Bad Dream

This song could just as easily have been called "Bad Dream Blues," given the melody.

There are several sorts of bad dreams discussed in the song. After each, a question is asked, prefaced by the words "I'm wondering." 

One sort of bad dream is a nightmare-- you fall asleep, and instead of imagining riding a horse in a field of tulips, you imagine being attacked by a bear in a cave. The speaker imagines all dreams being produced in a "factory," in which the executive decision is made-- will tonight's dream be sweet, or scary?

The first bad dream we encounter is of this type. In the dream, a "giant shadow" is imagined by a child to be enveloping and smothering him to the point of suffocation. Since it was a form of darkness that was the problem, the solution was "the morning sun." 

The dream happened while he was "asleep, but still awake," which could refer to REM sleep. It could also, I guess, refer to "lucid" dreaming; generally, one in this state can direct the course of the dream's narrative, which doesn't happen here, but then this dreamer is a child who may be unaware of that option.

Since the person relating this nightmare is an adult remembering it from his childhood, the question is: "Where is the doorway to yesterday's secrets?" Frustratingly, the adult remembers the dream but not the experience that triggered it. If only he could access those memories, he could finally understand the dream.

Simon co-wrote (and co-sang) this song with Edie Brickell, his wife. She takes a turn, offering, she says, "a woman's perspective." What she says is brief, but powerful, and also remembered from childhood:

Ever since I was a little girl
They all said, "Don't go out alone at night

It's a hungry, dangerous world"

For vulnerable minorities, the world is a "bad dream" even when they are awake. Their nights are filled with waking nightmares of constantly incessant pursuit by the appetites of society. Since this hunger is inescapable and insatiable, the only solution (admittedly not much of one) is to avoid danger as much as possible. 

Her question is: "Where is the shelter for runaway angels?" Pure innocence is, sadly, one of the most attractive targets, but where can true safety be found? It is as elusive as an inaccessible memory.

The final scenario is also brief. A "backwoods" man crashes a rodeo, carrying many bibles, then wailing. This is a "dream," also, but whose? Notably, while the other scenarios were followed by the words "a bad dream," this one is followed by just "It's a dream." Meaning that, for some, this could be a good dream-- someone messianic bringing order (religion) to chaos (a "rodeo"), not someone unwelcome imposing restrictions on revelry. 

Is this a "bad dream"? Depends who you ask. 

This time, the question is "Where is the country I promised my children?" Clearly, Simon is of the camp that sees this "backwoods" character as a wet-blanket killjoy. Simon is, famously, one of the voices of the Civil Rights movement (see "A Church is Burning," "He Was My Brother," "The Sound of Silence," etc.) and this song was written when the US was dealing with the MAGA movement. 

There is a structure here that may seem familiar to Simon's fans; we saw it years ago in the song "Slip Sliding Away." The first verse, there, was about a man, the second about a woman, and the third about a father. (Interestingly, Springsteen's "Glory Days" is the also same, structurally: verses about a man, then a woman, then-- in a "missing" verse-- the speaker's father. The final, familiar, verse is about he speaker himself.)

In this song, we have a man remembering his childhood nightmare, a woman remembering the fear instilled in her as a girl... and then a verse about society at large dealing with a figure who is a harbinger of doom to some, but a herald of salvation to others. 

The three kinds of "bad dreams" delineated are the sleeping kind, the waking kind... and the kind that people will tell you wasn't a nightmare at all. Having your own perceptions questioned, and even suspected, sounds pretty nightmarish, too.

The Sacred Harp

This song, or Psalm, is both the only one in this collection with a recognizable narrative, if a brief one, and a cast of characters. It also the only one I see that directly refers to the idea of, or the creation of, the Psalms the collection itself is named for. 

Aptly enough, the song is introduced with the words "a change of mood."

Only, within the song, this refers to a change in the weather. This sudden downpour is inconveniencing to those riding a truck through it, but much more so to the hitchhikers they pick up-- a mother and a son.

Reluctantly, the truck driver and his significant other offer them a ride "as a highway courtesy." They admit they are not going that much further today, but will arrive at a place their passengers can find a room out of the rain.

The mother replies, her accent in "a blend of regional perfumes" (when Simon is on, he is on). Rather than saying where they are headed, she says: "We have no destination/ The moon and the stars/ Provide us with our homes."

