Look at That

This song, like "Train in the Distance," tells the story of a relationship, of a life, but in much more abstract terms. So abstract, in some lines there are not even words.

The song begins with the symbolic line "Drop a stone in the abyss." In a basic sense, all of our actions are only meaningful to us, in the scope of the infinite universe and its eternal timeline, naught but a stone dropped in the abyss. (Compare to the Kansas lyric, "All we are is dust in the wind.")

But in a metaphoric sense, this can refer to a conception, if one imagines the "stone" and "abyss" are a seed in a hole... or a sperm in a womb. From that beginning, "anything can happen."

Then comes a "hug and a kiss." This could be between lovers, or a parent and child. The latter seems more likely, as the next thing that happens is going "off to school." In the larger sense, it might mean something my neighbor-- who never went to a university but still built a successful business-- once said: "Every day is college, if you pay attention." As Simon puts it: "You might learn something/ You never know,"

Well, after all that school, or at least schooling, comes what? Marriage. "Lovers merge and make a wish/ They close their eyes, and now their dreams are legal." 

Then comes an image of an "eagle," which admittedly might just be there to rhyme with "legal," or it might symbolize America, nature, or other larger forces at work, against the background of which the marriage will take place. 

These images also appear in the same section of the Bible. God says he will carry the Jews out of Egyptian bondage "on the wings of eagles," and is said to have guarded the Jewish camp in the wilderness with a "pillar of cloud" by day and a "pillar of fire" by night. Here, Simon's eagle flies "over the mountain" (Mt. Sinai?) through "clouds of fire" [emphasis mine]. So there might be a sense of God protecting this love-journey the way the passage in the wilderness-- envisioned by some sages as the marriage between God and the people-- was.

Then Simon backs up for a minute to the moment of the marriage proposal: "Ask somebody to love you/ Takes a lot of nerve." No one who has every made or received a marriage proposal needs to have this explained.

As the children's rhyme goes: "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage." The baby, of course, has to learn to talk. And we hear it do so: "ma ma ma," and "da da da." Then it learns to sing: "la la la/ Oom bop a doom." Now, this is Simon's imagined kid-- so when it learns to sing, it learns to sing doo-wop!

And, this is Simon's relationship song, so the relationship has to have... issues. "This is near enough to bliss." (Oh, gee, thanks... I love you too!) "Then over the top we go and down to the bottom." (Well, what did you expect, with that attitude?) "If you were looking for worries/ You got 'em." It's "Darling Lorraine" all over again.

Then there is a series of other nonsense sounds that are less recognizable: "tih," "guh," and "lih." This may represent being at a loss for words, being in a situation that's inexplicable. It may represent finding oneself, as the speaker in "Call Me Al" does, "in a strange world," in which the very words being spoken are unintelligible to him. 

Personally, I think these are supposed to represent the sounds of musical instruments. "Tih" sounds like a light, high tapping, maybe of a "high-hat" cymbal. "Guh" could be a bass or drum. And "lih" is perhaps the strumming of a guitar or other string instrument. Rhythm, bass, and treble are the basic building blocks of music worldwide, so this series of sounds may represent the learning of musical skill and composition.

Every once in a while, you also get an epiphany in life: "Come awake, come alive." And what is it, in this case? "Common sense, we survive." Evidently, there is a calming down, an acceptance, and "we"-- either this couple or the human race in general-- continues. 

And then? Why, life goes on, of course. "Down the road we go/ You might learn something, you never know. But anyway, you got to go." This last line might mean that life proceeds whether we like it to or not. Or it could mean we must "go" in the final sense: die. If so, it would be the logical end to a song about a lifespan.

The repeated title line: "Look at that!" means "Well, would you look at that!" in the astonished sense. But coupled with "look at this" every time, it implies: "Look far, look near-- and you will find the same patterns." Yes, marvel in wonderment at "that"... and now recognize it in "this," your own life...

"Just like that," in an unexpected instance. "Just like this," right now.

