Billy Boy

Hardly a new track, the source I have says it was made "circa 1973," around the time of There Goes Rhymin' Simon. So perhaps the correct term would be "newly unearthed." According to Jay from South Africa, it appeared on YouTube "for the first time ever" in May of 2023. 

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUhruae-9JE

The real question is... is it even a song? "Billy Boy," more than six minutes of it, seems more of a melody in search of a lyric, which itself seems very much a rough draft. The result is nothing one could be expected to release, except on a compilation of demos and out-takes.

Another question is... what is Simon even singing? Since the vocals seem only to be placeholders for something else, much of the vocals are mumbled and garbled, with only the meter and melody being prioritized.

An early draft of the song "Yesterday," by the Beatles, was called "Scrambled Eggs"; those two utterances share nothing but their meter (a dactyl), but that is all that was required at that point. 

What we have here is even less... a series of cliches that meet the requirements for the meter: "you've been gone so long," "I've been down in the morning," "I've been waiting for the light to come," ... and variations on "sun don't ever shine," made to rhyme with "my heart, my valentine." The rest is-- to me, at least-- unintelligible.

There is no other instrumentation beyond Simon's guitar, but there are backing vocals, a small chorus of women (sounds to me like three). They sing "I believe it, I believe it" over and over. It's a close harmony, presaging the backing vocals on "I Know What I Know." 

As to the likely source of this exercise, "Billy Boy" is the title of an old folk tune, structured as a duet. The song is often used to teach a beginner to play the guitar. 

The song begins with the speaker asking Billy where he has been. He says he found a girl he'd like to marry but, sadly: "She's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother." The first speaker asks several follow-up questions-- but after answering each, Billy adds that same line, resigned to have to wait until she is old enough for courtship. 

Here, Simon seems to be trying to update this folksong. He addresses a "Billy Boy" who has returned, and there seems to be a heartbreak theme-- "valentine" is repeated often. So some of the elements are similar to the old song.

In his time with Garfunkel, Simon explored many earlier folksongs, which resulted in the well-known "Scarborough Fair" but also lesser-known recordings of versions of "Barbara Allen" and others (for a comprehensive list, see the Page on this blog tilted "Songs Mistakenly Attributed to Simon"; the traditional numbers are near the top of the list). 

I have a whole album of rock songs, from "Midnight Special" to "Sloop John B," that were based in old folksongs, collected by Alan Lomax for the Smithsonian Institute's Folkways album series. Many other  songwriters sought similar inspiration in traditional American, British, or other folksongs.

So it is not unlikely that, around the time of his second (post-S&G) solo album, Simon went back to the well of traditional folksong for inspiration, came upon "Billy Boy," and thought, "Let's see what I can do with this."

The answer? Not a whole lot. Oh, well. Failed experiments are necessary, on the road to successful ones.  

This blog aims to be comprehensive, while acknowledging the technical unlikelihood of that result (thence the * in its title). Still, in the name of completeness, I am including it here, on Every Single Paul Simon Song... while also acknowledging that it may not even be, technically, a "song" as such.

Note to readers upon my millionth pageview

I only check my statistics once a week, so I don't know exactly when, earlier this month (January 2024), it happened... but this blog has received its one-millionth pageview.

So I wanted to thank you all, you "viewers" of these "pages." I have received comments from all over the world. I should not be that surprised, since Simon is a globally beloved talent. I was worried that, this being the Internet, the comments would be savage. But I am very pleased to report that Simon's fans are decent, polite, and personable, even when dissenting (if anyone needs proof that you can disagree without being disagreeable, they should read my comment sections!).

Thank you all for reading this blog. Thank you for your lovely compliments, and your lovely corrections and criticisms. Your knowledge, pushbacks, personal anecdotes, and other insights have turned what might have been a lecture into a conversation. I have learned as much as I have shared. 

I had no idea, of course, when I started this blog back in 2001, that this would happen. But I wanted the blog to grow organically. I did no promotion or marketing for it whatsoever-- I didn't even mention it on my own Facebook page. I wanted people to find it when they needed it, when they really wanted to know, about one of these songs, just what Simon was likely getting at. That this happened a million times? I am shocked, but not surprised. 

Like most mad pursuits, I began doing this for myself, to look deeply at Paul Simon's work and see what meanings and messages I could find there. I was certain they were there for the finding. 

And spending an hour listening to a Paul Simon song, reading and re-reading the lyrics, and thinking about them, was certainly a worthwhile-- both relaxing and rewarding-- way to pass a Sunday afternoon.

When I started writing down what (I thought) he meant, I often found myself correcting and editing myself. "What is this song about? What does it mean? What is it trying to say?" was followed by "Ah!" and then "No...." and then, "Oh, wait!" and then "Hmmm..." and so on.

I knew that this meaning could be anything from "I have begun to doubt all that I once held as true," to "the thought that 'life could be better' is woven into our hearts," to "have a good time." And I knew it wasn't usually spoon-fed like that! But I also knew that if I really looked, there would be something substantial there.

