The Pied Piper

You may have heard, on an oldies station, a song by one Crispian St. Peters that goes "I'm the Pied Piper/ Follow me," with a lot of piccolo in it. This is not that song.

It is another song, performed by a girl group called The Cupcakes, that also refers to the Grimm fairy-tale about the motley-dressed (or "pied") flute player whom, when he was not paid for removing the rats from Hamlin with his hypnotic flute-playing, came back and removed the children. This is why you have to "pay the piper" (yes, this is where the expression comes from).

In any case, our song here-- co-written by Richie Cordell (who sang "Dori Anne")-- credits Paul Simon on the 45 label. Not Jerry Landis or True Taylor, but Paul himself, under his own name. The year? 1965.

There is something wish-fulfilling about a musician writing a song about a guy who, just with his music, attracts all the girls. From Orpheus and his rabid groupies, the Bacchae, through Franz Liszt, to the girls a-swoon with Beatlemaina, music has attracted romantic attention. And for just as long, musicians have been hoping for some of that magical, musical aphrodisiac to work for them.

Here, the girls sing about it from their viewpoint. "He's up and down my block whistling his song/ I've got to follow him as he goes along." She is not alone: "There he goes, and right behind/ The girls all follow him in line... I'm only Number 5 and I fall right in line/ Pied Piper."

So, there's the effect. "I get this feeling that I just can't explain... Funny, how he's got a hold over me."

It's a pretty serious case. Even when he's not around, his impact is felt. "I get my homework and it's gotta get done/ It's almost 10:00 and I ain't begun." And when he actually shows up? "He's underneath my windowsill!/ Will I love him? Yes, I will!"

What's the cause, though? "He's the cutest boy I ever did see." Which never seems to hurt.

But mostly, "Here he comes again he's whistlin' that tune/ I get excited and I run out of my room." Yes, mostly it's the music.

The speaker admits, "I guess it's silly cause he'll never be mine," but still, "I don't feel bad." At some level, she knows it's a schoolgirl crush and is simply reveling in the glee of it all, like any good fan.

For once, the songwriter assays a woman's point of view-- what does he see through her eyes? Why, doting affection for an adorable musician, of course! A cute face and a pretty tune, that's what women want! How lucky for him that that's exactly what he's got.

But the tune is harmless. Adorable, in fact... and it should have been a hit. Shame that it was never rediscovered by, say, Berry Gordy or Phil Spector. How many girls could have identified with having a crush on the cute neighborhood musician? Probably more than a few.

For the guys, what an appropriate role model. Some off-beat clothes and a funky tune? Not to hard to come by. And hey, it worked for the Pied Piper.

Musical Note:
The Cupcakes were, in fact, The Cookies. But they also recorded as The Cinderellas, The Palisades, The Honey Bees, The Stepping Stones... and sometimes weren't credited at all.

Next Song: Cuba Si, Nixon No

I Don't Believe

The "fairy-tale" referred to in this song-- "breadcrumbs in a... forest"-- is the Grimm Brothers' "Hansel and Gretl."

The speaker (probably Simon, given whom he quotes later) begins this song by saying that another fairy-tale we hear is that  "acts of kindness... lead us past dangers." But "I don't believe," he says, that this is the case. Continuing the image of a tale told around a campfire or hearth-fire,  he says "I lean closer to the fire, but I'm cold." He wants to believe, that is, but his skepticism prevents it.

Then he tells another tale, about the creation of the world: "The earth was born in a storm" could refer to either The Big Bang or Genesis 1:6-7. The next words seem to be taken from Genesis 1:9-- "The waters receded, the mountains were formed"-- and scientists might agree that at some point, this happened through plate tectonics (adding that such movement is still happening), and that maybe the "waters" were in the form of icy glaciers. Simon's point is that in either case, there is a narrative, and you can choose to accept it or not.

The next line comes from a more recent source-- his wife! The "E.B." the quote is attributed to is Edie Brickell, who was remarking on the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry election that "the universe loves a drama." It's not enough that there be a narrative. It must be... dramatic! Even if it's just a bunch of exit-poll statistics.

What spurred all of this deep rumination on the subjective nature of reality? "I got a call from my broker/ The broker informed me I'm broke." Well. That could certainly shake up one's day. The breadcrumbs in the story were eaten by birds, you may recall, which is why the children could not find their way back home and ended up confronting the witch.

