The Sacred Harp

This song, or Psalm, is both the only one in this collection with a recognizable narrative, if a brief one, and a cast of characters. It also the only one I see that directly refers to the idea of, or the creation of, the Psalms the collection itself is named for. 

Aptly enough, the song is introduced with the words "a change of mood."

Only, within the song, this refers to a change in the weather. This sudden downpour is inconveniencing to those riding a truck through it, but much more so to the hitchhikers they pick up-- a mother and a son.

Reluctantly, the truck driver and his significant other offer them a ride "as a highway courtesy." They admit they are not going that much further today, but will arrive at a place their passengers can find a room out of the rain.

The mother replies, her accent in "a blend of regional perfumes" (when Simon is on, he is on). Rather than saying where they are headed, she says: "We have no destination/ The moon and the stars/ Provide us with our homes."

As so we meet more of Simon's aimless wanderers. We have encountered them in "Me and Julio" ("Well, I'm on my way/ Don't know where I'm going") and "America" ("Walked off to look for America") and "Duncan" and "Cloudy" ("Hitchhike a hundred miles/ I'm a ragamuffin child") and "The Coast" and "Homeward Bound" and "The Boxer"...and that's just off the top of my head. I bet I could find a dozen more if I went song-by-song through his entire catalog, from "Somewhere They Can't Find Me" to "That's Where I Belong."

You could probably get at least a Master's Thesis out of an examination of the trope of the "wanderer" in Simon's songs, but they probably all trace back to the life of a musician constantly on tour. Although in Simon's case, he sometimes is busy chasing a sound from South Africa to Brazil, happy to follow where it leads. 

Back to the song at hand. The woman says they are not going toward anyplace as much as away from one. She calls she and her son "refugees" from her hometown, explaining: "They don't like different there," to the degree that she feared for their lives. By "different," she means her son, who has stopped speaking-- except "to the voices in his head." The son nods in agreement.

Then there is another "change of mood." For the next verse and a half, the speaker speaks of King David's "sacred harp" (finally paying off the title), saying, "We long to hear those strings... the ringing strings/ The thought that God turns music into bliss." 

Yes, the simple reading is "Ah! The very thought-- God turns music into bliss!" But I prefer to read it: "The thought that God [uses to] turn music into bliss." 

Because now it makes sense, at least to me, to bring up the whole David-and-Psalms business suddenly, in this story about picking up hitchhikers. I feel that Simon is saying that the voices in this boy's head are like the ones that inspired David to pick up his harp and write the Psalms.

The latter Psalms are hymns, written by David to be performed as worship in the Holy Temple (which God told him he would no longer build after his sin with Bathsheba. David instead used his remaining days to prepare the materials-- both solid and intangible-- his son Solomon would need to build and operate the Temple). 

But the early Psalms? Many were desperate pleas by young David for God to save him from the wrath of King Saul, who had been told by the prophet Samuel that David-- not Saul's own son Jonathan-- would succeed him as king. Saul's response was to bring the full force of the royal army down on the head of this shepherd boy, the very one who sang him out of his own melancholies. 

These early Psalms were the songs of, well, a refugee. And, like all songs, they were the manifestations of an internal voice the writer heard.

And now, here, in our speaker's own truck, was such another soul. Also hounded from his home for the crime of being "different." If only people would listen to the thoughts this boy had, instead of using them against him...

The last two lines of the song are even more enigmatic. Evidently, their truck is now... home? "We left the pick-up in the driveway." The only places that have driveways you can leave a vehicle in are private houses (a hotel or condo would have a parking lot or garage). They are either back home, or at the house they were headed toward. So what's the problem? They went to a house. 

But a house would be in a residential area like a neighborhood or suburb, not a place where homeless hitchhikers would likely find "a place to stay" as promised. So did they drop them off at a shelter...?

In any case, they had guessed that by the time they dropped them off, the rain would have dissipated into mere mist. At that, they guessed right. Because now the riders disembark from the truck to regard the moon "in the mist." 

The other of the last two lines is: "The moon appeared as amber." Amber, of all the gemstones, is the one that has organic origins. It is the fossilized sap of dinosaur-era trees. Its source was something alive, and we can hold it now, millions of years later. 

The encounter with the woman and her withdrawn child have had an impact on them, so they can't sleep even after their long journey. Instead, they look up at the Moon, knowing that, like amber, it was there in the time of David. 

Maybe someday, this boy will be able to write down what he hears in his mind, and instead of being feared as a pariah, he will be revered as a poet. 

People yearn to hear a sacred harp, so why do they never know one when they do hear one?

(Note: This is a very different use of the Biblical David than what Leonard Cohen had in his song "Hallelujah.")

Next Song: Wait

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

The Mission

(Well, I said if I found more Paul Simon songs, I would post them, and I did... so here they are. Two more. One more this week, and another next week.)

This song is from The Capeman. More pointedly, it is not from that musical, as it did not make it into the final version or into the Lyrics book. It was posted by a very good fansite, paul-simon.info, so thanks go to them for this find.

It is clearly intended for the musical, as it mentions Puerto Rico, but aside from that, not much is clear about it. It seems to take place during Salvador's parole-violating journey to see his pen-pal girlfriend in Arizona, since Tucson is mentioned.

Frustratingly, the site does not explain which character gets which bit of dialogue; it is unclear who is speaking (or singing) several of the lines. All we can know is that Sanchez introduces himself, and extrapolate from there. It may be that they simply take turns... or as in normal conversations, there may be a pause, after which the same speaker re-initiates the dialogue.

