Old

"Summer leaves and my birthday's here/ And all my friends stand up and cheer/ And say, 'Man, you're old!'" Now, Simon's birthday is in October, and when he released this album, he was 59 (he was born in 1941, and the You're the One came out in 2000.)

Since this accusation has been leveled "down the decades, every year," Simon finally decides to "stand up" in response. He's not "old," he says... relatively speaking..!

He begins his argument with the assertion that you can trace his age though comparison to some of the landmarks in rock'n'roll. "The first time I heard "Peggy Sue" I was 12 years old," he says, and "First time I heard "Satisfaction," I was young and unemployed." 

But he may have overstated his case. Simon turned 12 in 1953; "Peggy Sue" was not released until 1957, when he was 16. At least he is less specific about the Stones' hit, which came out in 1965, when Simon would have been 24. Simon and Garfunkel has released their first album the year before, but it was not successful; Simon recorded his solo Songbook in 1965, so this is more accurate. It would be one year more before "Sound of Silence" and he would never have to worry about employment again.

What about his other historical milestone, "Russians up in rocket ships" during the Cold War (when "the war was cold")? Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961. So Simon was 20 by then, not "12." But Sputnik, the Russian (and first) satellite, was launched in the same year as "Peggy Sue"-- 1957. 

OK, enough fact-checking. Four or even 14 years here or there is nothing to whine about. He's 59, give him a break. The point is, he's not "old." You want old? He'll give you old!

How about Jesus' birthday, Christmas? That's 2,000 years ago... now you're talking old! And... Buddha! That's 6,000 years ago! Even Mohammed's time was 1,500 years ago.

Notably absent from this list of religious figures is Moses. Which is surprising, given the fact that Simon himself is Jewish. He readily acknowledges this fact in songs like "Hearts and Bones." Then, here, he does mention "The Bible" and "The Koran" has being "old." And maybe you could argue that "The Bible" covers both Judaism and Christianity, but still. Of the three "Western" religions, Judaism is oldest-- twice as old as Christianity. So his point about relative ages would have been strengthened by mentioning Abraham, say.

(Simon then adds his advice to the question of fights and wars that have dogged the Christian-Jewish, Muslim-Jewish, and Christian-Muslim relationships for millennia: "Disagreements?/ Work 'em out." Oh! Of course! Why didn't anyone think of that?!)

But Simon is not here to broker peace treaties. He is too busy racing backward through history... Humanity "has walked the earth for 2.7 million (years)," he says. I am not sure what standard of "humans" he is using, but fine. Then he goes back to the Big Bang, "13-14 billion" years ago. 

OK, now the closer: "Consider that The Lord was there before Creation." So, what does "old" mean to Simon? "We're not old/ God is old." 

As for himself? Well, the whole human race has not changed noticeably since it showed up in the first place. "Take your clothes off," he says, and you'll see "Adam and Eve." Everything human from "war" and "genocide" to "Buddy Holly" continues as well. 

Simon's Bookends album came out in 1968, when he was 27; on that album, he recorded the song "Old Friends," in which he set the bar for what he considered "old": "How terribly strange to be 70." If you know Simon, don't remind him. In 2012, he turned 71.

(Paul McCartney, meanwhile, has long since passed the mark of "When I'm 64"; that song came out in 1967. And McCartney is only a year younger than Simon.) 

Musical Note:
Steve Gadd, Simon's longtime musical collaborator, is the drummer on this album.

Next Song: You're the One

Darling Lorraine

In 1959, a doo-wop quartet called The Knockouts released a song called "Darling Lorraine." This is not that song, which is your typical "I love you, I need you, whoa, whoa" fare.

This, instead, is a song of almost unrelieved and unremitting sadness. It's about a mismatched couple. Frank, our protagonist (a "hero" he is not), describes Lorraine as "hot," "cool," "light" and "free." And himself as, well, "not." The best he can come up with is that he's "tight."

In the opening, he sees her and is immediately drawn to her. He impulsively approaches her and, "with the part of me that talks," stammeringly introduces himself as being from "New York, New York." You know, as opposed to that other New York. This nervous routine isn't working, so he puts on airs: "All my life, I've been a wanderer..." (immediately admitting in an aside that, in fact, he has lived close to his parents his whole life; in the version on In the Blue Light, he lives even closer-- the line is now "I rented a room in my parents' place.").

As in "Train in the Distance," Frank and Lorraine get married as a matter of course, "and the usual marriage stuff" (a big romantic, our Frank). Then she tells him from (as far as he can see) out of nowhere that she has "had enough." To be specific: "Romance is a heartbreaker/ I'm not meant to be a homemaker/ And I'm tired of being 'Darling Lorraine.'" (This is only the second verse, too!)

