You're the One

This is another of Simon's songs that seems to be two songs welded together. The first is a love song, the second is a break-up song.

But perhaps it is one song, just in two parts, like an episode of Law & Order. First, we see the explosive relationship being assembled and the fuse lit... then we see the fallout.

There are two people here-- let's call them Chris and Pat, with Chris being the speaker. Chris is an insecure person, regardless of being in a relationship or not: "Nervous when you got it/ Nervous when it's gone" that it is gone for good... and then nervous of losing it again if it comes back.

The problem starts immediately, with the first line of the song. While most lullabies have four angels guarding a sleeping child, over-protective Chris piles "twelve angles" onto Pat, saying "I'd do anything to keep you safe."

Things move slowly-- "little bit by little bit"-- until they are perfect: "Now you got it, that's it." Instantly, Chris starts to "take [the relationship's] temperature every hour," which probably drives Pat batty. Chris also is needy, telling Pat: "You are the air inside my chest."

Then there is a clatter of hand drums, symbolizing discord. Suddenly, there is a break-up! And we start Part II: The Recrimination.

"You're the one!" accuses Chris. "You broke my heart. You made me cry." Here, Simon is mocking the pop-song convention of blaming the other party.

But some part of Chris is rational, after all. When piling on angles, Chris muses: "Maybe that's a waste of angles, I don't know." This part of Chris' mind, capable of analyzing and even debating against its own thoughts, comes back into play. This part asserts itself through a subconscious "dream." Now, Chris is able to put the capacity for anticipating others' needs into use, now, to see another's point of view: "But when I hear it from the other side/ It's a completely different song/ I'm the one who made you cry/ I'm the one who's wrong." [emphasis mine].

Then Simon gives us his moral of the story. Change is constant in "nature," he says, citing the amorphous "shapeless shapes" of "clouds and waves and flame." But "human expectation," unreasonably, "is that love remains the same."

So Chris does the obvious thing: "Blame, blame, blame." Whose fault is it? Chris, for being smothering and clingy? Pat, for not proving some sort of reassurance, or for enabling Chris' neediness to persist past the breaking point?

Yes, and yes-- it's everyone's fault, Simon concludes: "We're the one."


Next Song: The Teacher

You Fucked Up My Life

(This song begins, in the Lyrics book, with two lines ascribed to no performer; they are the same as appeared in the song "Santero." They are in a non-English language, and it is not one I recognize. There are so many accent marks I cannot even type it in accurately. I am afraid to admit I have no further information, but if anyone does, please let me know. UPDATE: A reader who has seen the play provides some information and insights in the comments below)

Evidently, Salvador has had the opportunity to reacquaint himself with some of his old gang-mates. Perhaps at this point he has served his extra two years for breaking parole and is now on parole again, but stuck in New York.

He is not greeted warmly by his old friends. Angel Soto calls him names, then says, "You had your moment of glory/ With your pearl-handed knife/ Oh, what a TV story/ But you fucked up my life." He concludes that his parents were very upset with him.

It is not clear how Sal's crime caused Angel so much suffering. He was not one of the perpetrators. Perhaps the event caused a crackdown on gangs.

Babu Charlie Cruz, another gang member, is clearer about his grudge. "I was on trial with you," he says, and he did some time. This is the cause, he says, of his never being able to land a union job, and for his fiancee leaving him. He also blames Sal's attitude during the trial for stoking anti-Puerto Rican sentiment: "You would walk into the courtroom/ Saying, 'All youse are gonna burn,'/ As if everything evil was Puerto Rican."

Young Sal responds (later, Adult Salvador will, as well) that he "took the weight for all of youse... I was the 'escape goat' for all of youse/ You all came to gangbang/ There were other guys with knives... There was no blood on my knife." As to his attitude, he claims this his ethnic pride. Sure, he says to them, "Stick it to the Jibaro... He don't kiss ass in no courtroom/ With the fucking American flag." A "Jibaro" is a native Puerto Rican, and Sal uses the word to mean a true Puerto Rican patriot (I am not sure if Sal had any Jibaro blood).

And when he says "escape goat," he means "scapegoat," but his mispronunciation could be either an uneducated mistake or the use of some Spanish speakers of an "e" before an "s." (One native Spanish speaker I know, a teacher, spoke to me of the "estudents" at her "eschool.")

Salvador now adds his comments, repeating "I am an innocent man," and that if he owes them anything, he already paid with his incarceration and his eternal damnation, his reputation-- deserved or not-- as The Capeman.

Hernandez, The Umbrella Man, tells Salvador: "You can lie to the press, you can lie to yourself/ But you cannot lie to us/ I was there at your side."

Even if Sal is guilty, it seems too convenient to blame Sal for everything wrong in their lives. They were there that fateful night, too (as they just admitted), and it might just as well have been one of them accused and jailed for more than a decade. Also, they have had their freedom instead, and many chances. They might have joined the army or priesthood, or returned to Puerto Rico, or any other number of options.

In any case, Salvador again protests his innocence, swearing on his medallion of St. Lazarus. Which segues nicely into the next piece, a duet between Salvador and the saint.

Next Song: Lazarus/Last Drop of Blood