The speaker feels lost and betrayed. He feels that his "guardian angel" is, instead of guarding him, "taunt[ing]" him. Meanwhile, his children and wife, ignorant of their sudden impoverishment, are enjoying the "warm summer evening" by "laughing" and "brushing her... hair," with "not a whisper of care."

So here he was, being a responsible adult with investments and such, and then, poof! It is not surprising he is questioning the ephemeral nature of his narrative.

Yet, if he lacks faith in "acts of kindness," he has faith in something else. "I don't believe a heart can be filled to the brim/ Then vanish like mist." Kindness is one thing-- it's a sheet of ice over a lake that may or may not be thick enough to walk on. But the heart is a boat, a bridge. If you have a firm relationship, you don't need to "depend," as Blanche DuBois does, on the "kindness of strangers."

Unless... "Maybe the heart is part of the mist/ and that's all that... could ever exist." What if his wife leaves because of this? He's been divorced twice already! How silly to trust love-- hasn't he learned?

"Maybe and maybe and maybe some more"-- This cry of despair echoes Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." And like the weary King, he curses himself for having faith in anything:  "Maybe's the exit that I'm looking for." Macbeth is looking for an exit, too: "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a... tale told by an idiot... signifying nothing." A tale, or a "fairy-tale," perhaps?

But then, another call... "My broker said he was mistaken." So he is not "broke" at all, and he luckily did not worry his wife for nothing. The broker adds that he hopes that his "faith isn't shaken." He's a bit late for that...

Well, most people would be overjoyed at such news, and our speaker is. "Acts of kindness," he says, "release the spirit with a whoop and a shout."

But even in this state of relief, he feels changed. What if the second call had not come? What if something like this were to actually happen? Just because it wasn't real this time does not mean it could not someday be so.

So he closes by saying that, while he has not necessarily written off prayer altogether (which is good, considering "Wartime Prayers" was just two songs ago), that the idea of an organized religion is no longer appealing. If anything, life obviously rests daintily on chaos-- on plate tectonics and other shifting realities-- to simply accept and trust, to impose a structure on a faith.

He says, "I don't believe we were born to be sheep... To pantomime prayers with the hands of a clock." This last line can be read two ways. One is "[along] with the hands of a clock," at set times. The other is "with hands like clock hands," with rigidity and a mechanical attitude. If life is fluid, then prayer must be as well. You should be able to pray when you need to!

And maybe you should not believe in fairy tales or rely on kindness or even have perfect faith in love.  Maybe faith has to be be as fluid as life itself is, with swells and ebbs and tides.

Galileo responded to accusations that his science was a form of heresy by saying that he did not believe that God gave us brains and then wanted us to not use them. Questioning is not the opposite of faith-- it is a form of faith. It is the belief that, even when we question, there is an answer.

So no, the speaker says, "I don't believe... I do something better: I trust."

Next Song: Another Galaxy

Hurricane Eye

This is actually a very "political" song. It is about, mostly, environmentalism and civil rights, and the people who ignore these issues... at their own peril.

The first four lines make fun of the whole idea of "history" as a definitive thing-- it is, at base, a story with an author, with all of the bias that implies: "Tell us all a story/ About how it used to be/ Make it up and then write it down/ Just like history."

Simon fixes on a particular story, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," which, he posits, is about "Nature in the crosshairs."After all, didn't a human invade and disrupt a perfectly happy animals' abode in that tale? In this reading, Goldilocks might as well have, in Joni Mitchell's image, "paved Paradise and put up a parking lot."

But how did humans come to be outsiders in Nature? After all, "we all ascended/ From the deep green sea," according to evolutionary theory. Citing Goldilocks' desire for a perfect balance in porridge temperature-- "not too hot/ Not too cold"-- as a guideline, "Where it’s just right and you have sunlight," then, Simon explains, "we’re home/ Finally home."  In other words, when the chemistry is optimal and a source of energy is available, life can blossom.

But what if we are "home" in the sense of "at the height of evolution" but are "home in the land of the homeless," and not everyone has a literal home? Then we have reached a physical peak, but fallen short of a moral one.

The song continues in this social justice vein, with one person voicing concern over the state of society-- "Oh, what are we going to do?"-- and the other not accepting this "we" at all: "I never did a thing to you." Why do I have to help fix this injustice-- I didn't cause it!