Now, a sophisticated or sensitive man might have said, "Lorraine, I love you, and I want you be happy, and to be happy with me. So if there are some changes you would like to make, I'd like to hear them. Do you want to get a job outside the home? Do you feel that I don't treat you as a whole person, but just a love object? What can I do to help you be happy?"

Yes, but this is Frank. Who hears her talking about herself and responds as if it is all about himself. "What? You don't love me anymore? You don't like the way I chew?" (Ellen Degeneres has a routine about a woman who asks her mate: "Could you please just stop that... breathing?!" Contrast this with the speaker of, say, "They Can't Take That Away from Me," or "My Funny Valentine," who finds her lovers' quirks and even weaknesses just adorable.)

Now, Frank married a woman who was "hot (and) cool" and now he tells her "You say you're depressed but you're not/ You just like to stay in bed." Again, she could have some condition that could be helped; at least they could try couples' counseling. But this is Frank, so he says, "You're not the woman that I wed... I don't need you."

After this fight, he admits to himself: "I long for your love." Then he thinks that, if not for her, he could have been a musician, since he is not a very good money-maker. And then he goes back to "I feel so good with Darling Lorraine." He may have been right, in his earlier lie, that he has always been a wanderer. His mind never stays in one place long, anyway.

In the next verse, they are reconciled. It's Christmas. She has made pancakes, then they watch the movie It's a Wonderful Life, and for an afternoon, that phrase applies. Suddenly, there is another fight. Again, in his insecurity, he immediately assumes that the worst is here again; "You're walking out the door?" This time, he says something truly awful: "I'm sick to death of you, Lorraine!"

Now, he wishes he has watched his words, or that they had tried to find the underlying cause of her lethargy earlier. Because now, "her hands (are) like wood," and the doctor's news "isn't good." It is not clear if this is some sort of paralysis or skin condition, but it hardly matters. He has been inflexible ("I'm tight, that's me"), but now she is the one who literally cannot move.

Suddenly faced with prospect of losing Lorraine forever, he becomes the caring man he always should have been. Or maybe he cared before in a way that he thought was caring, without asking her what she actually needed. Now, it's:  "I know you're in pain... I'll buy us something sweet/ Here's an extra blanket, honey, to wrap around your feet."

And then, she dies: "The moon in the meadow/ Took Darling Lorraine." It's now too late to apologize, or give her more freedom, or anything. We can only hope Frank has learned, and does not mistreat his next lover this way.

With this acerbic "love" story, Simon acidly washes away the fairy tale painted by the earlier "Darling Lorraine. Love is often not "divine," as that song promised. "Romance," Lorraine discovers, "is a heartbreaker." It sets you up for a fall, when the story (or song) ends and reality kicks back in.

It turns out, the most dangerous character in Fairy-Tale Land is no witch or ogre or wolf, but Prince Charming, an impossible man we keep hearing about as if he existed. Or maybe... maybe it's the storytellers themselves, who promise us that married couples always live "happily ever after."

A twice-divorced man, listening to a record from around his 18th year. could not help but want to set the record straight about what really might happen to "Darling Lorraine" when the song ends. To do that, he'll have to be brutally Frank.

Lyrical note: Another change to the lyrics in the In the Blue Light version is, near the end, having the moonlight strike "leaves" instead of "trees." I'm not sure it matters, but Simon felt the need to make the change, so I thought I'd mention it.

Next Song: Old

That's Where I Belong

The title implies a question. It says, "that's where..." without saying where "that" is. The opening line answers: at the "big bang," if you will, of a song: "Somewhere in a burst of glory/[Where] sound becomes a song."

The next line contains the word "bound," which could imply three meanings. One is "obligated," as in "contractually bound," taking its meaning from the idea of "binding" something with, say, rope. Another is "inevitable," as in "bound to happen."

But since the overall metaphor is one of place, we can safely assume that, while these other meanings offer some shade of insight, the core meaning is "in the direction of," as in "eastbound train."

Then we shift to a speaking of time, not place, and yet we have: "When I see you smiling/ When I hear you singing... that's where I belong" [emphasis mine]. This time, the answer of "What place?" is, oddly, "This time." The lines in between, "Every ending, a beginning" might serve as the link; both places and times can start and stop. But then, "The way you turn and catch me with your eye," is not a time or place, but a way, a "how."

And we are left with the seemingly throw-away line in the repeat of the chorus-- "That's the way it is/ I don't know why"-- to explain that there is no explanation.