Next Song: Senorita with a Necklace of Tears

Thelma

This is a fairly obscure song. It is available on the 3-disc box set Paul Simon 1964-1993, and on the reissue of Rhythm of the Saints; it is named on the same Simon webpage as being a track on the album. But its lyrics are not listed on Simon's site, even if it is in the Lyrics book. This lack needs to be addressed, as an incorrect version of Thelma's lyrics are the most prevalent ones online (The third word of the song, people, is "baby," not "feeling." Really?)

It seems to be a love song of a particular sort; a man saying "I want to have a baby with you" to the woman he loves, namely, Thelma. The song begins with the assertion that, "If a baby is born and no one complains/ Well, that's good luck running through young veins." Further, "if life is a blessing"-- life being both life in general and, perhaps, this newborn life-- "Well it's a short walk in a sweet breeze."

Further, the chorus, as in many love songs, is full of promises: "I will need you, feed you... plead with you" but also, in this case, "seed you." (If you don't understand the reference, please ask your parents how babies are made.)

Why? "All for the taste of your sweet love, Thelma." He is offering to impregnate her in exchange for her love. Now that's commitment.

In the next verse, he "searches" the "open memory book" of his "heart" and, well, "The more I searched, the more I shook for Thelma." So he is pretty sure that, of all the women in his heart's memory, she is the one. 

Then comes a series of lines about an international phone call. The speaker is in a hotel ("Last night I slept on a rented pillow") and it is night ("A silver moon above my head"). He awakens: ("A thirsty dreamless sleep released me"). Here, we have shades of "How the Heart Approaches...," which also had imagery of hotel rooms, moons, and dreams.

He reaches for the phone and calls, while realizing that there are two impediments to their relationship. One is age. He recalls that when he met her, he thought: "She's too young to be caught." The other is his reputation (If the speaker is Simon, by this time, he is twice divorced). And, as his "history" is well-known, he fears that "people"-- even "the management" at her hotel-- won't relay his message or will "poison the well" when they do, with comments like: "Oh, but don't call him back! You can do so much better..." etc. 

Then a more practical realization dawns on him-- she is across the International Dateline! "I realize we are time zones and oceans apart/ The words I speak in the middle of my night/ They fall on your yesterday's heart." It's still his "yesterday" where she is! So the "time zones" (age) and "oceans" (life experience) between them are literal as well. (In this distance, we hear echoes of "Kathy's Song": "I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets/ To England, where my heart lies... My thoughts are many miles away/ They lie with you, and you're asleep.")

Then, more promises. Even if bad times come ("If the sun don't shine")... even if these bad times don't stop ("if the wind don't break" [i.e., stop, as when a fever "breaks")... and unless the impossible occurs ("If the clock don't jump off the wall")-- under all of these circumstances, he promises Thelma, "I will cushion your fall."

He has made his promises, he has overcome obstacles of societal pressure of technical logistics, and now, a final statement of resignation: "I am only a man who has skirted the edge of despair/ for a long time now, and I don't care."

Because he has faced depression and lost so much, he has realized which things matter. And what does Thelma respond to all of this?

Observe: "I watch you sleeping in the hospital bed/ The baby curled up in a ball." She accepted his offer, and now they share a child. He sees them all-- in the same "sunlight" now, not under the "moon" while she is in sun. "And everything else becomes nothing at all." Only the moment, and the people in it, matter.

(Now, Rhythm of the Saints came out in 1990. Meanwhile, Simon met Edie Brickell in 1988, and married her in 1992. Also, he's 25 years her senior. While I'm not saying this song is definitely about Edie Brickell, the thought did cross my mind.)

