Satin Summer Nights

In The Capeman, the scene has now shifted to New York, and we meet some new characters. (Track 3 on the album).

Sal has been sleeping "on the roof" of his tenement. We know about the accessibility of this space from songs like "Up on the Roof."  This vantage point gives young Sal views of the sunset, but also canoodling couples. Like Carlos and Yolanda, who like to dance to old songs. We presume he sees them through a window across the street.

Then he mentions St. Lazarus, the one his mother was told by the santero, the fortune teller back in Puerto Rico, was the only force who could save him from his violent fate. Lazarus, of course, is the man Jesus brought back from the dead, so he must have something to do with changing one's fate and getting second chances.

Sal is aware that he will have to grow up at some point-- "Well, these jitterbug days I'm living/ They won't last..."-- but the question is how. He seems to enjoy the romance of the couples...and the "sound of a cappella groups" Simon spoke of in "Late in the Evening" and which provides the background for this number. He calls this a "satin summer night," a reference to the thickness of the humid air, but also its sultry sensuality.

For now, he seems to be drawn to a girl named Bernadette: "I can feel the fire in her eyes." She returns his attentions: "Be my special one/ I seen you move in from across the street/ I love the way you run."

Bernadette and Yolanda revel in the freedom and confidence they feel in their adopted country: "No more baby talk/ This is the island of Nueva York." Also, the privacy afforded by the rooftops.

So his route to manhood seems set, and attractive at that. Find a girl, settle down, etc.

But here comes another option. It is offered by one Hernandez, who goes by "Umbrella Man," after his scepter of choice. He belittles the romance of the couples, and calls such goals small: "You little ghetto weeds/ I feel like killin' you."

Umbrella Man says there is more going on here. There is war being waged among a dozen rival gangs, he explains, listing them off. Each is centered around a different ethnicity and neighborhood, each eager to expand its territory... by violence if necessary.

Involvement in protecting oneself and the neighborhood, he feels, is inevitable: "Your future's locked in mine." He is a member of the local Puerto Rican gang, the Vampires. These other gangs look down on them--"They treat you like you're piss"-- and it's only manly to respond with a return challenge: "From the heart of the barrio, now, my brother/ We tell [them]: "Suck on this."

Umbrella Man is full of racial slurs, and he uses one on Sal to provoke a reaction, adding, "You get no respect here unless/ You belong to a bopping gang." And that adjective, we assume, means a gang willing to "bop" the other gangs a solid blow.

In conclusion, Hernandez offers Sal a choice: "You either belong, or you get hurt/ Or you can buy some protection from me." Buy protection "from" him in both senses of the word, that is-- either the protection from outsiders will come from him... or the danger he needs protecting from will.

And Umbrella Man has one more selling point-- he will fight on Sal's behalf! "If someone's got to die/ I believe in an eye for an eye/ What do you believe in, Salvador Agron?" He closes his pitch by referring to Sal as both "Mr. Agron" and "Senor Agron" to drive home that this is a choice of ethnic and adult pride.

Sal, young though he may be, realizes that Umbrella Man offers a false choice. He has already seen another way-- the way of Carlos and Yolanda, the way it could be with Bernadette.

What does he believe in? He already knows: "I believe I'm in the power of St. Lazarus." And he begs the Umbrella Man not to ruin his bliss: "Don't tear apart/ This satin summer night."

Musical Note:
Marc Anthony sings Sal's part here on the album, and played young Sal in the original production. Anthony is equally adept at acting (the movie Big Night and others) and singing, and has been a force in entertainment since the 1980s, singing on some Menudo albums. In 1999, his English-language hit "I Need to Know" hit #3, and his fourth album won a Grammy. He is the best-selling salsa singer... ever.

Oh, and he's been married to Jennifer Lopez since 2004 (although as of this writing, divorce papers have been filed).

Next song: Bernadette

Paranoia Blues

And here we find the second reference in Simon's work to Chinese food: "Lin's chow fon." The first, of course, was Mother and Child Reunion.

Here, the music provides much of the atmosphere. Rather than the pleasant strumming of most folk music, we have a bone-rattling bottle-neck guitar and a pair of honking horns. The sensation they create is one of jitteriness and surprise, fitting for a song about paranoia.