As so we meet more of Simon's aimless wanderers. We have encountered them in "Me and Julio" ("Well, I'm on my way/ Don't know where I'm going") and "America" ("Walked off to look for America") and "Duncan" and "Cloudy" ("Hitchhike a hundred miles/ I'm a ragamuffin child") and "The Coast" and "Homeward Bound" and "The Boxer"...and that's just off the top of my head. I bet I could find a dozen more if I went song-by-song through his entire catalog, from "Somewhere They Can't Find Me" to "That's Where I Belong."

You could probably get at least a Master's Thesis out of an examination of the trope of the "wanderer" in Simon's songs, but they probably all trace back to the life of a musician constantly on tour. Although in Simon's case, he sometimes is busy chasing a sound from South Africa to Brazil, happy to follow where it leads. 

Back to the song at hand. The woman says they are not going toward anyplace as much as away from one. She calls she and her son "refugees" from her hometown, explaining: "They don't like different there," to the degree that she feared for their lives. By "different," she means her son, who has stopped speaking-- except "to the voices in his head." The son nods in agreement.

Then there is another "change of mood." For the next verse and a half, the speaker speaks of King David's "sacred harp" (finally paying off the title), saying, "We long to hear those strings... the ringing strings/ The thought that God turns music into bliss." 

Yes, the simple reading is "Ah! The very thought-- God turns music into bliss!" But I prefer to read it: "The thought that God [uses to] turn music into bliss." 

Because now it makes sense, at least to me, to bring up the whole David-and-Psalms business suddenly, in this story about picking up hitchhikers. I feel that Simon is saying that the voices in this boy's head are like the ones that inspired David to pick up his harp and write the Psalms.

The latter Psalms are hymns, written by David to be performed as worship in the Holy Temple (which God told him he would no longer build after his sin with Bathsheba. David instead used his remaining days to prepare the materials-- both solid and intangible-- his son Solomon would need to build and operate the Temple). 

But the early Psalms? Many were desperate pleas by young David for God to save him from the wrath of King Saul, who had been told by the prophet Samuel that David-- not Saul's own son Jonathan-- would succeed him as king. Saul's response was to bring the full force of the royal army down on the head of this shepherd boy, the very one who sang him out of his own melancholies. 

These early Psalms were the songs of, well, a refugee. And, like all songs, they were the manifestations of an internal voice the writer heard.

And now, here, in our speaker's own truck, was such another soul. Also hounded from his home for the crime of being "different." If only people would listen to the thoughts this boy had, instead of using them against him...

The last two lines of the song are even more enigmatic. Evidently, their truck is now... home? "We left the pick-up in the driveway." The only places that have driveways you can leave a vehicle in are private houses (a hotel or condo would have a parking lot or garage). They are either back home, or at the house they were headed toward. So what's the problem? They went to a house. 

But a house would be in a residential area like a neighborhood or suburb, not a place where homeless hitchhikers would likely find "a place to stay" as promised. So did they drop them off at a shelter...?

In any case, they had guessed that by the time they dropped them off, the rain would have dissipated into mere mist. At that, they guessed right. Because now the riders disembark from the truck to regard the moon "in the mist." 

The other of the last two lines is: "The moon appeared as amber." Amber, of all the gemstones, is the one that has organic origins. It is the fossilized sap of dinosaur-era trees. Its source was something alive, and we can hold it now, millions of years later. 

The encounter with the woman and her withdrawn child have had an impact on them, so they can't sleep even after their long journey. Instead, they look up at the Moon, knowing that, like amber, it was there in the time of David. 

Maybe someday, this boy will be able to write down what he hears in his mind, and instead of being feared as a pariah, he will be revered as a poet. 

People yearn to hear a sacred harp, so why do they never know one when they do hear one?

(Note: This is a very different use of the Biblical David than what Leonard Cohen had in his song "Hallelujah.")

Next Song: Wait

Tennessee

Simon's first wife was Peggy Harper, and they had a son in 1972 whom they named after her maiden name. In 2009, Harper Simon cut an eponymous album, and he invited his father to participate. Together, they wrote three songs, and the first one on the album is this one.

It's autobiographical, from the speaker's standpoint, although in the third line, he adds the caveat: "Most of it is true."