Next Song: Ten Years


NOTE: The comment below was written by a reader named Yasmin. She posted it to the page on "Dazzling Blue," but it also relates to "Thelma" so I am copying here:

Hi Paul,
Firstly, thanks for your insights and all the great work you have done in this blog. This is the first place I look when I get utterly confused by a Paul Simon song :)
But more specifically about this song, I have recently heard “Once In A Blue Moon” which was written back in 2003 by Edie Brickell and I think there might be some lyrical connections here. “Once In A Blue Moon” tells the story of how two lovers meet. Although it is done partly in third person it sounds like the story of Edie herself and Paul. For one thing it is in agreement with the story told in “Thelma” by Paul Simon. And also the song has descriptions of the man of the story which sounds very much like Paul Simon. Descriptions such as these: “But that sad look on your face…”; “Eyes like faded jeans, soft and blue and he had seen everything and he had been everywhere…”; “Til he turned his gaze her way, Longed to see her everyday”; “He was more than fun, She was more than young”. Now these two lovers that Edie talks about have met “Once in a blue moon”. Edie also explains that “He was fine before he met her”… “Til he turned his gaze her way, Longed to see her everyday, Heard a voice inside him say, He'll never never never be the same”. So I feel it might be that the “dazzling blue” that Paul is talking about is the light of the blue moon under which they have allegedly met and as Edie describes they are never going to be the same again and therefore in a sense they are (re)born.

Born at the Right Time

What a lovely lullaby, especially the chorus.

The first verse, of course, is a reference to the Biblical story of the infant Moses being discovered in a basket on the banks of the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter, near the start of the Book of Exodus.

The chorus depicts the ideal, Utopian birth and upbringing. Which, to be fair, was not Moses'. He was raised perhaps by his birth-mother until he was weaned, but after that resided and matured in the house of the oppressor of his people, so deception must have been involved at some point. After he realized his heritage, he killed a taskmaster and so lived most of his life-- scholars say from age 20 to 80-- in fugitive exile. He lived among neither his native Hebrews nor adoptive Egyptians, but as a shepherd, when he had been an imperial prince. He spent the next while wresting his people from the hand of Pharaoh, and his last 40 years in the wilderness, desperately trying to hold a new nation together, often against its will.

And then there is the sound of the "church bells," which Simon referred to in "Bleecker Street" and "For Emily." It is incongruous to depict the leader of the Jewish people being born to that sound, to say the least.

So this may be a reference more to a Moses-esque figure, a savior of the people... a prophet with "centuries" in his "eyes." But then, how would a coddled figure like the one described possibly understand suffering well enough to connect with the people he was to save (and don't we voice the same concern, today, over potential leaders)?

Leaving all of these objections aside, the song is about an ideal, if imaginary, situation. A boy is discovered, in remarkable health for a foundling. He was born under the music of peace and glory, to the words of friendship, truth, safety, and the approbation of the whole of humanity. Surely one so blessed is capable of conferring blessing upon others.

Then, another speaker seems to interrupt. This is a worldly gent, who likes to travel, spend, and eat well. He sees "them"-- and by the fact that they are still nursing, we must assume "they" are infants-- and they see him right back. They regard him as an intruder, yet they regard him without fear: "They follow me with open eyes/ Their uninvited guest."

These babies, too, are coddled, being nursed "in the airport lounges," and not in a less comfortable or relaxed environment. And they, too, are "born at the right time," like the foundling in the opening verse.

It seems possible that the chorus refers to "me" (the speaker) and not "they" (the babies), which would give another layer of implication-- that this sophisticated gent is also "born at the right time."

In any case, the gent bemoans overpopulation and overdevelopment in the next, short verse: "too many people."

And then: "But." This small word serves two purposes. One, it shows that it has been the same speaker all along, merely continuing his thought-- sometimes poetically, sometimes more conversationally.

It also serves as the introduction to the counterargument to the fears of overpopulation. How? Well, here is a "baby girl." Also "found," and also "born at the right time."

Every baby is, potentially, born at the right time, the speaker realizes. Every baby has the opportunity, if the right people find and raise it, to be Moses... or Miriam. Carl Sandburg said it nicely: "A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on." If so, could not all babies be born at the right time?

And in a world without isolation, lies, fear, and want, definitely so.

IMPACT:
Simon evidently liked the song, as he titled the tour to promote this album "The Born at the Right Time Tour."

Next song: The Cool, Cool River