The song is meant to evoke a mood, a sense of being, irrespective of time and place, a situation that evokes the lush, enveloping aromas and smooth, fleshy softness of "lavender and roses." Any place in which the subject of the song is smiling, singing, or glancing at him-- that's where he belongs. Not in a specific place at all-- but with a person, where she (we assume) may be.

Then the music becomes more active and sprightly, and we shift focus altogether. Now, meet a character. He's a "spiny little island man." Like the "fine lady upon a white horse" in the nursery rhyme with "rings on her fingers and bells on her toes," this man also will "have music wherever he goes." He can play it on his "jingling banjo," or listen to it on his "radio" when he stops.

And now we have a place where this man is. On an "island," on a "dirt road," heading ("bound," if you will) for a "river where the water meets the sky." Some sort of delta, then, perhaps a tropical one. When he arrives-- not that arriving is the point-- he will be at a nexus of earth ("dirt"), "sky," and "water."

Right in the middle of the essential elements of creation, ready for the last one: energy (The ancients were not wrong that everything is made of earth, water, air, and fire. They just used the word "elements" and those common examples, instead of what we today would call "states of matter," respectively: solid, liquid, gas, and energy.).

So when the man gets there, it should not be long before his banjo and radio summon that fourth element, the energy that will explode in an "burst of glory," and organize raw "sound" into a "song" or "story." Since songs and stories are what he seeks, that is indeed where he belongs, and where he is bound.

Now, Simon does not play a banjo, although his guitars do "jingle" and chime more than they used to. And he is not "spiny," even if he is, well, not as tall as Garfunkel and so "little" in comparison to some. And he is not an "island man," in that he was not born on Manhattan, even though his office is there now. So he is not this character.

He just wants to hang out with him, by the river delta on an island, fishing in the sky for songs. There, and with whomever he is singing the song to. These are the places he feels he "belongs."

Again, this word has at least three meanings that could apply. Two are covered by Cole Porter in the lyrics from "Find Me a Primitive Man": "Not the kind of a man who belongs to a club/ But the kind with a club that belongs to him." So "belongs" could mean "joins as a member" or "is possessed by."

But there is a third meaning, that of "this jar belongs on that shelf." This is the meaning that relates to "where," to place. Simon (and it seems he is the speaker this time) has been around the world enough times to know that the place he is going is less important that the people he will meet there. Or the songs he will find there.

Where the people who can inspire songs are-- that's where he belongs.

IMPACT:
Coming off the intense Capeman experience, Simon returned to the international musical thread of Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints on this, his 10th solo album. It went gold in the US and silver in the UK, cracking the Top 20 in both markets... and the Top 10 in Norway! It also did well in other European and English-speaking markets, and even made the Top 100 in Japan.

When You're the One was nominated for a Grammy, it made Simon the first musician to be nominated for Album of the Year five decades running. (It would take a different Paul-- McCartney-- another six years to match that mark.)

Next Song: Darling Lorraine

Sal's Last Song/ Esmerelda's Dream

Sal (and the book and song title say that the young Sal sings these lines, not the older Salvador-- to a mother, a son is always "her baby" regardless of his age) finally arrives home, to his mother's house. His first words to her are to beg forgiveness, and his words reflect Lady Macbeth's: "If I could cleanse these hands, maybe then/ I could start my life again."

His mother responds that he has "come to the end of the Santa Cruz Road." "Cruz" is the Spanish word for "cross"; perhaps she means that he has come down from the cross and that his penance is complete.

But then Salvador says the thing that he has had to say all this time: He owns his guilt. "I and I alone," he repeats four times. "I and I alone must bear the blame/ For the madness that was done/ For the shame." He even absolves the santero (fortune-teller) and his shells. "When the summer night was torn/ By the dagger of the moon/ It was I and I alone."

Esmerelda responds that she "dreamed" of his homecoming, of his face "in the light." "Let me kiss your hands, no more talk about madness." And then, like a good mama, she says, "I've been cooking since morning/ I wanted your first meal at home to be right."

Salvador hands her something: "This is my book. I've written my life story... All the things I did, for which I am sorry." And then his mother says, "It is repentance that makes good from evil." Even if no one else does, or can, she forgives him.

The last song in The Capeman is hers. In it, she tells of a detailed dream. She was sitting in "an outer room of Heaven." She was wearing her usual house dress and watching two angels-- male, soft-spoken, and blonde-- at a distance. She sees a pulpit, a chair, and transparent marble doors. There is a book on which the angels were chronicling Sal's birth. They carried a broken chain, she says, "laid it at my feet and they were gone."

