter/ Puero Rican Day Parade/ El Coqui (Reprise)

That Was Your Mother

The television show How I Met Your Mother is a hit, but I am not sure that the how-I-met-your-mother story told in this song would have made for a popular sitcom.

For one thing, the speaker is not exactly father-of-the-year material. His priorities are decidedly not family-oriented, and he seems too willing to share personal information with his son. Whom he addresses as "Dude."

As with any story, we must have a setting and characters. The place is Lafayette, Louisiana, named after the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of American independence. However, he was French, so it makes sense that a French-settled area of America would choose to name a town after him.

The time? Before the child being addressed was born. Was his future father lonely and longing for family life? Not exactly: "I was still single, and life was great!" He then explains that he chose a job that made him rootless.

He finds himself in this Southern town. Today, the population is 120,000, but at the time the song is set it was far fewer; the census shows 40,000 in 1960 and not even 70,000 in 1970. Even though he is a "travelling salesman," he was raised in a city (he considers himself a "city boy") and is therefore not impressed by the size of the place.

It is big enough, however, to draw an act the magnitude of Clifton Chenier, largely considered to be the father of zydeco music. This is a raucous, accordion-based party music, heavy on the saxophones and washboard percussion, and it is as much a part of New Orleans culture as the spicy food and spicier Creole language. (This song itself is set to such music.)

Our salesman has some time to kill, so he is looking for a bar. He would like to "get a little conversation," hopefully with "those Cajun girls." (Is this something a child needs to know about his father?)

However, he never needs to get to a bar. His hopes are answered by chance: "Along came a young girl/ She’s pretty as a prayer book." (While one hopes that his father is attracted to his mother, the attraction might be more than physical, one would have also hoped.)

The father continues, relating his reaction: "If that’s my prayer book/ Lord, let us pray!” (By now, the son is thinking: "Too much information, Dad!")

At this point, the first-time listener of the song is let in on why any of this is being discussed altogether: "Well, that [the pretty woman] was your mother/ And that was your father." It is at this point that we realize that this entire discourse was a reminiscence on the listener's parents' first encounter.

And now, as if life wasn't "great" enough when the father was "single," the son has to hear this: "Before you was born, dude/ When life was great." "OK," the son thinks, "I get it-- things are more fun before you have adult responsibilities. That's a fairly universal idea, even if it hurts to hear it from one's own father. If anything," he concludes, "I will be sure to enjoy my own pre-fatherhood years as much as you did, Dad."

But the father is not done. "I sure do love you," he says to his son, but "You are the burden of my generation... let’s get that straight."

"Wow," the son thinks. "It's really important for him that I know how much of a 'burden' I am to him, and how 'great' his life was when he was 'single' and 'before I was born.' If he hates this life so much, why did he ever choose it? And once he knew he hated it, why did he stay? I'd almost rather he'd left-- and let me be raised by someone who didn't think of me as a weight he was carrying."

Meanwhile, the father is lost in his reverie of recollection: "Well, I’m standing on the corner of Lafayette/ Heading down to the Lone Star Café/ Maybe get a little conversation/ Drink a little red wine/ Standing in the shadow of Clifton Chenier/ Dancing the night away."

"That's it, Dad," fumes the son to himself, "Just cards for you on Father's Day from now on."

Musical note:
The track was recorded in Crowley, Louisiana, some 20 miles from Lafayette.

The band on this track is a zydeco standby called Good Rockin' Dopsie and the Twisters. The accordion is played by Alton "Dopsie" Rubin, Sr. and the drums by Junior. Another son, Dwayne, is also an accordion player with his own band.

Chenier died in 1987, a year after this album was released. He also was succeeded by his son, C.J. Chenier, who still plays and records.

It seems that the fathers related to this song were better at fathering than the fictional father described by the song itself. Maybe if our salesman had watched the musicians instead of the dancing girls...

The song samples a track called "At a Darktown Cakewalk" by one Charles Hale. I can only assume that it dates from when "Darktown" was an acceptable name for a certain part of town (turns out that was 1899). A "cakewalk" (now an expression meaning "an easy task") was a competition at which couples would compete for a fancy cake by dressing to the nines and strutting their stuff, promenading to music; the winners would literally-- and yes, this is where the expression originates-- "take the cake."