The first line, however, is "Howdy," and in the country-flavored song, the speaker describes how he identifies more with his mother-- he's "proud [his] mama comes from Tennessee"-- instead of New York City, where he was born and raised. (Harper himself was born and raised in New York, but I was unable to determine if Peggy was from Tennessee.)

He says she is, specifically, from Newport, "a place of moderation, common sense, and decency." While he has moved to her home state, he hasn't achieved that style of behavior, just as yet: "It's nothing like the way I am/ But it's how I'm gonna be."

So, how has he been, then, thus far? Well, he was "kicked out of" several schools, received many "incompletes" and finally "bought a C," by which he means bribed his teacher to give him a passing grade, or perhaps paid a student to take a test for him. (At this point, we know the song is not autobiographical to Harper, at least as far as he left out the part where he attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music.)

Next, the speaker says he"rambled around/ from Slumberville to Lonesome Town," which might be the locale of the Heartbreak Hotel.

At some point, he got bitten by the musical bug. He "joined a band" which proved unsuccessful but, undeterred, "booked some time on Nashville's Music Row." He tried to use music to connect to his Southern roots: "Don't want no electric guitars in the background."

Now, this plan is a work in progress. "I got issues/ I got pain," ("issues" being typically New York word) he admits, "There's a lot I can't remember/ Even more I can't explain" (this couplet is pure country, however).

See, he's "trying to concentrate on how you find serenity/ When you're born in New York City/ But your mom's from Tennessee." He feels that the bustle and shallowness of New York might be what has made him feel aimless, so his theory is that if he can-- through music-- reconnect with his traditional past, perhaps he can find both physical and emotional stability.

Perhaps by connecting with his roots through roots music, he can finally feel, well, rooted.

Musical note:
Paul sings harmony on this track, and played guitar on others on this album.

Many "ringers" were brought in as backups. A very good list is available at Harper's Wikipedia page; ones from the rock world include drummer Steve Gadd, and Steve Nieve, one of Elvis Costello's Attractions. It can be assumed that Paul was responsible for the presence of some of them, but Harper had been playing professionally for some time and it would be unfair to assume he had made no musical friendships of his own. In fact, there seem to be at least three generations of musicians here.

Next Song: Ha Ha

Sal's Last Song/ Esmerelda's Dream

Sal (and the book and song title say that the young Sal sings these lines, not the older Salvador-- to a mother, a son is always "her baby" regardless of his age) finally arrives home, to his mother's house. His first words to her are to beg forgiveness, and his words reflect Lady Macbeth's: "If I could cleanse these hands, maybe then/ I could start my life again."

His mother responds that he has "come to the end of the Santa Cruz Road." "Cruz" is the Spanish word for "cross"; perhaps she means that he has come down from the cross and that his penance is complete.

But then Salvador says the thing that he has had to say all this time: He owns his guilt. "I and I alone," he repeats four times. "I and I alone must bear the blame/ For the madness that was done/ For the shame." He even absolves the santero (fortune-teller) and his shells. "When the summer night was torn/ By the dagger of the moon/ It was I and I alone."

Esmerelda responds that she "dreamed" of his homecoming, of his face "in the light." "Let me kiss your hands, no more talk about madness." And then, like a good mama, she says, "I've been cooking since morning/ I wanted your first meal at home to be right."

Salvador hands her something: "This is my book. I've written my life story... All the things I did, for which I am sorry." And then his mother says, "It is repentance that makes good from evil." Even if no one else does, or can, she forgives him.

The last song in The Capeman is hers. In it, she tells of a detailed dream. She was sitting in "an outer room of Heaven." She was wearing her usual house dress and watching two angels-- male, soft-spoken, and blonde-- at a distance. She sees a pulpit, a chair, and transparent marble doors. There is a book on which the angels were chronicling Sal's birth. They carried a broken chain, she says, "laid it at my feet and they were gone."

What does it mean? Well, she interrupts the dream recount to ask Sal; "Do you remember [your] first communion?/ All the children with their candles dressed in white/ And once in prison, you asked me for a ribbon/ To mark the pages that you wrote each night/ Do you remember when we went to the santero/ and he said that you would suffer/ He was right." So these are the images from life that she feels are symbolized in the dream.

The two, taken together, seem to refer to the ideas of new chances and new beginnings: a birth, a first communion, a broken chain. 