The song seems to have been left out due to the its introduction of a new character, who hesitantly calls himself Sanchez, who is not heard from otherwise, and the lack of their interaction advancing the plot at all or even revealing much about Salvador's character. Other than he is nervous, being on the lam and all. Which we knew.

The interaction, such as it is, takes place somewhere with a dirt floor. Perhaps in Arizona itself, on the way to his girlfriend's reservation (she's Native American). One of them does observe that "the desert gets cold at night."

The only other hint is the song's title, "The Mission," which seems to serve double duty. It means the mission  of love that Salvador is on... but also the building he finds himself in, one of the missions, like The Alamo, that dot the American southwest. An abandoned one may provide a roof and walls, but perhaps no more than a dirt floor for sleeping.

Sanchez, as we discover he calls himself, says he comes from "Canada" and works out of Tuscon. Salvador responds, falsely, that he is a "traveling salesman/ Pick-up and deliveries/ I'm waiting for someone/ He looks just like you." Which may be his explanation for being willing to converse.

Sanchez, picking up on Salvador's reluctance to talk, assures him: "No need to advertise ourselves to the local population." Sanchez does rightly guess that Salvador is from Puerto Rico, asking if he is headed there.

He also offers Salvador part of his food, possibly as a gesture of trust, since Salvador admits: "I've seen you watching me/ Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm paranoid/ But I've got my reasons/ My fears..."

The song closes with the following exchange as they say their good-nights and bed down:

A: The desert gets cold at night...

B: Still, Heaven is in your sight.

A: Isn't it strange that we came the same distance/ Just a coincidence?

B: Maybe so. Maybe it's fate that tied us together.

A: I ain't tied to anything.

B: I'll see you tomorrow.

A: Amen to that, my friend. Amen.

Speaker B is quite religious, speaking of "Heaven" and "fate." If it is Salvador, this is a bit out of character. Even if he is excited to be out of jail and to see his girlfriend, why is he using religious language to express that? He could simply speak of being happy and eager.

More likely, Salvador is the guarded, cynical Speaker A, who speaks of the desert being cold, coincidences, and not "being tied to anything." He may throw B the bone of an "Amen" at the end to make up for his aloofness and to signal that, while not religious himself, he does not dismiss the other's faith, thus ending the exchange on a warmer note.

Again, it is not hard to see why this was left out of the production. Aside from the sad rhyme of "snack" and "back," the whole piece is unnecessary. Sanchez is superfluous as a character, and we already know Salvador's place in the plot and his state of mind.

Next Song: Smile

Let's Make Pictures

This dreamy, breathy melody is prescient of "Cherish" by the Association, or perhaps that was a throw-back to this earlier sound. (Again, the author is "unknown," but the song is on a CD of Jerry Landis reissues.)

The song opens with a chorus of women singing what sounds like an ad for a vacation: "Sunlight shining on snow-capped mountains/ Lovers strolling by sparkling fountains."

But the speaker then reveals that this is a vacation he takes in his mind... when he is in the embrace of his beloved. "Close your eyes, I'll close mine/ Kiss me/ Let's make pictures, pretty pictures tonight."

With his eyes thus closed, he anticipates the serene scenes he will imagine: "One by one, soon they'll come/ I see pictures when you're holding me tight."

So intense are these images that he prefers them to both visual reality and any sort of auditory input: "Don't wanna hear bells ring, bird sing/ Like some other lovers do."

Lest the person kissing and holding him feel left out, thinking perhaps his flights of fancy are solo excursions, he clarifies: "I just wanna see those pictures of my future with you."

The other notable feature of this song is that Simon/Landis speaks some of the lyrics, as in the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." This was not a precursor to rap, as the lyrics are not read rhythmically, but simply read, the way an actor might read his lines.

The song portends to sophistication, but is clearly the work of a teenager trying to sound mature. But that's the case-- he can't afford to take his girlfriend to Tahoe to see sunlight glinting off snowy peaks, let alone to the famous fountains of Tivoli near Rome.

All he can do is visualize being able to take her to these resplendent romantic vistas. Luckily, he has a vibrant imagination and the poetic gifts to express it. Also, a girlfriend appreciative that he wants to take her to such pretty places, and might have the ambition to pull it off.

Every success begins with a dream, and she inspires him to lavish dreams. Maybe they will only make it as far as Coney Island or Niagara Falls. But wouldn't you rather be there with someone who thinks that it's just grand... than someone who grouses their way through Paris, muttering about prices and waiters and traffic?

Maybe this couple grew up into the one in Simon's song, "America," imagining their way down the highway from Michigan to New York on a Greyhound: "Laughing on the bus/ Playing games with the faces."

Even now, while they are just making out on the couch, he is able to transport them to the Riviera. So, it's only in their minds-- where, after all, is their love?


Next Song: One Way Love

Aeroplane of Silver Steel

There is nothing wrong with experimentation, with trying something new. Edison is said to have told a reporter that, no, he did not fail more than 5,000 times when trying to find the best light-bulb filament. In fact, he did not fail even once! Rather, he said, he successfully proved that those 5,000 filaments did not work.

This song, "Aeroplane of Silver Steel," does not work. If it were an "aeroplane," it would not fly. It is at once too childish and too over-reaching in its attempts to be mature, like a toddler shuffling about in his father's loafers. Even the spelling "aeroplane" hints at the European, archaic ambitions-- no mere "airplane," this!

The structure is pop-operatic, like "Memory" from Cats. The guitar work is hyper-dramatic and Latinate, a flamenco or tango. So the whole effect is that this was a song left out of Man of La Mancha.

"Aeroplane of silver steel high in the night/ Someday, I shall soar with you in your flight," the speaker begins. "Never has another flown as high as you and I." This is high-flown poetry, indeed.