The next line is a cautionary one "Time peaceful as a hurricane eye." A hurricane's eye is peaceful, but it is only the calm before the rest of the storm arrives after the first edge. It is, as they say, a false sense of security. You have to help fix this injustice because, even if you did not cause it, you are still affected by it!

The next verse seems to be about the oppression of the Native Americans. "A history of whispers" is fair enough; most history lessons are about the Western expansion of the Whites, not about the Reds they swept aside. This "White cloud," came in, followed by the "black crow," the carrion eater. Again, the image of the Western "Crucifix" conflicts with that of the Native "arrow," only it was the Natives crucified this time. All that's left are "a shadow of a horse" and "faces painted black in sorrow and remorse." The Natives feel sorrow, and the Europeans the remorse. We know this is about the Natives, again, because it is "the oldest silence," before the other American slaveries and discriminations.

Then Simon offers this bit of passive-resistance advice: "When speech becomes a crime/ Silence leads the spirit/ Over the bridge of time." This applies to the silence of all martyrs, from before the Holocaust up through the age of AIDS. How do we know that a mass death happened? Well, where are all those people? Where are the children they would have birthed, the works they would have created? Silent. It is simply the absence of these people that creates the memory of their loss. It creates a vacuum that our very nature abhors.

"Over the bridge of time," Simon repeats, "I’m walking with my family/ And the road begins to climb." It is supposed to get easier, but instead the incline becomes steeper. This is a possible reference to advancing age; the road is the same, but it feels steeper.  

"And then it’s, oh, Lord, how we going to pray/ With crazy angel voices/ All night/ Until it’s a new day." It is unclear, from the word "with," whether these voices are their own resembling those of "angels," or those of angels praying alongside their own. But it hardly matters. After such a steep climb, how can one find the energy... to pray for the energy for the next day's hike? And what does this "new day" look like? Well, it's "peaceful as a hurricane." Not the eye, mind you!

OK, so we have all of these problems. Well then, let's do something! Oh, so  "you want to be leader?/ You want to change the game?" Counter-intuitively, Simon advises: "Turn your back on money/ Walk away from fame." This is certainly the approach followed by everyone from Buddha, Moses, and Jesus to Gandhi, King, and Schweitzer. 

"You want to be a missionary?/ You got that missionary zeal?" Don't start a church, Simon says, but join the Peace Corps: "Let a stranger change your life/ How’s that make you feel?" 

And "You want to be a writer/ But you don’t know how or when?" Well, Simon is one of the best writers we have, so yes, we'd like his advice! "Find a quiet place/ Use a humble pen." The advice in any case is the same-- be "humble." Seek to learn, not to teach... to be of service, not to be served.

With "you want to talk, talk, talk about it/ The ocean and the atmosphere," Simon returns to the environment. "Well, I’ve been away for a long time/ And it looks like a mess around here." This could refer to Simon's long hiatus between albums, or his long hiatus from political songwriting. In either case, its does not seem to him that things have substantially improved, environmentally, since the beginning of that movement.

"And I’ll be away for a long time," probably means "...once I'm dead." Knowing this, Simon feels obliged to sum up his life's learning and pass it on: "So here’s how the story goes." We lean forward to listen...

...and hear a nursery rhyme! "There was an old woman/ Who lived in a shoe." But his version is different: "She was baking a cinnamon pie." Well, pies figure in many nursery rhymes, from "Little Jack Horner" to "Sing a Song of Sixpence" to "Simple Simon."

The rhyme now ends: "She fell asleep in a washing machine/ Woke up in a hurricane eye." Few places are as agitated as the inside of a washing machine. In fact, the pole with angled fins inside the top-loading kind is called an "agitator." When our old woman woke, though, there was calm. Or, at least, calm where she was. 

The song as a whole is about the activists' mission: to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Throughout, we have characters who think they live in a world of calm. Well, their world might be calm, but the whole world is not! We have "nature in the crosshairs." Homelessness. Genocide and forced expulsions. 

There is a hurricane of trouble out there! And we should know this, even if it we live in the eye. If for no other reason than that the hurricane moves... and we could at any moment find ourselves not in calm but in 75-mile-an-hour winds.

Next Song: Quiet