[Warning: This song's lyrics include "swear words."]
This is the second song from Stranger to Stranger that Simon has released to the public prior to "dropping" the album in June of 2016.
The Cool Papa Bell in question was a baseball player. His first name was James, and he was an outfielder in the Negro Leagues for nearly 30 years, starting in 1922. He's in the Hall of Fame, and as the song indicates, his feats of speed became legendary.
However, this song is as much about him as "Mrs. Robinson" was about Joltin' Joe DiMaggio...
The speaker of this song is someone whose job-- if he has one-- is quite enviable: "It's not my job to worry or to think," he explains.
Instead, he says, he is simply "grateful" for being alive. He realizes that this may come across as "New-Agey," but he says he is sincere about it. His proof? A tattoo! He has literally labeled himself "Mr. Wall-to-Wall Fun."
When he encounters a group, he asks, "Does everyone know everyone (else here)?" And then he introduces himself as: Mr. Wall-to-Wall Fun.
At this point, he points out that there was once this baseball player who had several such nicknames! He was "The Fastest Man on Earth," for example, and also, he was known as "Cool Papa." So he was known for being calm, even in situations where one might not be. And he was known for being in charge, like his fellow ballplayer David "Big Papi" Ortiz... or musicians like "Big Daddy" Kane or Puff Daddy.
So that's three nicknames for one James Bell: Fastest Man, Cool, and Papa. (Kool Moe Dee is just cool, Earl "Fatha" Hines is just a father, but Cool Papa Bell is both.)
Now, the speaker talks about what might be the most common, um, nickname, and it's an "ugly" one: "Motherfucker." He says this is "often heard as a substitute for someone's Christian name." Which is an old fashioned expression for "first name."
He brings up the example of animals. Conservationists have long bemoaned the fact that "charismatic mega-fauna" get all the attention. This is their term for large animals that anti-extinction efforts focus on-- te tigers, giraffes, elephants, and the like. No one struggles, in other words, to save a slug, toad or warthog species, even if they may even be nearing extinction... and just as key a part of the ecosystem.
How the speaker puts this idea is: "Not every rodent gets a birthday cake/ Now, if you're a chipmunk, how cute is that? But you, motherfucker, are a filthy rat."
So he "asks" Cool Papa Bell (who died in 1991): "Is it true... That the beauties go to Heaven/ And the ugly go to Hell?" Bell might be equipped to answer. He was a great player (and, by his photo, a handsome gent) but because of his skin color, he was never able to pit his famous speed against all his fellow ballplayers. He could be fast, he could be Hall-of-Fame talented. He could even get a fantastic nickname. But, fast as he was, he could not outrun his blackness, or the bigotry that denied him true success. Do the ugly go to hell? Well, first, who gets to say who is "ugly"?
Our speaker is not done, though. Having brought up Heaven, he announces that this place is "finally found." Before you get in line for a ticket, however, you should know that "it's six trillion light-years away." But that's OK, because "We're all gonna get there someday."
All? Well, "not you."
Wait, what? Why not? What did I do?
"You stay and explain the suffering and the pain you caused," he orders. "The thrill you feel when evil dreams come true."
Oh. So that's what ugly is! It's ugly behavior. Ugly schadenfreude-- the joy at others' pain.
So here's an irony for you... What's "ugly"? It's standing around, pointing out who you think is ugly! It's bullying, name-calling. It's judgmentalism. That's what's ugly.
It's deciding that this Cool Papa Bell-- this handsome, talented man-- doesn't meet your aesthetic standards, and so can't play ball against his true peers, because they are white. Now, that's an ugly thought.
But now our speaker brings up his tattoo again, as if to say-- maybe the antidote to the poison of bigotry, of ugly nicknames, is to come up with nicknames for ourselves!
"You can't call me 'motherfucker'," implies the speaker, "because I already have a nickname! I'm 'Mr. Wall-to-Wall Fun.' Pleased to meet you. And you are?
"Cool Papa Bell, you say. I bet everyone thinks you're awesome, since they gave you that name..."
Well, maybe Bell never played outside the Negro Leagues. But he's considered one of the 100 best ballplayers in the sport's history, he's in the Hall of Fame... and now he's the only ballplayer to also be the title of a Paul Simon song.
Sounds like he made it to Heaven, after all.
Next Song: The Werewolf
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Night Game
There are many songs about baseball (although many more movies that come to mind), but this is likely the saddest.
I don't know what the official rule is for the death of a player during the game. It seems inappropriate to continue the game with a replacement player, yet unfair to call a winner. I do know that ties are not permitted, and that innings are simply added until one team wins. Perhaps the game is "scrubbed" and a new one scheduled in its stead.
But that is not what happens here. The pitcher and his team have handed two outs to their opponents, with one more to finish the 8th inning and start the 9th and final one. Then "the pitcher died."
It seems like a sudden incident. We do not see the pitcher fainting, clutching his head or chest, or giving any indication of injury or illness. It's just "when."