"I shall fly my own plane high above." Now, what will that rhyme with? "The earth which holds me while I'm dreaming of/ Roaring through the clouds, and speeding fast, to my love."

Now, the song makes a sudden break from its soaring rhetoric and strummings, and finds a cha-cha rhythm. All of that... stuff was introduction. Now we are onto the subject itself. Which is-- what happens when the plane lands? Well, our dashing Red Baron is not coming empty handed!

"To bring her chocolates/ To bring her candies." Well, that's thoughtfully, if predictably, romantic. Anything else in the cargo bay? "To bring her herbs and tasty spices that she can cook." Ah. Well, all the early explorers sought the Spice Islands. But... cook for whom, exactly? Some hungry pilot, hmm?

"To bring her ribbons/ To bring her laces." Our Flying Ace have been to both the Spice Islands and the Silk Road, it seems. This is one domestic little lady he has. I mean, I'm not seeing any diamonds or furs on the manifest. "To bring her tingling silver to fill her pocketbook." Close. But why "tingling?" Did he mean "jingling?" Or is this money that is begging to be spent?

This list is repeated. Then, not leaving the faster rhythm, the first verse about the aeroplane is repeated. And the song ends.

In general, three kinds of people fly their own planes. One flies for business, whether spraying crops with chemicals or entertaining festival crowds with stunts. One is the rich playboy who flies for both business and vacations; the plane is fun, but mostly just a convenient, luxurious method of getting where the fun really is.

The third is the weekend pilot for whom his plane fills the same function as another man's speedboat, motorcycle, or off-roader-- simple thrills.

Then there is the speaker. His airplane-- excuse me, "aeroplane"-- is just a long-range shopping cart. He seems to enjoy the sensation of soaring, but mostly the vehicle is his method for procuring expensive items with wish to lavish his (rather domestic) lady love. No, the internet has not been invented when this song was written. But mail-order catalogs had been.

Perhaps he wishes to travel, like George Bailey of It's a Wonderful Life. And he wishes his wife had more adventurous tastes in goods and travel, but is too much of a homebody to actually spirit off to Gay Paree or The Mysterious Orient or the sultry bazaars of The Levant.

So this is his compromise. He will fly to Far-Off Lands... and bring their bounty back to her! But nothing too exotic. He hasn't brought back any furs, but also no tiger-skin rugs. No diamonds, but no anklets or nose-rings, either. No artifacts or handicrafts. Just "chocolates" and "spices." (It could also be that the speaker was not a reader or movie-goer, and had no real knowledge of the huge variety of exotic items Far-Off Lands offered, even to 1950s tourist.)

In any case, even if she still isn't inspired to follow him, at least he isn't tied down to Levittown.

So why doesn't this aeroplane reach the clouds? Our speaker has an imagination big enough to imagine limitless possibilities of travel... but not enough imagination to know what to do with so much opportunity. He's a would-be swashbuckler, but as a New Yorker cartoon of a middle-aged pirate had it, he's "too much buckle and not enough swash."

And so the song's lofty ambitions are also unfulfilled. With a soaring melody and a fantastical metaphor, all it can come up with is... dinner and dessert. And a sewing project for the weekend.

Next Song: I'd Like to Be

Express Train

And with this number, we come to the end of Simon's brief run with Tico and the Triumphs. For now. If we have learned anything at this point, it is that "new" old material seems to keep being discovered!

T & the Ts seem to like vehicles, and we have already had a song about a "Motorcycle." This time, we get the sound effects of a train gathering speed, accompanied by these young men doing their best train whistle and brake: "Woo woo!" and "Tssh!"

Songs about trains are as old as trains themselves, and it is hard to find a genre, from folk and country to soul and hip-hop, that doesn't refer to them. Simon himself would (much) later have a song called "Train in the Distance"... in which he also sings "woo woo!"

Here, the Triumphs (with Simon on lead) sing "Clickety-clack, clickety-clack/ The train comes on the railroad track," and the listener thinks, "OK, but when does the 'love' part show up?" They do not disappoint; the next line is "I'm on my way and coming back to you."

While many train songs are about a ramblin' man who leaves, this is about one who is coming back: "I'm just a rolling stone/ But I've been missin' your sweet kissin'/ Now I'm coming home."

The expression "A rolling stone gathers no moss" is an old one, and it means that if you want to keep from atrophying, you have to keep moving. However, many in the rock-n-roll world take this to the extreme, understanding that staying put at all results in growing mold instantly. Instead of, say, it having a positive connotation like "settling down" or "putting down roots."

Instead, we have the Muddy Waters song "Rollin' Stone," the megastar band The Rolling Stones, the major rock magazine Rolling Stone, and the Bob Dylan epic track "Like a Rolling Stone."

Back in our song, the speaker expresses his urgency at coming home: "I'm on my way/ Taking the express train," meaning a non-stop trip. It costs more, usually, but he is in a hurry to get back to his love: "I'm gonna meet you at the station/ What a celebration!"

And now, we wait for the other shoe to drop. He's a "rolling stone," after all, and will soon be on his restless way again.

Except, instead, not. "I'm gonna give up all my traveling," he vows. "Didn't like it, anyhow," he admits. He closes with another expression of urgency to arrive home: "No more waiting, hesitating/ Nothing stops me now/ I'm on my way." Well, that's refreshing. A song about a ramblin' man who's done ramblin'!

Simon would later write, in a sense, a longer, deeper version of this song: "Homeward Bound." In that song, the singer (for the speaker is one) at a "railroad station" decries his wearisome traipsing about and longs to be taking the train he is waiting for "homeward" instead of yet another gig where he will "sing his songs again."