The angels might symbolize the white-garbed children-- their halos, the candles. She remarks that the angels' hair is "lightened by the sea and sun." This echoes the people, and heavenly sensation, Salvador recalled at the seaside resort of El Malecon.

Their book likely is Sal's book. The empty pulpit might refer to her ex-husband, the fiery preacher. The empty chair may have been the one Salvador has been vacating. 

But she is in the "outer room" of Heaven because she is not dying and so has no reason to enter Heaven itself. The doors are marble and so impenetrable, but clear so that she can see that there is another side. There is hope.

The last things Sal sings are lines from earlier songs. One is, "I believe in the power of Saint Lazarus," who has fulfilled his promise. Now that Sal's soul has thirsted, quenching rains have been provided.

The other is (and the title of the song is the last three words of the line): "Don't tear apart this satin summer night." This was the prayer he expressed when he was young and in love, before all of the trouble started. Lazarus swore that Salvador would be alone until he repented, and he did lose Wahzinak because he had not. Now that he atoned, maybe he will find someone again.

In the previous song (above), he claims that he was responsible "when the summer night was torn." Now he says "Don't tear apart this... summer night." So who is he begging this of now? His mother? St. Lazarus? Or himself-- his own self-destructive nature? Things are finally hopeful again, he says to himself, so don't screw it up!

All of this is captured in the name "Sal," which is not in either of these songs (although it may be in the dialogue). He is not the burdened Salvador or the dreaded Capeman. He is simply, once again, Sal. As in his mother's dream, which re-recorded his birth 40-some years on, he is born again.

[Note to readers: This concludes the songs of The Capeman. Starting with the next post, we will resume discussing the songs from standard albums, starting with the songs from You're the One. Therefore, we will be resuming the usual schedule of one song per week.]

Next Song: That's Where I Belong

Sunday Afternoon

Here, Esmerelda, Sal's mother, speaks. He is in jail, but she is somewhat trapped as well, as she explains.

She writes to her son in prison, using his adult name, Salvador. She tells him that lunch is over, but even though it is noon, there is no sunlight in her apartment: "The buildings here, tall as our mountains/ Slice through the windows and cut off the sun."

By "our mountains," she means those back home, in Puerto Rico. She is homesick. Even if life was hard there... well, it is hard in New York, too, but not as pretty outside! Still she vows to Salvador to "never return until you are free." Thoughts of the homeland fo cheer her, especially when she hears the Aguialdo-- a Hispanic Christmas carol of sorts-- to which she dances with her daughter, Aurea.

She confides to him that she has been "unlucky" in love. Her Puerto Rican husband drank and ran around. Gonzales, the preacher who brought her to America, was a "hypocrite," who "beat you and preached about repentance/ Has gone." Actually, she left Gonzales, after he abandoned Sal to his prison fate.

Esmerelda might also point out that the church that took them in to begin with was also, ultimately, cruel to Salvador. Both lands, both husbands, both churches, have made promises of rescue... only to require that they be rescued from them, in turn!

"Another Sunday ends," Esmerelda sighs. This throwaway line is actually very telling. Esmerelda is no longer banking on "Sunday,"... on promises of faith and salvation, especially not by those who profess religious power.

No... "tomorrow is another hardworking Monday." She is trying to depend on herself, on her own work. But this seems another blind alley filled with false promises; "I am still hoping for the raise they promised me." Perhaps, someday, she will have the fortitude to remind her employers of their promise. For now, she is neither dependent on men--husbands or her son-- nor on the Church.

"There's a job as a operator/ If I could speak the language easily." In the era before cell phones, operators were telephone company employees who helped connect calls, provide 411 information, etc.; today, their job would be called "customer service." Naturally, fluency was a requirement. Esmerelda is unaware that classes in English for non-native speakers have been offered in places like libraries and community centers for decades, and she seems still too reticent to even ask after such things.

After all of her struggles, she seems ready to take a break, though: "I view my light with resignation." Further, she is still a several-times-over minority-- a woman, an immigrant, older than most job seekers, a not-quite fluent-enough-speaker. Oh, and the mother of a well-known convicted murderer, which could also hurt her career prospects.

She also seems content to consider "the Barrio" as "our own little nation," a Puerto Rican island, as it were, within the island of Manhattan. Perhaps being close to her people is as close as she can get to being with her family, which dwindles ever smaller. Wistfully, she tells Sal, "Sometimes I hear you run upstairs."