The pitcher's shoes are laid, it seems ceremoniously, on the pitcher's mound. But the rest of the uniform is handled differently. The jersey, with it's "number," is simply "left" on the turf...
After being "torn." Why was this item of clothing treated so roughly? Were they ripping it to be able to do a medical procedure on his chest, perhaps his heart?
The tearing of a garment often signifies evil tidings. In the Bible, Joesph's brothers tear his multi-colored coat to fabricate (no pun intended) evidence for their father that Joseph was mauled to death by a beast. King Saul tears his garment, and the prophet Samuel sees it as an omen. Many ancient people, hearing of a death, tore their clothes... and Jewish mourners still wear a torn shirt, jacket, or lapel-ribbon while grieving to this day.
That the jersey was "left on the ground" seems unlikely today. It would probably be kept as a memento, either by the team or the player's family. It must have been left in a rush, perhaps, to hurry the pitcher to the hospital.
It seems odd that the reaction of everyone else is absent from mention. What did the fans, the teammates, the opponents, the management and staff, the sportscasters do or say? Was there pandemonium? Did the medical professionals on hand leap in and prevent chaos? We are not told.
But we are told what happens to nature-- it grows "cold," as if in reaction. The stars, often described as yellow or golden, are now "white," and not just white, but "white as bones," which of course are only seen after death. It's as if nature's elements were reflecting the sudden chill and severity of the situation. Or signaling the humans as to the proper sentiment to be taken.
Why mention the age of the stadium? It has seen teams and fans come and go. It can no longer get excised about one death, more or less. But the "night," the "stars" are millennia older than the stadium, no? They are made by nature, or God, or something eternal, while the stadium was made by people... fickle people, who are gentle with shoes but harsh with shirts. Nature, at least, grows respectfully somber as it notes one more lost life.
Then comes a cruel pun. The song started with "two men down," in the sense that they had be standing "up" at the plate and now, having been gotten out, had to sit back "down" on their dugout bench. Now there are three men "down," except one is "down" in the ultimate sense: he has fallen down dead. Perhaps this comes to put the sport in perspective-- as sad as we might be that a player has been taken out of the game, how much sadder when one has been removed from all of life's activity altogether.
Much of the imagery, in fact, has to do with lowness. Consider these words: "down," "bottom," "laid," "on the ground," "cold," "down" (again). And now comes the tarpaulin, rolled-- like a shroud-- over the ground, over the frost on the ground. The song itself is set at "night," as well, when the Sun and light are down.
The music echoes this lowness. Aside from the guitar, which is played low-- and Simon's hushed voice, which is in a low register-- the only other instrument that plays the whole song is Tony Levin's bass.
The pitcher is gone, the game is done. And for some reason, the whole season is lost. I do not think this is meant in the sense of the sport. As discussed above, an individual game can be replayed (as happens when a game is called off due to bad weather). A team continues even if one of its members dies mid-season. Even if that team suffers a psychological blow that does, in fact, end its own season, the season as a whole continues for the other dozen-plus teams in the sport.
Yes, the song might mean that this team's season is effectively over. But it might also mean that the sport as a whole suffers and mourns so much from the loss of one player that, whatever the season might have meant before, and whatever comes after, it's now "the season when that pitcher died during the game." Its former momentum and meaning have been eclipsed by the shadow of this one profound incident.
With the humans still not responding appropriately, nature cues them again by spreading a white funeral shroud on the field, in the form of "frost." Finally, the humans take the hint, and add a synthetic shroud, the tarpaulin, over the field.
Much could be made of the repeated "and" throughout the piece. The story is related in a series of staccato statements, like someone trying to piece together a sequential narrative out of a memory of impressions. There is very little 'poetry' in the work. This is reserved for the statements that follow "then," which breaks the sequence of "ands," which pick back up in the final verse. The main effect is someone recounting something he experienced but can't quite believe.
Simon is a baseball fan. He plays it in the video to "Schoolyard," and more famously, name-checked DiMaggio in one of his biggest hit songs. Yet this is his only piece entirely set in the world of that sport.
I am unaware of an incident like the one described happening in baseball in 1975. So perhaps some sudden loss in Simon's life could only be likened to a pitcher dying while trying to break a tie in the bottom of the 8th. It is certainly one of the saddest songs in Simon's entire repertoire.
Musical Note: The mournful harmonica bridge is played by Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans of Belgium, better known as "Toots." He is one of the greatest harmonica players alive [Note: he has since passed, in 2016], and has been for decades. His work has largely been in the jazz arena. While he doesn't play long here, you can hear a lot more of him on the Billy Joel hit "Leave a Tender Moment Alone."
Next Song: Gone at Last
I don't know what the official rule is for the death of a player during the game. It seems inappropriate to continue the game with a replacement player, yet unfair to call a winner. I do know that ties are not permitted, and that innings are simply added until one team wins. Perhaps the game is "scrubbed" and a new one scheduled in its stead.