More correctly, paranoia blues. Which is to say, more than simply being paranoid, our speaker is upset about being paranoid, or upset about having to be paranoid, which it seems is a called-for reaction.

What is the evidence that paranoia is warranted? One piece is his "so-called friends," whom he believes are actually enemies. Another is the fact that he is sure he is going to get called aside at the airport for a personal search (we don't know if they did). And then, once, someone took his restaurant meal!

Clearly, evil forces are afoot, trying to "stick it to" him. Things seem to go awry when his "back is turned" or when he happens to "turn around." He cannot afford to avert his eyes even for one second.

Now, acting mistrustful is bound to get your friends talking behind your back and get your noticed for behaving suspiciously by airport security. And certainly, a busboy might have taken his turned back to mean he was done with his chow fon. And a reasonable person might be persuaded of these possibilities.

But none of these are truly the root cause of his anxiety. What is? "New York City." There, he is constantly being taken advantage of: "...they roll you for a nickel, and stick you for the extra dime." (Here, Simon plays off the cliche "being nickeled and dimed.")

Like "Papa Hobo," this song seems disenchanted with city life. But while that song was about business and government "getting one over on the little guy," here even the small-time shops like local restaurants or the average person you might befriend are also in on the con game.

While it might seem appropriate to compare this song to other songs about paranoia from Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now" to Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me," a more accurate comparison is to Jim Croce's "New York's Not My Home"; "Don't you know that I gotta get outta here," Croce laments. Meanwhile, our speaker says: "I just got out in the nick of time."

Musical Note:
This song is followed by a sprightly instrumental coda called Hobo's Blues. The lead instrument is the violin of jazz virtuoso Stéphane Grappelli, with Simon strumming accompaniment in the background. It is only on only a handful of instrumentals in Simon's catalog. Others include the solo guitar pieces Anji, by David Graham, and Simon Says, an early work.

Next Song: Congratulations

The Boxer

One of the songs on which S&G's reputation, indeed Simon's reputation, rests.

Less a full narrative like a Harry Chapin or Bruce Springsteen song-- or Simon's later "Duncan"-- "The Boxer" is a character study. In the few minutes of a song, Simon sketches a young male character as identifiable and indelible as Holden Caulfield, and one with a similar attitude of disappointment with the world (although Holden had higher hopes and was therefore more disappointed).

One might think that the second line of the song refers back to the first, given when the rest falls (at the end of that second line). But that would make little sense. Why would there be a "though," as if he expected his "poor boy" story to be told? Poor boys stories are seldom told, aside from those of Twain, Dickens, and Algren. It's mostly the rich boys' stories, like that of Richard Cory, that are recounted.

Rather, the second line addresses what follows: "Though my story's seldom told, I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles." Rather than hold out and insist that his story be told, he has used up his "resistance"-- or failed to use it-- and so has had to settle for "mumbles... lies and jests."

But he remains philosophical about that situation, noting that people will "hear what (they) want to hear" in any case. Since no one else will tell his story, he proceeds to, himself.

He started off "I am just a poor boy," but now says "I was no more than a boy." So how old is he now, and how old (or young) was he then? In the first line, he means "boy" as "guy," in the sense of being a "child" of certain circumstances. Compare this to, say, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," meant to be sung by a person old enough to "have a fine wife." And in the second instance, he means it in the literal sense of "youngster."

But it is significant that he does not characterize himself as "a poor man." With everything he has been through (as we shall see), he is resigned to dealing with life as it comes, with the powerlessness to change his situation equal to that of a boy's. At this point, anyway.

He leaves his home while still a child, at least at a child's small level of worldliness and maturity. He tries not to draw attention to himself, sensing he will be accepted or at least ignored if he stays among "strangers"-- others who also prefer to remain anonymous and mind their own business.

The phrase "quiet of the railway station" is odd, considering that such places are usually bustling with human and vehicular traffic. He must go there after the crowds have left for the evening, perhaps to pick up some scraps of food or clothing.

Eventually, he grows to young manhood and decides that such a hand-to-mouth existence is no longer necessary. He is old and strong enough to be a "workman," and seems willing to sell his efforts to the lowest bidder, if only to get a foot in the door. Frustratingly, not even this compromise is accepted.