So many of Simon's songs, in fact, bemoan his loneliness and road-weariness, including some from the One Trick Pony soundtrack. He doesn't really have a song like "On the Road Again," saying that he likes constant touring. Even in "That's Where I Belong," he speaks of longing to be on a "dirt road"... but with a destination in mind.

And yet... he is constantly touring. Simon is in his 70s, and still out promoting his latest album; he was recently in the farthest points of the Far East and down Down Under way.

There is a PhD thesis waiting to be written about singers who leave home to sing songs about wanting to be home. Maybe in Literature... maybe in Psychology.


Next song: Get Up and Do the Wobble

Wildflower/ Wild Flower(s)

As with "Motorcycle," there is some disagreement among anthologists as to whether the title is one word or two (it is sometimes incorrectly pluralized as well; the "wildflower" in question is an individual woman).

There is also dispute as to whether to credit it to Simon as Jerry Landis (which is accurate) as part of Tom and Jerry (wrong) or Tico and the Triumphs (right). The roughness of the sound and multi-voiced backing harmonies clearly mark it as a Tico track, this time with Simon on lead. But, since there are too few Landis-penned Tico songs to make an entire album, these are usually included with other Jerry Landis or Tom & Jerry compilations, adding to the confusion.

The song itself begins with pounding the tom-tom drums and "shave-and-a-haircut" beat of a Bo Diddley song, and then gets even more... exotic, as we shall see.

The lyrics are about another "Runaround Sue" type named Mary Lou, although it doesn't seem that she runs around to other men. Rather, she is simply possessed of a wanderlust, albeit one of addictive proportions. "She was a wanderer through and through... Like the wind she would roll around."

The chorus explains that her "wild" nature, while attractive, is not conducive to a stable relationship: "She wasn't the type to be settlin' down... Wildflower, come back to me!"

Mary Lou was not the type to simply pop over to New York or Las Vegas for a weekend now and then, either. She traveled "far from home... on her wild shores/ far across the sea."

Soon enough, the inevitable happens. Mary Lou leaves on one of her epic jaunts... but with no sign that she expects to return: "One day when I came home/ I looked around and she was gone."

As distraught as the speaker is-- "I cried about her every hour/ How I love my wildflower"-- he cannot have been all that surprised.

What makes this particular song astonishing, however, is that the instrumentation-- the driving percussion, the reedy musical bridge-- and the mentions of distant lands are not the only parts of the song that give it an exotic flair.

It's the middle third of the song, comprised of lyrics in another language. To my ear, they sound Hawaiian. In any case, there seem to be two lines, each repeated multiple times, something like "Man-gu-ne ma-ku-la-ne" and "la-ha-na-gu-na, la-ha-na-gu-ne." But don't take my "words" for it-- find the song on YouTube (incorrectly identified as a Tom and Jerry track) and let me know if you can translate it.

That Simon was including non-English lyrics in a song as early as 1962, I again assert, astonishing. Those who point to "El Condor Pasa" and "Mother and Child Reunion" as precursors to Graceland are off by several years! Further, using foreign words in a folk-music standby, but it would be interesting to see how early this phenomenon took place in a pop or rock music context.

At his age when Simon wrote the song, it seems, the very idea of traipsing about the globe seemed impossible for him to fathom. So isn't it ironic that Simon himself became someone who explored "wild shores" so "far across the sea" as South Africa and Brazil to find the sources of the music of his youth.

Perhaps he did know a "Mary Lou" who, in showing him the excitement of travel, served as a role-model. If so, aren't we glad she did?


Next Song: Express Train

Questions for the Angels

This song ranges across many spectra, from poverty to wealth, from human to animal, and then from human to divine. As the title indicates, it contains many "questions," and as they are meant for "angels," perhaps it is foolish for us to expect answers.

The central image is a "pilgrim," one on a spiritual quest. Not just a journey-- a pilgrim is headed toward a destination, usually a shrine. At this point, we do not know what this is, merely that it lies on  one side of the Brooklyn Bridge, presumably the New York side. We also know that he is poor, as we wears "torn" shoes.

It is dawn, "when the homeless move their cardboard blankets." This is how time is told in a city, not by, say, the crowing of a rooster. Image-wise, we are back on "Bleecker Street."

He has two questions on a piece of paper. The first one is philosophical: "Who am I in this lonely word?" As if his essence was defined by others-- if he was not lonely, he would know who he was. But he is lonely, and he does not. In the version in In the Blue Light, the word "lonely" becomes "frightened," so it is fear blocking his self-knowledge.

The other question is practical: "Where will I make my bed tonight/ When twilight turns to dark?" (The question mark is improperly placed, in the website and liner notes, at the end of the word "tonight." It is properly placed, in the Lyrics book, after "dark.") It is only dawn, and yet he worries about his sleeping place for the coming night. As well he should, being alone in the world.

The speaker shrugs, sighing that these questions are for the angels, and who believes in those? "Fools and pilgrims all over the world," he answers himself.

In his series of essays published as The Myth of Sissyphus, Camus posits that hope and despair are equally absurd, since the future is unknowable. Given two equally absurd choices, he chooses the one that leads to life and not, as he puts it, suicide. So he uses wisdom and logic to wind up in roughly the same place this speaker does, on the side of hope and angels, even if both know the viewpoint is not substantiated by fact and never could be.

The speaker's next question is about love-- if you lower your romantic expectations and "shop for love in a bargain store," do you have the right to be disappointed? "Can you get your money back?" The question is moot. Even if you shop for love at Tiffany's, and "you don't get what you bargained for," you not only can't get your money back, but you may have to pay an attorney additional money just to be rid of your relationship.