My fantasy was that, once I had created this template, others would follow the example, and start 'every-single-song blogs' about their own favorite songwriters. I can admit now that this had a semi-selfish motive-- I was hoping someone would give this treatment to Sting or Springsteen or one of my other favorite songwriters, so I could read that blog. If this has happened, no one had thought to tell me about it... ahem...

In writing my other blogs, I have experienced what most bloggers do-- not much. Writing on the Internet is like whispering into the Grand Canyon-- you might not even hear your own echo. 

But this-- my first!-- blog seems to have resonated, and for that, I am grateful.

I know that, for too many artists, the accolades come too late, and are only flowers laid at a gravesite. How heartening to know that this is not true for Simon, and that he can see and hear the adulation he so deeply deserves while he is on this side of the grass, as they say. I would like to count this blog alongside, if far below, his other honors.

I have no idea if Simon knows this blog exists, but I hope he does. Naturally, I hope he likes it-- but even if he thinks my takes on his songs are way off base, he should be heartened by its readers. Gratified to know that people care this much about his work. That they think his work is lasting and substantive, able to withstand deep analysis-- and worthy of analyzing. That it resonates with listeners' minds and their hearts, both. 

So, thank you, readers of this blog. Just so you know, Simon has said that he is working on more material. So keep checking back! When he does release it, I will add it as soon as I can. After all, 1 million is just a number-- not a place to stop, but something to wave at as we "scoot down the road."

Wait

This one, sadly, is not too hard to understand.

Simon is in his 80s. Many of those who began in music when he did are gone, and very many far before an age the average life expectancy statistics would have predicted. 

Further, many his age-- and some even younger-- have had to stop performing or recording because of some illness. 

Simon himself, in interviews for the Seven Psalms album, said that he lost the hearing in his left ear over the course of recording it, and can no longer perform onstage, at least not with a band. 

Nevertheless, he can still write, compose, and record; as he says in this song: "My hand's steady/ My mind is still clear." 

And, like Beethoven, he can still hear music in his mind, and synthesize new music from it. "I hear the ghost songs I own," he sings. Does he mean songs he owns the copyrights to, because he wrote them? Or the songs he owns recordings of? Likely the latter, given what he says next.

What is "ghostly" about them? They are probably not about ghosts, like "ghost stories" told around campfires. Are they by people who are gone? Are they songs that are simply unheard these days? Are they songs that people have heard of, but would not really be able to sing if you asked them to? 

He also says these songs are "jumpin', jivin', and moanin'," which makes me think of jazz. So it's possible that the songs are ghosts because the memory of them has faded. 

Then he seems to turn away from whomever (or Whomever) he is asking to wait, and-- for the chorus-- to turn toward his listener, to offer some advice and observations. First, he compares life to a "meteor," falling fast and burning brightly, a brief flash.  

He urges us to "let [our] eyes roam," and explore as a wanderer would. This could have gone the other way-- life being short, one might just as easily be advised to focus on a single goal and not get distracted. But Simon advises, "Go on, get distracted. There's a lot to see." 

Then comes one of his most poignant lines: "Heaven is beautiful/ It's almost like home." The key word here is "almost." Even Heaven itself cannot match the pleasures of home. Nevertheless. he urges-- now adopting a gospel verbiage-- "Children! Get ready!/ It's time to come home." 

A line ago, Heaven was not quite home. Now, it is "home." Well, it's going to be, so we might as well start calling it that now.

Last, Simon lays out two requests for how he wants to "transition" to... whatever is next. His first is that he wishes for a "dreamless transition." Most want to pass away while sleeping, but Simon is afraid of his dreams and what lurks in his subconscious mind. So he asks for a dreamless sleep, so he won't have to, in his final moments, be troubled by his "dark intuition."

This whole album, he has struggled with the idea of God and Heaven. He wants to believe because he craves the comfort he expects that will give him. But he also is a cynic and has a hard time believing. What if, at the last second, he has... doubt?

So for his second request, he asks for help. For someone to help him take that step across the final threshold. Now, he turns away from us and from God-- to his wife, Edie, to whom he has been married for 30 years now: "I need you here by my side/ My beautiful mystery guide." (It could also mean an angel, or that he is calling her one.)

The chorus repeats but this time, and we expect to hear, again (the word is repeated 4 times so far), "Wait."

Instead, we hear-- and this is the last word on the album-- "Amen." Of course. 

These were not songs, they were Psalms all along. They were prayers. And what do you say when a prayer is finished? "Amen."

The word's derivation is Hebrew, from a root meaning "faith." After a hearing a prayer, the listener replies, basically: "Faith." We have faith that the prayer just offered will be heard and received and accepted. 

Poet Dylan Thomas told us to "rage against the dying of a light." Simon is not raging, here. He is not begging or even bargaining. 

But he is asking. With calm dignity, he is praying for death to wait.