While he found somewhat of a community among "the ragged people" before, he now finds himself only attractive to "whores." Given how everyone else in society has rejected him, he admits to taking "some comfort" in their embraces. He doesn't dare the listener to judge him for this sin or crime, figuring he is already beneath their notice, let alone contempt.

Now it comes clear that he is not from New York. Possibly, he was at that railway station coming in from somewhere else, somewhere warmer and more rural. Perhaps he was "laying low" and "running scared" from the inbound train's conductor, since he was stowing away on board, too poor for a ticket.

Next, see him "laying out [his] winter clothes." On what? A bed? Does he finally have enough wherewithal for a room, perhaps with a closet, and enough clothes to take him through seasonal changes? He must have finally found a job of some sort.

He is laying out winter clothes to prepare, presumably, for the winter. But while he does so, he longs for the milder winters of wherever his boyhood home was.

Then comes the line "leading me." Usually, things "lead" one to stay, or they "drive" one away. In this case, the "New York City winters" are (he wishes they weren't, which indicates that they in fact are) "leading [him] to go."

The syntax then breaks down, as if the speaker is trying to assemble his thoughts: "Wishing I was gone, going home, where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me... leading me... going home..."

"Hey," he seems to think, "Why not? What do I have here that is keeping me?" And a decision is made. The clothes are not laid out on bed now, but folded into a suitcase.

Just a few guitar notes later, bent in country-music fashion, we have a radical shift. Now the point of view is third person instead of the first is has been thus far.

We are to presume that the "boxer" in the last verse is in fact the same person who had just been speaking to us all along. We assume that the job that enabled him to get his furnished room was prizefighting. We assume he has now gone home, to a place rural enough for a "clearing," which must mean far from New York City.

But why the shift in point of view? Why now "his" and "him" instead of "I" and "my"?

Because now, finally, someone else is telling his "story," which is what he said he wanted in the first verse.

And what is his story? One of survival. While he "carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down," he "still remains." His survival is his triumph. The hands of others made him fall, both before his boxing career and during it.

But the last verse asserts that he "stands," despite it all. He stood, and withstood, all of those hardships. They turned him from a "boy" into a "fighter," and while he was not a winner, he is far from a loser, simply because he endured and "remained."

The music is fascinating. It starts with a simply folk ramble, then adds a galloping drum, perhaps to signify the train that brought him to New York. There is also a twangy instrument, perhaps a bass harmonica, which disappears, then returns for the last verse, to make sure we know it is still the same character. This rustic instrument also marks his departure from and re-entry into the rural world.

The time lapse during which the young man takes up boxing and finds his apartment is marked by an electronic instrument tuned to sound somewhat like an oboe.

The famous "lie-la-lie" chorus hearkens back to ancient ballads, but the cymbal crashes give them significance of the cannons of the 1812 Overture. These choruses build and fade throughout.

Then, after the last line, they crescendo and swell to truly orchestral proportions, with soaring strings and a profound tuba filling in the bottom. Compare this symphonic arrangement to the one at the end of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life," and you will find it much more cohesive and melodic (this is not a criticism of the Beatles' crescendo, just a mark of contrast; the effect is different, but so is the motive).

Why all the fireworks? Because the boxer is worthy of such a fanfare. As Willy Loman's wife ruefully observes after his death: "Attention must be paid." There is something to honor in the simply act of surviving excruciating circumstances, of enduring heaps of humiliations with one's dignity intact.

"The fighter still remains." He never won a belt, or perhaps even many matches. But through jobless poverty and friendless isolation, he still remains... and that is a triumph in itself.


IMPACT: The song is a unanimously hailed part of the S&G canon-- and no S&G, or Simon, compilation is complete without it.

If the duo plays just one song for a public appearance, it might well be this one, and the audience is satisfied. This is only true of a handful of their hits, also including "Mrs. Robinson," "Scarborough Fair," "Sounds of Silence," and "Bridge."

When Paul Simon received an exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a nearby Cleveland university held a smaller exhibit of materials regarding just one song-- this one. While it is true that many individuals have received museum exhibitions of their life and work, for how many songs is that true?

It has held special resonance for folk and country fans and artists, and has been covered by Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Chet Atkins, Waylon Jennings, and Mumford & Sons... as well as Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman in one of his solo outings. 

Next song: Baby Driver