His next question is about the life choices: "If an empty train... calls you... can you choose another track?" This question might well be directed, instead of at the angels, toward the pilgrim, since he travels, "lonely" as he is, alone on an "empty train." Could he, instead, choose another track instead of his pilgrimage toward no shrine, even if he felt "called" to this life?  Just because we are called does not mean we have to accept, after all. (In the In the Blue Light version, the train calls its "final destination," and I think we'd all like to change trains instead of riding our last one ever to the, um, end of the line.)

The penultimate question is not rhetorical or sarcastic at all. In it, the speaker finally reveals something about himself: "Will l I wake up from these violent dreams/ With my hair as white as the morning Moon?"

Wait, what "dreams"? Or are all of these images taken from his nightmares? The lonely, poor "pilgrim," the "bargain store" for love, the vacant "train"? In what way are they "violent"-- do they have a fearsome quality that is not readily observable?

A lone, aimless quest... a relationship that lived down to its low expectations... a train void of passengers-- these may well be haunted dream images. They speak of stark isolation; no other people appear in them, at least none that are interacted with. They are as stark as Hopper paintings.

The question comes again, "Who believes in angels?" This time the answer returns, "I do." The speaker now counts himself among the "fools and pilgrims."

Speaking of which, where is our pilgrim now? He is noticing a billboard, on which Jay-Z, the rap mogul, is pictured "with a kid on each knee." He isn't selling music, however, but "clothes that he wants us to try."

The image might recall that of the Virgin Mary, with the babies Jesus and John the Baptist, one on each knee. Or it just may be an image that caught Simon off guard-- here is a man who made his money on lyrics about crime and punishment, pride and prejudice. And now he wants to position himself as a father figure and fashion arbiter.

If nothing else, this pilgrim with "torn shoes" is miles away, in many senses, from the image he sees. But this is not the shrine he seeks in any case, as he is only "passing" it.

The last "question for the angels" is this: If the human species became extinct instead of another, would a given zebra "care enough to shed one zebra tear?" Given that this meant his hide was safe from becoming a wall hanging, probably not. He might wonder where all the camera-slinging tourists and gun-toting poachers went; probably not. But you don't need an angel to tell you that.

Still, if we don't matter to zebras, and-- as the song indicates-- we don't matter much to our fellow humans either, then, well,... who do we matter to? We matter to someone, right? Must be angels, then. We need to believe in them, if only to feel that someone believes in us.

This subtle track sounds lovely, almost lullaby-like. But the images it presents and the questions it raises are haunting. Simon hasn't been this chilling since "Poem on the Underground Wall" or "Patterns," only this time instead of impending dread, the mood is eerie emptiness.

Musical Note:
One interesting instrument on this track is the celetse, a proto-piano with metal plates instead of wires. The other is a marimba, a xylophone with resonators, or tuned tubes, hung below the wooden bars, as on a vibraphone.

Next Song: Love & Blessings

Dazzling Blue

This is a jaunty song, as happy as "Feelin' Groovy" or "Born at the Right Time." It is also, if you just read the lyrics, one of Simon's finest promises of love.

The opening verse, however, is hesitant. "Silence is revealing," the speaker muses-- nothing is a secret anymore, not with the Internet and the "CAT scan's eye." There are shades, here of feeling that technology is a double-edged blade, a sense discussed earlier in "Boy in the Bubble" ("lasers in the jungle," etc.). "Now-a-days," (a word not used much, now-a-days!) the speaker continues, "everything is known." And that is somewhat good, and somewhat not, but a fact nevertheless; now we know we know what is "truth or lies" even if no one says anything.

Similarly, whether love is an "accident" or "destiny," the speaker says, "You and I were born beneath a star of dazzling blue." Are stars randomly accidental or divinely predestined? It matters not-- the star is dazzlingly beautiful, as is this love.

The next verse contains an echo of "Kathy's Song": "Worlds apart on a rainy afternoon." Back then Simon threw his hands up at creating music under such misery, saying his words "tear and strain to rhyme," so upset is he with being apart from Kathy. But now, music is the answer to loneliness: "Turn your amp up and play your lonesome tune" (a phrase that starts off like a line from "Late in the Evening.")

Another interpretation of this verse is that the couple is physically close, trapped in the living room under the same rain cloud, but "miles apart" emotionally. The line "miles can't measure distance" may imply that physical distance is not meant here.

However, the line about "the road" implies that one or the other (if this is Simon speaking, his wife is also a musician) is on tour. And, while music is the reason they are apart, it is also something they share, and that binds them, even across "miles."

The bridge is a twist on the old line "Roses are red, violets are blue." Here, the star is blue, but the "roses" are "red," and then there is the "fine white linen" of their "marriage bed." A bit more adult than "sugar is sweet and so are you"!

As important as the bed is "a wall that nothing can break through." The idea of a marriage needing a "wall" around it is not a new one. Real life assails it on all fronts, and a couple must be united in defending their fortress. (But how different a wall is this from the "walls, steep and mighty/ That none may penetrate" constructed by the speaker in "I Am a Rock," who defends himself from love!)

So many things bind this couple. The sense of being born under the same star, the love of music, the mutual devotion to protect their marriage from outside assault... and one more: memories. The last verse is about a drive on Montauk Highway, on Long Island. The couple leaves the car to walk "along the cliffs above the sea."

Together, they "imagined it was someday." Which sounds like a marriage proposal, and what a pretty spot for one. "And that is how the future came to be."