He is not ready to go-- and we are not ready for him to go, either.

May his prayer be granted. Amen.

Personal apology to recent commenter

This is what you get for working on your blog when it's past your bedtime... Someone posted a comment in early July 2023 (before the 8th, when I am writing this). The "post" and "delete" icons, however, are right next to each other in the admin interface. And guess which one I clicked. Before I even got a chance to read the whole thing. Which, from the few words I did read, seems very nice and complimentary, at that.

Even better, Blogger allows you to retrieve deleted spam, because who doesn't love to enjoy spam out of the trash... but it does NOT allow you to retrieve deleted comments, even though I could think of a thousand reasons why it should, starting with: 1) every e-mail system allows you to retrieve deleted e-mails, 2) you might need them for legal reasons, like to prove harassment or slander, 3) the "post" and "delete" icons are, in case I neglected to mention, RIGHT next to each other, 4) you can retrieve deleted spam that you know you will never want, but not comments that you might reconsider needing...? Are you kidding?

Anyway, this is headlined "apology" so let me actually apologize. I'm sorry. I got excited, my mouse finger slipped, and *poof* your comment went to Internet Hell. I can blame everyone one else but I am the only one sitting at this desk. As the I.T. types put it, this is a PEBCAC situation: Problem Exists Between Computer And Chair. Mea maxima culpa.

If you are the one who send the comment, please resend it. I will CAREFULLY post it this time, I promise. And please repeat your compliment, even though I clearly do not deserve it at this point.

The Scared 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

Your Forgiveness

The first four verses of this song end with the words "Your forgiveness," meaning God's. And we know it is a capital Y-Your not because it starts a new line but because of the fourth verse and what comes after.

But let's deal with the verses in order. "Yesterday's boy is gone" means someone was a boy yesterday, but not today. Where did he go? "Driving through darkness." The idea that God's forgiveness is to be found by driving aimlessly along nighttime roads is harrowing, but it seems like that used to be the process.

Next, music was tried, but it was a song that was born out of "sorrow." If there was a loss to be mourned, a common reaction is to think, "It must have been a Divine punishment. I must ask God's forgiveness." A beautiful song often comes out of this impulse.

Maybe there is a formula? A "homeless soul" tries to use a computer, a "digital mind," to crack the code.

Then it turns personal... but first, we have to pause to have a lesson in Jewish thought and practice.

The last prayer of the Yom Kippur service imagines that the gates of Heaven are closing and that this is one's last chance to atone while the prayers still have Day of Atonement status (The name of this lyrical service is "Ne'ilah," meaning "locking"). The prayers have been in the plural for most of the service but now, at their end, many synagogues have a practice of the congregants lining up in the aisle, each taking a turn to approach the Ark (an ornate cabinet where the Torah scrolls are displayed) for their own personal atonements and prayers.

"And I, the last in line/ Hoping the gates won't be closed/ Before your forgiveness."

Wait. The Y is lowercase. So this was just a use of Day of Atonement imagery for a case of human-to human forgiveness. Well, people still close their gates and lock them, denying the opportunity for forgiveness. 

Then the song stops this thread... and turns to water imagery: "Dip your hand in heaven's waters" and "All of life's abundance in a drop of condensation."  And it is amazing to think that all of the life forms we know, and are likely to know for a while, are on this ball of, mostly, water. In cosmic terms? Earth isn't even the largest planet in our own solar system. 

The line "two billion heartbeats and out" refers to the fact that a human life of 70 years, at the rate at which a human heart beats on average, includes 2 billion heartbeats. So, that many, and then death. (Simon is 81. He has a pretty strong heart.) 

And then "A white light eases the pain." Likely, this refers to the idea that when someone dies, they see a bright, white light and a rush of serenity; many having "near-death experiences" report experiencing these sensations, brought about-- science maintains-- by certain happenings in the brain and its parts as it dies. Steve Jobs' last words were a repeated: "Oh, wow!" 

Further, what does "heaven's water" mean? Rain? Clouds? Can you "dip" your hand in these? And is everything just "God's imagination"?

But the real question is... how is this one song? The first half is about seeking God's forgiveness. But the second half wavers between on the one hand, the smallness of Earth and its human next to the eternality of God... and on the other, defiance of all that.

"I have my reason to doubt/ There is a case to be made," and "Waving the flag in the last parade" are words of defiance. "Two billion heartbeats and out"? Is that all there is? Is that all a human is? Is death the end or "does it all begin again?" This is some real "Rage against the dying of a light" material. 

In the end though, even this defiance is swallowed by the vastness of infinity. The "Dip your hand..." line is repeated seven times. "God's imagination" three times. The line "All of life's abundance..." is also repeated three times, and it's how the song ends. 

In the first song, it's: "Man plans, and God laughs." In the third, "Man opines, and God sighs." And here, in the fourth song: "Man rails, and God forgives." 

Next Song: Trail of Volcanoes