Even with all of her betrayals by the organized Church, Esmerelda still clings to her faith, and tells Sal to, also: "Keep your Bible near you."

Why? Because "time is an ocean of endless tears." Every time she put herself forward-- to the church back in Puerto Rico, to both her husbands, to this new land, and now to her job-- she has been slapped backward.

And now, she sits in her apartment, and Sal in his cell.. each a prisoner wavering between resignation to darkness and hope of sunlight.

But the Bible tells of the rise of Joseph, the Exodus from bondage, the entrance into the Promised Land, the elevation of David.... and the Ascension of Jesus. All stories of lowly people achieving liberty, self-determination, and salvation.

Next Song: Time is an Ocean

Manhunt/ Can I Forgive Him?

[Note to readers: Someone asked if a more complete soundtrack than Songs From had ever been released. Here is the full answer, from a 2006 piece for Playbill.com by Andrew Gans: "The original Broadway cast recording of Paul Simon's The Capeman — the short-lived musical that featured Ruben Blades, Marc Anthony, Ednita Nazario and Sara Ramirez — never made it to record stores, but interested listeners can now download tracks from the recording on iTunes... All 39 songs from the Simon musical are available for download... The Dreamworks SKG original cast album of Paul Simon's Broadway musical The Capeman was originally scheduled for release in spring 1998. The recording, which was never released, featured the entire Broadway cast singing the full score, which was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Original Score. A CD of Simon, Blades, Anthony and Nazario singing selections from the show was released in fall 1997. The cast album includes much material not on the Songs From The Capeman CD."]

There is no song about the crime in progress, just the aftermath. The song "Manhunt" begins with adult Salvador recalling the events' conclusion: "I see two bodies lifted high/ As angels in their shroud."

A cabdriver recalls picking up "them Puerto Ricans," and where, and also where he dropped them off, a neighborhood called San Juan Hill, which we assume is named for Puerto Rico's capital. "The little guy with the stingy brim/ Looked mean enough to kill," the cabbie adds. We recall a "stingy brim" hat being discussed in "Shopliftin' Clothes." (This just means the brim is smaller than standard.)

The Chorus takes part in this song. At first, they cry, "Run, Spic, run!" This slur comes from the way native Spanish speakers tend to pronounce the word "speak," especially in explaining that they "don't speak English." Those who could would mock their accent.

Then the mayor arrives for a press conference. He blames the lack of "parental guidance," and "the courts," with their "leniency for animals that lead a life of crime." He concludes by saying the police force will add 1,400 officers.

Carlos, young Sal's positive role model, was "at the scene," and it seems he fingered Sal; we are also reminded that Sal was 16 at the time. Now Sal himself takes over the narration, explaining that he and Umbrella Man "vanished in the Bronx/ Taking food from garbage cans" until Sal is caught by a cop... and admits that, yes, "I'm the one who used the knife."

Now the Chorus, who has first told him to "run," chant "Kill the spics!" Sal reacts with outward toughness: "I don't care if they fry me/ My mother could watch me burn."

"Can I Forgive Him?" (Track 7) has got to be one of the saddest songs Simon ever wrote.

Esmerelda, Sal's mother, comes to see Mrs. Young and Mrs. Krzesinski, the mothers of the murdered teens. She asks them to see past the "savage boy... with the sneer," to the child she "nursed and bathed." In a weird way, she tries to paint herself as somewhat of a victim, too. After all, her "fated" son too is "gone... the state will see to that."

Mrs. Young replies first, with racist overtones-- as if people born in America didn't also kill!-- "You Spanish people... nothing here changes [you]... Ungrateful immigrants." Then she lashes out at the courts, media and society in general that "makes a cartoon of crime... a glorification of slime."

Mrs. Krzesinski speaks more to the point. "My religion asks me to pray for the murderer's soul/ But I think you'd have to be Jesus on the cross/ To open your heart after such a loss./ Can I forgive him?/ No, I cannot."

Esmerelda grudgingly accepts this logic: "Only God can say, "Forgive"/ His son, too, received a knife/ But we... have to live/ With this cross we call our life." Again, while she is suffering, she does not acknowledge that her suffering is not the same as theirs, with her use of "we."

Mrs. Krzesinski says that one of the hardest parts is the sympathy of others, which is not entirely selfless: "The trembling flowers they bring/ Fear in the roots and the stem/ What happened to me... could happen to them."