But first, "they wondered why." And no answer did they seem to find. But that, perhaps is the point. Now that we know everything... what do we know, really? We don't even know why things are to begin with-- "accident" or "destiny"?

Turns out, it doesn't matter. They found each other, and they are happy about that. Do you really need to know why the star is dazzling blue-- isn't it enough that it is?

Musical Note:
The background harmony vocals are performed by Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, are a bluegrass/gospel group. As a pre-teen and soon after, Lawson taught himself to play mandolin, banjo and guitar. After playing in several other bands, he formed Quicksilver in 1979. And in 2012, he was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. (Also on the track are a dobro and fiddle, traditional country instruments.)

The rhythmic background vocals are performed by Indian singers and musicians, who also play a two-headed pitched drum called a tabla, and a clay pot.

And, for good measure, Simon himself chimes in, literally, on glockenspiel.

Next Song: Rewrite

Trailways Bus/ El Malecon

This song is one of the finest in the musical. The tone, the Latinate music, the imagery of travel, and level of poetry recall "Hearts and Bones."

Lazarus first joined our story when he is invoked by the Santero way back in Puerto Rico: "I see him staggering in the desert/ But he must not break his chain/ Till St. Lazarus in his mercy/ Turns his thirsty soul to rain." Then the Santero (fortune-teller) and Lazarus sing: "So this, then, is the future/ From which no man can escape."

Lazarus has kept quiet from then until now, showing up only for one verse in "Jesus Es Mi Senor," when he also sang of deserts and thirst. But until now, Salvador has been in Puerto Rico, then the barrio, then jail. Now, he is is going to the desert. He has broken parole (his "chain"?) to see the woman he fell in love with only through her letters to him in prison. She is a Native American, and she lives in the Southwest.

Now that Salvador is going to the desert, it is fitting that Lazarus shows back up to narrate the entire song "Trailways Bus" (track 13, the last one on Songs from The Capeman). This is not Simon's first song about a long bus trip, which would be America. Here, instead of Michigan to New York, the trip takes Salvador south, then west. He might not have gone straight southwest-- via, say, Kansas City-- to throw off the authorities, sure to be in pursuit.

Instead, he hides behind a "magazine" and a "sleepless pillow." He finds himself in "farmland" in between New York and DC, and even sees a "farmer." Also a couple with a "two-month-old" baby. He imagines their lives. Is he jealous? Does he think they are jealous of what they might imagine is his single man's freedom?

As they pass through DC, "the shadow of the Capitol Dome," the source of all laws (including the many he is breaking), ominously "slides across his face." 

"His heart is racing," Lazarus tells us, and Wahzinak is also breathless. She sings that she "has no money to come east," and it is the fleeing killer who must use his untraceable cash to wend his circuitous way to her.

As they go through Dallas, they pass another landmark, the infamous "grassy knoll" that figured in the assassination of JFK in that city. His life has likewise been shut off by death, and he relates to the city's being "away from the feel and flow of life for so many years."

But coming along the Southern border, while it may have helped him avoid pursuit from the North, created another potential problem-- patrols trolling for illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico. They board the bus and single him out simply because he is Hispanic. "Any aliens here?" they taunt. "Yes, I am an alien from Mars," he retorts. They let him go; is it his New York accent?

But even though he has escaped capture again, Lazarus tells us, "He can't leave his fears behind," as he replays his crime again and again in his mind. 

Speaking of memories, the brief freedom Salvador feels recalls one he felt as a child in Puerto Rico. On a smaller island, due east, called Vieques, is a beach called "El Malecon." This word means "an embankment" along the sea, especially one, used as a leisure boardwalk (the most famous one is in Havana).

The rest of the song is laden with images of the stark color of the setting: a white sky and Spanish mission, a black highway and his mother's hair, "dark as the sea at night." He recalls his birth father, Gumersindo, harvesting sugarcane. Meanwhile, his mother was "watching over us"-- meaning himself and his sister, Aurea-- as they played with her in the sand and "filled her skirt with shells." 

It seems like an idyllic scene. Yet Salvador remembers also dreaming of leaving there: "All the big boats used to come/ I called myself their captain/ And dreamed of the day I'd be gone."

If a beach is confining, what must a prison cell feel like? And then his cramped bus seat. But soon, so soon, he will spend two weeks in actual freedom.

Next Songs: You Fucked up My Life

Spiral Highway

This song, unreleased until recently-- when it appeared as a bonus track on the re-release of the One-Trick Pony soundtrack-- is a rough draft for "How the Heart Approaches."

The end of this song makes it clear, as it includes the entire chorus "After the rain on the interstate," here used as a verse. And then this: "Then I think it’s strange/ The way the body turns/ And how my heart approaches what it yearns."

Again, the song does not appear in the film or on the original release of the soundtrack; this is fine, since it not only repeats lines that ended up in a stronger song, but it also is another bemoaning of the travails of the road musician. Still, it contains an interesting idea or two, it shows another way a song could have gone, and it is a pretty number in its own right.

The most famous road that bears the name "Spiral Highway" is in Idaho. It winds around a hill, from the base to the summit, wrapping itself up and up-- or, I suppose, down and down, if you went in the other direction. Here, however, it serves as a metaphor.

In "Jonah," the speaker refers to "traveling around this circuit." This song takes that image to its logical extreme, and imagines the entire highway system as one endlessly looping Mobius strip: "Ride the spiral highway one more round," goes the chorus.

Then it gets specific: "Every bar and grill/ Every greasy spoon/ Anywhere a quarter buys a tune," the last phrase being a reference to jukeboxes. The repeated starting word "every" (employing a rhetorical device called "anaphora") recalls "Homeward Bound": "Every stop is neatly planned... And each town looks the same to me... and every stranger's face I see..."