But that is not what happens here. The pitcher and his team have handed two outs to their opponents, with one more to finish the 8th inning and start the 9th and final one. Then "the pitcher died."
It seems like a sudden incident. We do not see the pitcher fainting, clutching his head or chest, or giving any indication of injury or illness. It's just "when."
The pitcher's shoes are laid, it seems ceremoniously, on the pitcher's mound. But the rest of the uniform is handled differently. The jersey, with it's "number," is simply "left" on the turf...
After being "torn." Why was this item of clothing treated so roughly? Were they ripping it to be able to do a medical procedure on his chest, perhaps his heart?
The tearing of a garment often signifies evil tidings. In the Bible, Joesph's brothers tear his multi-colored coat to fabricate (no pun intended) evidence for their father that Joseph was mauled to death by a beast. King Saul tears his garment, and the prophet Samuel sees it as an omen. Many ancient people, hearing of a death, tore their clothes... and Jewish mourners still wear a torn shirt, jacket, or lapel-ribbon while grieving to this day.
That the jersey was "left on the ground" seems unlikely today. It would probably be kept as a memento, either by the team or the player's family. It must have been left in a rush, perhaps, to hurry the pitcher to the hospital.
It seems odd that the reaction of everyone else is absent from mention. What did the fans, the teammates, the opponents, the management and staff, the sportscasters do or say? Was there pandemonium? Did the medical professionals on hand leap in and prevent chaos? We are not told.
But we are told what happens to nature-- it grows "cold," as if in reaction. The stars, often described as yellow or golden, are now "white," and not just white, but "white as bones," which of course are only seen after death. It's as if nature's elements were reflecting the sudden chill and severity of the situation. Or signaling the humans as to the proper sentiment to be taken.
Why mention the age of the stadium? It has seen teams and fans come and go. It can no longer get excised about one death, more or less. But the "night," the "stars" are millennia older than the stadium, no? They are made by nature, or God, or something eternal, while the stadium was made by people... fickle people, who are gentle with shoes but harsh with shirts. Nature, at least, grows respectfully somber as it notes one more lost life.
Then comes a cruel pun. The song started with "two men down," in the sense that they had be standing "up" at the plate and now, having been gotten out, had to sit back "down" on their dugout bench. Now there are three men "down," except one is "down" in the ultimate sense: he has fallen down dead. Perhaps this comes to put the sport in perspective-- as sad as we might be that a player has been taken out of the game, how much sadder when one has been removed from all of life's activity altogether.
Much of the imagery, in fact, has to do with lowness. Consider these words: "down," "bottom," "laid," "on the ground," "cold," "down" (again). And now comes the tarpaulin, rolled-- like a shroud-- over the ground, over the frost on the ground. The song itself is set at "night," as well, when the Sun and light are down.
The music echoes this lowness. Aside from the guitar, which is played low-- and Simon's hushed voice, which is in a low register-- the only other instrument that plays the whole song is Tony Levin's bass.
The pitcher is gone, the game is done. And for some reason, the whole season is lost. I do not think this is meant in the sense of the sport. As discussed above, an individual game can be replayed (as happens when a game is called off due to bad weather). A team continues even if one of its members dies mid-season. Even if that team suffers a psychological blow that does, in fact, end its own season, the season as a whole continues for the other dozen-plus teams in the sport.
Yes, the song might mean that this team's season is effectively over. But it might also mean that the sport as a whole suffers and mourns so much from the loss of one player that, whatever the season might have meant before, and whatever comes after, it's now "the season when that pitcher died during the game." Its former momentum and meaning have been eclipsed by the shadow of this one profound incident.
With the humans still not responding appropriately, nature cues them again by spreading a white funeral shroud on the field, in the form of "frost." Finally, the humans take the hint, and add a synthetic shroud, the tarpaulin, over the field.
Much could be made of the repeated "and" throughout the piece. The story is related in a series of staccato statements, like someone trying to piece together a sequential narrative out of a memory of impressions. There is very little 'poetry' in the work. This is reserved for the statements that follow "then," which breaks the sequence of "ands," which pick back up in the final verse. The main effect is someone recounting something he experienced but can't quite believe.
Simon is a baseball fan. He plays it in the video to "Schoolyard," and more famously, name-checked DiMaggio in one of his biggest hit songs. Yet this is his only piece entirely set in the world of that sport.
I am unaware of an incident like the one described happening in baseball in 1975. So perhaps some sudden loss in Simon's life could only be likened to a pitcher dying while trying to break a tie in the bottom of the 8th. It is certainly one of the saddest songs in Simon's entire repertoire.
Musical Note: The mournful harmonica bridge is played by Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans of Belgium, better known as "Toots." He is one of the greatest harmonica players alive [Note: he has since passed, in 2016], and has been for decades. His work has largely been in the jazz arena. While he doesn't play long here, you can hear a lot more of him on the Billy Joel hit "Leave a Tender Moment Alone."
Next Song: Gone at Last
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