And both speak of the unending nature of the pain. Mrs. Young uses the metaphor of a "bomb" with "wave after wave [of] aftershocks.] Mrs. Krzesinski calls it a "nightmare/ From which you can't wake."

The victims' mothers repeat "Can I forgive him/ No, I cannot"... while Esmerelda still insists that their pain and hers, being two sides of the same coin, entitle her to sympathy from them, too.

It is very presumptuous of Esmerelda to approach these women at all. And then, instead of apologizing, she straightaway tries to excuse Sal's murderous behavior-- "He's really a good boy!" She tries to shift away blame from herself-- "I nursed and bathed and mothered him as best I could!" Lastly, she sighs, "Yes, isn't it terrible what we all are all going through-- together and equally-- what with our sons' deaths and all."

It is not hard to wonder if this lack of empathy-- "Hey, I have to live with the fact that my son is a murderer! Where's my compassion?"-- isn't a touch, well, out-of-touch on Esmerelda's part. If so, did she impart this insensitivity to Sal somehow?

I do fault The Capeman this far-- although this issue may have been addressed on the stage and just not in the lyrics-- it ignores the role of fathers. Sal's birth father is never seen, and his adoptive father seems distant and unrealistic. Boys look for male role models, and Sal found two-- Carlos and Hernandez. But Carlos was busy with Yolanda, and Hernandez took an interest. So naturally, Sal wanted to please and impress Hernandez.

Everyone is pointing fingers at the mothers, at the courts, the media, and society. But not one word about the lack of positive, involved male role models. Here, the positive one was not involved... and vice versa, the involved one was so in a less-than-positive way.

And where is Sal's righteous, holy stepfather in the middle of all this? Does he want to distance himself from Sal's crime so as to save his church's reputation? Why is he not pleading with the mothers of the victims, or the judge or the mayor or the press? As clumsy and self-serving as she is about it, at least Esmerelda is trying to do something for her boy.

One thing Sal did know-- how to, eventually, own up to what he did. When confronted, he admits his guilt. This trait is one he did not, it seems, learn from his mother.

Next song: Adios Hermanos/ Jesus Es Mi Senor

That's Why God Made the Movies

The story told in this song is extremely sad, yet there seems to be a sarcasm about the telling of it by the speaker. Whether the sarcasm is bitter or dismissive-- or both-- is hard to tell. Maybe the speaker has mixed emotions about his mother dying on his birthing table; maybe one of those emotions is such a deep sorrow that he dare not approach it, for fear of falling inescapably in. So he builds a protective wall of nonchalance around it.

Surely, we cannot take what is said about the story literally. The main character is a newborn who can talk, walk, and even "pack" his own "bag." Later, he claims he was raised "by wolves."

Then come two more seemingly unrelated thoughts. The song shifts in the chorus to a love song. The speaker pleads with his lover not to leave, to accept him for who he is.

And then there is the repeated line about God having invented the film industry.

What's going on here?

Let's agree that the speaker's mother did, in fact, die in childbirth. What would have happened, absenting any family to claim him, would be that the foster care system would take charge of him. Being raised by unfamiliar people and a bureaucratic system could certainly feel like stealing away in to the night and being raised by "wolves," especially if those who fostered him were uncaring and only in it for the stipend.

Now that he is an adult, he is sharing his painful story with his lover. He pleads with her not to leave-- he is trying to explain why he would have what today are called "abandonment issues." "Say you won't leave me for no other man," he begs.

He is trying to make this woman replace his mother: "...take me to your loving breast/...nourish me." As if to make it clear that this is the case, Simon refers back to the previous song with next the line: "...the way the ladies sometimes do." Recall that in the immediately previous song, "Late in the Evening," the speaker's mother laughed "the way some ladies do."

With "Say you'll love me just the way I am," the speaker asks for acceptance not just in the general sense-- all people long to be accepted-- but for his specific issues and "baggage." His mother died just as he was born, and this loss is still painful, and he would have a very hard time experiencing another such loss.

As for "the movies," look at the images Simon pairs with that line. In the first and third verses, we have the last words "I'll only be gone for a while," and the idea of a feral child. These are movie-level experiences, heightened and false. They only happen in the realm of the imagination.