Here, however, the thing that is repeated, aside from the music, is also another kind of performance. The idea of a "local call," and a "pink motel," Well... who are we calling, locally? Not the family, not the wife back home. Probably a groupie who was friendly last time through. And the motel is "pink" because is a not a business motel or family-friendly place, but one reserved for a rendezvous.

But even this repetition becomes meaningless: "Any time the strain begins to tell." The constant moving, setting up, breaking down, playing the same songs in the same kinds of places-- even the exact same places-- eventually takes its toll. And now even the after-show entertainment leaves a sense of "been there, done that."

Then we meet the "bone-weary traveler" watching "headlights slide past the Moon." But here, there is no longing passion to balance that image ("I dream we are lying on top of a hill..." Rather than the absent but desired lover in "How the Heart Approaches," we have a lover who is there, but no passion between them. Here, she is very "locally" ensconced in a "pink-"sheeted bed, with the exact opposite effect. Yes, here is a live a person... but no passion.

At this point, the lines "Then I think it’s strange/ The way the body turns/ And how my heart approaches what it yearns" come in. Oh, has he learned his lesson? Has the traveler answered the question "Where's he going?" with the word "Home"? Has he "turned" his "body" and started to finally "approach" what his "heart... yearns" for?

Um... Not exactly. The song concludes: "Ride that spiral highway one more round/ Ride that spiral highway one more round." He is "turning," he is "approaching" but he is not aimed anywhere. He is not yet finished with literally going around in circles.

Next song: All Because of You

America

If this song depicts travelogue, it takes place over a relatively small slice of a very large country. The speaker-- we assume it is Simon himself, as his travelling companion is Kathy, presumably the same one as in "Kathy's Song"-- started (as far as we know) in Saginaw, MI. It took him "four days to hitch-hike," from there to... where it is they are together boarding "a Greyhound [bus] in Pittsburgh." The only other location we are given is "The New Jersey Turnpike." Obviously, they are travelling east.

If they are only seeing one part of the country, then, do they mean when say they are "look[ing] for America"?

If they were looking for the "real America," as in the small towns of the Heartland... well, they were closer when they were in Michigan to begin with. They went past Philadelphia, too, so they are not looking for America's birthplace or a sense of its history. They are not looking for the tourist's America, the one comprised of a checklist of natural wonders and national landmarks; they do not go to Mt. Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, or Niagara Falls.

But one need not have a map or a GPS to know that Simon is from New York, and that's where "America" is for him. And, if you travel from Pittsburgh east along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you hit the New Jersey Turnpike, which takes you north to New York City.

But he's not there, yet. The song ends with him still on the road. In the first verse, it's "we... walked off to look for America." Then Simon tells Kathy: "I've come to look for America." Then, almost to their probable destination, Kathy has nodded off, but Simon tells her anyway, "I'm lost." He has "look[ed]" and "look[ed]" and is still "lost". Then Simon projects his sense of being lost to the rest of the travelers on his highway: "They've all come to look for America!"

No wonder he can't find it. No one else can, either. All they can do is travel the highways, looking.

Along the way, we learn about their relationship from the details provided. They throw in together willingly; they smoke and read magazines. They like to pass the time by improvising intrigues about their fellow passengers: That fellow is just too self-consciously stuffy-looking, with his "gabardine suit" and his "bow tie"-- he must be a "spy"!

And, just as Simon notices the Moon, we must notice how he evokes the roundness of it with the assonance of the long O. He sees it as it "rOse Over an Open" meadow [capitals mine]. He doesn't say, yet he shows, that this is a full Moon.

Simon doesn't realize it, but he has found America... in that he hasn't. America, after all, is less a place than a state of being. And that is a state of yearning, of being pulled forward toward an endlessly receding destination. "I'm empty, and aching, and I don't know why."

The whole trip is about moving. He didn't live in Saginaw, he hitch-hiked "from" there. He didn't visit Pittsburgh, he "boarded a Greyhound" there. He does not mention his destination, but he also makes no mention of relocating there or staying there for any length of time.

This is the unlike his feeling in "Kathy's Song" and "Homeward Bound," in which he yearns to be somewhere specific he is not. Here, he knows he is not home, yet he can't seem to imagine where that could be, either.

Then where his is home, such as it is? He tells us that in the first verse: "I've got some real estate here in my bag." His home is the road. George Carlin explained, in his famous "Place for My Stuff" routine, that a house is "just a pile of stuff with a lid on it." Well, Simon's "place for his stuff" is in his bag. All he needs is some junk food, cigarettes, and a magazine... and he's set.

As he approaches New York, Simon should feel excited. After all, as the song goes, if he can make it there, he can make it anywhere. Instead, he is filled, as it were, with emptiness. This isn't going to be any better than anyplace else, he just knows.

But this is the "place" that is America. America is less a noun than a verb. You can't "look for America"-- America is a state of looking, searching, seeking. A Greyhound bus never ends up anywhere; it just takes you to the next town.

One last note on the song's structure; it seems loose, as the rhymes are non-existent, yet it adheres to a rather strict waltz cadence.


IMPACT:
A beautiful song, and a favorite of S&G fans, if not one of their most recognizable hits on the level of "Mrs. Robinson," "Bridge," or "Sound of Silence."

Even though is its very much about, and is even titled, "America," the fact that the song depicts tourists allowed the very British acts David Bowie and Yes to imagine themselves as the protagonists in their cover versions. 