What does it mean? Well, she interrupts the dream recount to ask Sal; "Do you remember [your] first communion?/ All the children with their candles dressed in white/ And once in prison, you asked me for a ribbon/ To mark the pages that you wrote each night/ Do you remember when we went to the santero/ and he said that you would suffer/ He was right." So these are the images from life that she feels are symbolized in the dream.

The two, taken together, seem to refer to the ideas of new chances and new beginnings: a birth, a first communion, a broken chain. 

The angels might symbolize the white-garbed children-- their halos, the candles. She remarks that the angels' hair is "lightened by the sea and sun." This echoes the people, and heavenly sensation, Salvador recalled at the seaside resort of El Malecon.

Their book likely is Sal's book. The empty pulpit might refer to her ex-husband, the fiery preacher. The empty chair may have been the one Salvador has been vacating. 

But she is in the "outer room" of Heaven because she is not dying and so has no reason to enter Heaven itself. The doors are marble and so impenetrable, but clear so that she can see that there is another side. There is hope.

The last things Sal sings are lines from earlier songs. One is, "I believe in the power of Saint Lazarus," who has fulfilled his promise. Now that Sal's soul has thirsted, quenching rains have been provided.

The other is (and the title of the song is the last three words of the line): "Don't tear apart this satin summer night." This was the prayer he expressed when he was young and in love, before all of the trouble started. Lazarus swore that Salvador would be alone until he repented, and he did lose Wahzinak because he had not. Now that he atoned, maybe he will find someone again.

In the previous song (above), he claims that he was responsible "when the summer night was torn." Now he says "Don't tear apart this... summer night." So who is he begging this of now? His mother? St. Lazarus? Or himself-- his own self-destructive nature? Things are finally hopeful again, he says to himself, so don't screw it up!

All of this is captured in the name "Sal," which is not in either of these songs (although it may be in the dialogue). He is not the burdened Salvador or the dreaded Capeman. He is simply, once again, Sal. As in his mother's dream, which re-recorded his birth 40-some years on, he is born again.

[Note to readers: This concludes the songs of The Capeman. Starting with the next post, we will resume discussing the songs from standard albums, starting with the songs from You're the One. Therefore, we will be resuming the usual schedule of one song per week.]

Next Song: That's Where I Belong

Tony Hernandez/ Carlos & Yolanda

Salvador is free, so he is going back to his New York barrio to catch up with the people he has known since he lived there.

First up is the Umbrella Man himself, Tony Hernandez. Hernandez was the one who brought him into the Vampire gang, and the other one who served time for the murders that fateful night.

Tony calls out to Salvador from the darkness with a compliment: "You know, it takes a strong man to survive." This is the same line he used in the song "The Vampires" to entice Salvador into the gang to begin with. Only know does he realize how right he was.

Salvador is glad to see him: "Man, I thought you were dead." Hernandez replies: no, he's "living in the Bronx." Salvador shoots back: "Same thing."

Hernandez-- not that he should, but that he might-- seems to hold no ill will toward Salvador and calls him his "Death Row brother." He is willing to meet him here-- not in the light, as that might tip off the parole board-- but in shadow, if that's what's necessary. When Salvador invites him to join him to see Carlos and Yolanda, Hernandez declines: "I don't like to see nobody, only you." Perhaps their common troubles have made Hernandez feel that Salvador is the only one who could understand him.

Hernandez continues that his father has died, but he has a daughter now-- "it balances," he philosophizes. He adds that he has a job as a janitor at an area hospital: "But there's one stain that don't fade./ You know what I'm talking about, Sal?" Yes. Yes, he does.

He wishes Salvador farewell and good luck with his writing career. Then he adds: "When I look up in the sky above/ It's like an old umbrella with holes." He was once the fearless Umbrella Man. Once. And for what?

Now, Salvador visits Carlos and Yolanda. He tells them he is OK, but "feels like a ghost." Carlos admits that he understands, having been in jail himself, and he wants to be there for Salvador now, the way Yolanda was there for him after his sentence.

Carlos tells Salvador he has his "papers," perhaps those works he wrote in jail. "I wrote those pages.. with blood," Salvador recalls. Carlos says that's good, "That's the stuff that sells." And when Salvador protests that money was not his object, Carols is all practicality: "You got to eat."

Salvador muses that he will never shake the moniker "Capeman," and Carlos soothes: "No one remembers anymore." Of course, as soon as they introduce Salvador to their son, the boy asks: "Are you the Capeman?" "I used to be your father's pal," he side-steps.