Then the line about movie is preceded, in the second verse, with "hoping things would turn out right." Is this as imaginative and fanciful a concept? Do things, in fact, only turn out right in fiction?

So it is possible that God made the movies because such imaginings needed somewhere to reside. Somewhere both visual and auditory, and in some means through which they could be shared with others. Both movies (which this song is in a soundtrack of) and music (which is what the movie itself is about) fill this bill.

Another reason is that movies, by dint of their artifice, allow an escape from the true pains of life. It is true that mothers die in childbirth. It is true that children are raised by those who would qualify as "wolves," or are left to fend for themselves.

And what could be a bulwark against having to deal with the severity of that reality, especially if one were facing it oneself? Sarcasm. Love, both parental and romantic. Art. All of these for alternate realities in which one might escape from the real reality. All create worlds in which things can "turn out right."

I don't feel too much should be made of the mention of God. It seems to simply be part of an idiom, meaning "that's why X exists." There is no expansion on the concept of God, no other religious or Biblical images that make religion an overarching theme. However, if any-One knew that humans need to escape reality once it a while, it would be the Architect of reality and humans both. (Tune in next week, though, for a song that mentions God and is surprisingly religious despite its other themes).

On one level, this is a song about a man who, losing his mother, seeks to make his lover a surrogate maternal figure. On a larger level, it is about the need to find an escape, a haven, from the brutal realities of life.

But it must be mentioned that this is a song about the power and necessity of movies... that was written for a movie.

Next Song: One Trick Pony

Loves Me Like a Rock

There is an album of Bob Dylan songs called Saved, and it is a series of his religious songs, done gospel style. Why there is no equivalent Paul Simon compilation is a mystery.

Certainly, he has enough material. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" has been performed by many gospel groups, and was so recently on TV's Glee. "Gone At Last," "A Church is Burning," "He Was My Brother," "Mother and Child Reunion," "Mrs. Robinson," "One Man's Ceiling," "Slip Slidin'," all are either gospel or could easily be arranged in that style...even his brand-new "Getting Ready for Christmas Day" is based on an African-American sermon.

But the one that is the most gospel-inflected is this one right here. On the original album, Simon is backed by The Dixie Hummingbirds. In other performances, he is backed by The Jesse Dixon Singers. Both groups have performed it at their own concerts, without Simon. There is also a great, semi-a capella version by members of the O'Jays that was part of the movie The Fighting Temptations; the clip is on YouTube. As is the clip of Stevie Wonder performing it at a Simon tribute.

It is fair to say that this song is one of the few written in the latter half of the 20th Century that has been accepted into the gospel repertoire... of those songs not written with that intent.

The song itself is very straight-forward. The verses take us through the speaker's life, and even imagine the unlikely event of his ascending to the US presidency. In each case, he is tempted by the Devil (or his stand-in, Congress). In each case, he is able to rebuff the Devil's temptations by knowing he is secure in his mother's love.

In the first verse, he is the picture of childhood innocence and reverence. He is "consecrated" and sings in Church.

Even in adulthood, he is happily married-- sex is not a sin but a "consummation." The line "I can snatch a little purity" might mean that even when he is, um, consummating with his wife, he remembers that this is a sacred act and not just physical pleasure. (If the word "snatch" had the same 'entendre' meaning in the '70s as it does today, this is a very sneaky, ribald pun by Simon.)

The last scene imagines the president at the "podium" before Congress, which generally happens only during the State of the Union Address. Even in this case, the speaker would still say "Who do you think you're fooling?" if he were tempted to do the wrong thing by this powerful group.

All because of his mother's love... which he says is an eternal and immutable as God's, since God is called "The Rock of Ages." (The original Hebrew word "olamim" translates variously as "eternities," "infinities," "worlds" or "universes"-- That God is "tzur olamim" means that God is the constant, steadfast "rock" on all the eternal, infinite planes of existence.)

This is a finite song, but one that has brought infinite joy to millions. And it's certainly the most exuberant Mother's Day card ever written.

IMPACT:
The song went to #2 in the US, and stayed in the Top 40 for three and a half months. It charted in many other English-speaking countries: the UK, Canada, and Australia. And also in The Netherlands!

The Hummingbirds' own version made the R&B chart and snatched them a little... Grammy. Jazz favorite Ramsey Lewis and pops composer Peter Nero covered it, too.


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