Next Song: All Around the World, or The Myth of Fingerprints

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.

This is another story of a "crime." Not a hate crime, as depicted in "He Was My Brother," but a common, poverty-motivated robbery. Only this time, the speaker is the criminal himself.

If Sgt. Friday of TV's Dragnet would ask for "just the facts," they are these: On a "winter" Tuesday evening, a man "held up and robbed a hard liquor store." As far as we know, no shots were fired, and no one was injured. The robber left with "$25" and change. He is now hiding in his girlfriend's apartment, with plans to continue to flee in daylight.

But the song is about more than the crime. It is about the criminal and what-- if anything-- he was thinking when he did his foul deed.

The song tells an entire story, starting at the middle, going back to the beginning, then forward to the future. It starts with a man in bed with "the girl that [he] loves[s]." She is asleep, and peacefully and "gently" so. It seems he has not told her of his crime, or-- we imagine-- she would be having some reaction to it.

In describing her, he reveals he is somewhat a poet: "And her hair, in a fine mist/ It floats on my pillow/ Reflecting the glow/ Of the winter moonlight." He clearly thinks she is beautiful, and refers to her with the word "love" twice.

Meanwhile, he is awake and agitated; his "heart remains heavy." He lets us know that he must "be leaving" with "the first light of dawn." And only now, halfway through the song's four-verse length, does he shift to the past... and let us know why.

He speaks as if quoting the news, saying that he has "committed a crime/ Broken the law," perhaps imagining how his act was seen and categorized by others, for he cannot understand it himself, in his own terms.

Then he takes his own voice again, referring poetically to the small change, the "pieces of silver" he stole (see also "Bleecker Street"). This is both to wonder aloud at the inexplicability of his act-- he now must become a fugitive and give up his lady-love... and for what, this measly amount?-- and to recall the "pieces of silver" for which Judas betrayed Jesus.

Yes, but who did our robber betray? The store's owner? His girlfriend? Society at as a whole? Or... himself? He has betrayed his image of himself as a law-abiding, moral person, one with a commitment to another person at that.

Again, for what? It seems his initial motivation was poverty, but is $25 going to help? We know from earlier that "$30 pays your rent on Bleecker Street," so this amount is not going to even cover a month's rent in the cheapest neighborhood.

The song leaves us with a man whose mind is torn in three directions. One is to enjoy the brief moment of peace he has now; one is to try to figure out why he did what he did; and one is to plan his next move, how to "leave."

But he is torn in another way-- in half. His image of himself is now completely broken. In court, character witnesses are called to say of the accused that such an upstanding person could never have done such a low-down thing. But, called into witness against himself, the robber is appalled at his own actions: "What have I done? Why have I done it?" Yes, he was poor... but now he is not only no less poor but also on the lam, lovelorn and homeless. So what was it all for?

The rational part of his mind is left with no recourse but disbelief: "My life seems unreal, my crime an illusion." He even imagines some clumsy outside entity forcing his actions, making his act an "act" in the dramatic sense: "a scene, badly written/ In which [he] must play."

Ultimately, Simon has sympathy for the criminal he has created. Society must take some blame for leaving such a creative mind with no employment, leaving his only choice desperate acts like thievery. He also tries to grasp the criminal's detatchment from his own actions, the "How does I have done such a thing?" and "I could never have done such a thing!" feelings.

The listener is left with as much remorse for the criminal as he has for his own acts. Before, he had no money, but he did have love in his life. Now, he has barely enough to get on a bus out of town, and he must leave behind all that he holds dear.

The message is not that "crime doesn't pay." While the song does show the negative consequences of criminal behavior, it never takes on the moralizing tone of a parental warning: "See what happens when you rob a store? Let this be a lesson to you not to try something so stupid yourself!" The song does not end with the robber turning himself in, returning the money, and doing his jail time.

Rather, the song is simply, and hopelessly, sad. If it has a message, it's that some people, no matter how hard they try to improve their lot in life, cannot. Society does not value their potential contributions, and they have no knack for anti-society, crimimal success. They are left homeless, hopeless, and alone.

Next: The Cover Songs of Wednesday Morning, 3AM