Yolanda says he always will be. Salvador, surprisingly, challenges this: "Or, in your mind, was I the only one?" Carlos sighs: "But Sal, it was dark, so long ago, you and Tony..." This implies that Carlos had something to do with Salvador's incarceration, but Yolanda quashes the whole conversation: "What's done is done."

Then, suddenly, comes a man selling raffle tickets-- the prize is a trip to Puerto Rico: "Leave your worries and your kids in the Big Apple/ We may live in New York City/ But it's Puerto Rico where our hearts belong." Really? So the answer was never to have left Puerto Rico for New York to begin with? Now he tells us!

The song begins and ends with a chorus singing, in Spanish, "My liberty/ My freedom, come." But both Hernandez and Carlos refer to the Puerto Rican Day parade that is just ending. Hernandez asks if it's Salvador's first; perhaps they began when he was still in prison. Perhaps they began in reaction to his notoriety, to reclaim some Puerto Rican pride. But Carlos says "The parade is almost over."

This line comes as a relief. There has been so much "parading" and noise and marching and ado in Salvador's life. Even in jail, he was more mobile than most. Perhaps this line means that he can finally welcome his freedom-- to sit still.

The parade is almost over, but is has one more stop. In the next song, Salvador finally reunites with his mother.

Next Songs: Sal's Last Song/ Esmerelda's Dream

Wahzinak's Last Letter/ Puerto Rican Day Parade/ El Coqui (Reprise)

"Wahzinak's Last Letter" is only one verse long, but it is very sad. In it, she says that the elders of her tribe forced her to "bury" the letters he sent her "in the blowing desert sand." Of course, this is a loss to her, but also to us, as those letters were likely not only very well-written but also would help us immeasurably in understanding our complicated Mr. Agron.

"Puerto Rican Day Parade" is about that-- a parade that, according to the organizer's website: "takes place along 5th Avenue on the second Sunday in June, in honor of the millions of inhabitants of Puerto Rico and (those) of Puerto Rican heritage in the U.S." The first verse, performed by a "singer," just tells us that the celebration is citywide.

The next verse lists several Spanish words that might be images on a parade float-- canoes and flags-- and also mini-coconuts and beer. What's a celebration without snacks and drinks?

"Because I am a Puerto Rican," the Spanish lyrics continue, explaining why he is celebrating today. "I was born a Puerto Rican (using a slang term for a native.) This line hearkens back to the earlier song "I Was Born in Puerto Rico," while the next line, "I am a brother of the coqui (a local tree frog)," recalls the children's chant the musical began with. (In America, an equivalent expression might be "I'm so American, my brother is a bald eagle."). "I'm as Puerto Rican as you like," the song concludes.

The purpose of this song is unclear. It may be to show that the community has moved on from the damage the Capeman case caused it. Or it may serve as an upbeat break in the heart-rending tale... or simply to contrast with the next song, which is about not the entire community but one man returning to it.

Offstage, the children-- this time in New York-- sing the nursery rhyme about the coqui the musical opened with. This serves to signal that our story is about to come full circle, that another generation of children is being taught the old ways in a new land, and maybe their lives will be better than his was.

Then it shifts to Salvador, on a pay phone (this was long before cell phones!) calling Yolanda to tell her he is on his way home, and that her husband Carlos (we assume they are married by now, if not living the country life they had planned) should know to get his things out of storage.

He hangs up, first telling Yolanda. "Don't tell my mother I'm home yet." Evidently, he wants to surprise her himself.

Salvador also doesn't ask for, or about Bernadette. Perhaps he assumes she has moved on by now. It is unclear, in this short verse, if he is going to stay with his mother or try to reconnect with Wahzinak.

Also there is a confusion of place that is more likely made clear by the action onstage. We have Salvador jumping parole to be with Wahzinak in Arizona ("Trailways Bus"), then being captured and sent back to prison. ("El Malecon," it is clear, is a flashback). Then the song "You Fucked Up My Life" takes place in the barrio, which implies he had been set free. Then "Lazarus/ Last Drop of Blood" seems to take place back in the Arizona desert. "Wahzinak's Last Letter," then, was addressed to him... where? And now he is back in the barrio, walking past the "Puerto Rican Day Parade" on his way home to his mother in this one-verse song, which implies that he had only just now been let out of jail.

In any case, the last four songs are set in New York. They will give us the final impressions of Salvador, Hernandez the Umbrella Man, Carlos and Yolanda, and lastly, Salvador's mother, Esmerelda.

Next Songs: Tony Hernandez/ Carlos & Yolanda

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)