Next Song: Overs

Homeward Bound

Many of Simon's songs are enigmatic and elliptical, but not this one. It's about a bad case of homesickness, and Simon can't say it more plainly: "I wish I was homeward bound." (This is not to say that no one can say it more plainly; in the Beach Boys song "Sloop John B," they sing, even more simply: "I wanna go home.")

The song's straightforwardness does not mean it is not artistic. Like Springsteen and Harry Chapin, Simon is a keen observer of detail, using concrete images to evoke the crushing monotony of life on the road: "Every day's an endless stream/ of cigarettes and magazines... And each town looks the same to me,/ the movies and the factories." (A very good, very similar song, is "The Road," by Danny O'Keefe, popularized by Jackson Browne.)

The speaker, if not Simon himself, is someone in the exact same situation. He likens an endlessly touring musician to an itinerant lover, calling his gigs "one-night stands." The irony is that he moves from place to place, singing the same song over and over... about what? About going home! Why, what's there? His actual "love," who "lies waiting, silently, for [him]."

(The fact that his love waits "silently" is interesting, considering Simon's stated opinions of the dangers of silence, as in "Sounds of Silence." Here, it is probably best interpreted as "uncomplainingly.")

This is the core Catch-22 of the life of performers-- to make their living, they must travel... but the reason they make their living is to support their loved ones... whom they never see, because they are travelling. (Pierce Pettis' excellent song "Envelopes of Light" addresses this same tension.) Going back to the image of lovers, these "one-night stands"-- even if they involve no actual sex with groupies-- feel like a form of infidelity. He is sharing, through his songs, his deepest thoughts and dreams... with "strangers."

Aside from his lover, two other things are at "home." It is "where [his] thought's escaping." This colloquial grammar gives two meanings to this line. One is that home is a place where his thought can "escape," or roam freely (as in the last entry, "Cloudy": "my thoughts are scattered... they echo and they swell"). The other, more likely, interpretation is that home is where his thoughts are escaping to.

The other thing that home provides is a place "where [his] music's playing." But wait... he is on the road to play his songs: "Tonight I'll sing my songs again." Why would his music be playing at home?

Ah, but his he really "playing" on the road, or just "playing" at it? The rest of the line is: "I'll play the game and pretend." His performances on the road are perfunctory and forced, it seems, while at home, his music practically plays itself; the line is not "Home, where I play my music" or "where my music is played," but, "Home, where my music's playing."

The phrase might also mean where his "music's playing" in the sense that his favorite music is playing, either the literal music he enjoys hearing (as opposed to making)... or, metaphorically, where the sounds of his family's lives and voices are more like music to him than the stilted, forced music he plays on the road.

Even deeper, home is where his own internal music is playing, where he "sings his own song," as it were, and does not simply function (as he does on the road) as a walking jukebox. Singing, say, an old doo-wop number at home might end up being "[his] music playing"-- his own emotional state being revealed in melody-- more than his singing a song he actually wrote, but without any genuine emotion attached to it.

The usual grammar allows for such interpretations. Things don't just "escape," they escape from or to somewhere... and music doesn't "play," children and puppies play, and music is played. But at this magical place called "home," such considerations are suspended. Thoughts can simply "escape," and music can "play" like a kitten.

But he is not home. He is on the road. And while he is out there, performing the role of happy performer, he feels his lack of sincerity affects the songs themselves. He sang to Kathy that he'd been "writing songs [he] can't believe," and now that he is out performing them he says: "my words come back to me in shade of mediocrity, like emptiness in harmony." Harmony, which involves more than one voice, should feel more full, but it does not.

French author Jean Giradoux famously quipped: "The key to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made." Well, our performer can no longer fake it (we will discuss the issue further in the song "Fakin' It"). He is "all pretended out," and he wants to come home to a place of authenticity... of real, not fake, sincerity. As Simon later sings, in "Keep the Customer Satisfied": "Gee, but it's great to be back home/ Home is where I wanna be/ I've been on the road so long, my friend."

One need not be a travelling performer to feel this way. Those in business who work long hours, teachers who tuck their children in and then grade papers and plan the next day's lessons, doctors and clergy forever on call, soldiers and salespeople and truckers and athletes who are away for months at a time... many can relate to the feelings to disconnectedness Simon relates in "Homeward Bound." They perform the same tasks-- which they perhaps did once enjoy-- again and again to support the loved ones they rarely see. When they'd rather just be home.

No doubt this is why "Homeward Bound" is one of Simon's most popular compositions. Its world-weariness and homesickness are easily understood and appreciated. Its message that home is where "love lies" is at least as old as the lyric: "Be it ever so humble/ There's no place like home."

One last note: Simon describes a rail depot as being an appropriate performance space for "a poet and a one-man band." That phrase evokes Simon himself incredibly well, encompassing his songwriting and musicianship both. I'm surprised no one has yet used it for the title of a biography of Simon; perhaps he is saving it for his own memoir.

IMPACT:
As noted, "Homeward Bound" is one of Simon's signature works; no compilation of his output is complete without it, certainly every collection of Simon & Garfunkels' work includes it, and many budding guitarists learn to play it. They performed it on The Smothers Brothers show in the late 1960s... and The Today Show in 2003.

Simon also has been on Saturday Night Live many times. One of his most memorable appearances came in 1976, as musical guest alongside George Harrison; they performed this song and also Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun." Their version of "Homeward" was included in a 1990 compilation released as a fundraiser for Romanian orphans tiled Nobody's Child.

The British duo Chad & Jeremy, whose folk-based sound may be considered "soft rock," covered the song on their 1966 album Distant Shores.

There even is a UK-based Simon and Garfunkel tribute act that calls itself "Homeward Bound." For the curious, they are on YouTube, but I do not vouch for their skills.


Next song: The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine