Wait

This one, sadly, is not too hard to understand.

Simon is in his 80s. Many of those who began in music when he did are gone, and very many far before an age the average life expectancy statistics would have predicted. 

Further, many his age-- and some even younger-- have had to stop performing or recording because of some illness. 

Simon himself, in interviews for the Seven Psalms album, said that he lost the hearing in his left ear over the course of recording it, and can no longer perform onstage, at least not with a band. 

Nevertheless, he can still write, compose, and record; as he says in this song: "My hand's steady/ My mind is still clear." 

And, like Beethoven, he can still hear music in his mind, and synthesize new music from it. "I hear the ghost songs I own," he sings. Does he mean songs he owns the copyrights to, because he wrote them? Or the songs he owns recordings of? Likely the latter, given what he says next.

What is "ghostly" about them? They are probably not about ghosts, like "ghost stories" told around campfires. Are they by people who are gone? Are they songs that are simply unheard these days? Are they songs that people have heard of, but would not really be able to sing if you asked them to? 

He also says these songs are "jumpin', jivin', and moanin'," which makes me think of jazz. So it's possible that the songs are ghosts because the memory of them has faded. 

Then he seems to turn away from whomever (or Whomever) he is asking to wait, and-- for the chorus-- to turn toward his listener, to offer some advice and observations. First, he compares life to a "meteor," falling fast and burning brightly, a brief flash.  

He urges us to "let [our] eyes roam," and explore as a wanderer would. This could have gone the other way-- life being short, one might just as easily be advised to focus on a single goal and not get distracted. But Simon advises, "Go on, get distracted. There's a lot to see." 

Then comes one of his most poignant lines: "Heaven is beautiful/ It's almost like home." The key word here is "almost." Even Heaven itself cannot match the pleasures of home. Nevertheless. he urges-- now adopting a gospel verbiage-- "Children! Get ready!/ It's time to come home." 

A line ago, Heaven was not quite home. Now, it is "home." Well, it's going to be, so we might as well start calling it that now.

Last, Simon lays out two requests for how he wants to "transition" to... whatever is next. His first is that he wishes for a "dreamless transition." Most want to pass away while sleeping, but Simon is afraid of his dreams and what lurks in his subconscious mind. So he asks for a dreamless sleep, so he won't have to, in his final moments, be troubled by his "dark intuition."

This whole album, he has struggled with the idea of God and Heaven. He wants to believe because he craves the comfort he expects that will give him. But he also is a cynic and has a hard time believing. What if, at the last second, he has... doubt?

So for his second request, he asks for help. For someone to help him take that step across the final threshold. Now, he turns away from us and from God-- to his wife, Edie, to whom he has been married for 30 years now: "I need you here by my side/ My beautiful mystery guide." (It could also mean an angel, or that he is calling her one.)

The chorus repeats but this time, and we expect to hear, again (the word is repeated 4 times so far), "Wait."

Instead, we hear-- and this is the last word on the album-- "Amen." Of course. 

These were not songs, they were Psalms all along. They were prayers. And what do you say when a prayer is finished? "Amen."

The word's derivation is Hebrew, from a root meaning "faith." After a hearing a prayer, the listener replies, basically: "Faith." We have faith that the prayer just offered will be heard and received and accepted. 

Poet Dylan Thomas told us to "rage against the dying of a light." Simon is not raging, here. He is not begging or even bargaining. 

But he is asking. With calm dignity, he is praying for death to wait.

He is not ready to go-- and we are not ready for him to go, either.

May his prayer be granted. Amen.

Next Song: Billy Boy

Insomniac's Lullaby

The song is about a lullaby, but we have to get to that in a minute. Because the song, while about a lullaby, is itself a prayer.

After all, it starts: "Oh Lord," and anything that starts that way is a prayer. And what is the insomniac's prayer? "Oh Lord, don't keep me up all night."

It'd be a lonesome vigil. The only other one up would be the Moon, what that only has "desolate eyes." And to journey all those "miles [to] the sunrise" with only such "sockets" as "travelling companions" [OK, so that's from "Graceland," but still] would be too much to bear.

But the darkness "invites" a tune. Simon has been personifying Darkness since he called it his "old friend" all those decades ago, and maybe now we finally know why they are so long acquainted. After all, Darkness would be an insomniac's friend, or at least a familiar face. Anyway, the tune the darkness invites seems to be this very tune.

While he is awake, he hears a "siren" sound "in the distance," but instead of being upset by it-- after all, it means someone is in trouble-- he calls it a "song." To let us know he is being facetious, he complains that the sound "rattles the old window frame."

And then, something unexpected happens: "Gradually, angels reveal their existence." So, they were there the whole time, only now they are letting themselves be seen. The fact that he does not elaborate about these divine visitors, as the listener might expect, leads us to believe that the thin wisps of light that must seep into his dark room resemble angels. "There's nothing and no one to blame," he says, worried that we might accuse him of abusing alcohol (etc.), or having a tumor, what with him seeing angels and all. Maybe he could see what was really causing these angelic apparitions if he put on his glasses..? Lack of sleep can cause hallucinations, after all.

Even if this is a prayer, these visions are not angels. If they were, the speaker would not be talking so much about being alone, as he does before when he says the "desolate" Moon is his only companion, and later when he... well, let's get to that part right now.

Now comes the prayer again. This time, the thing he fears is not the daunting distance until dawn but coldness of some sort also lasting a too-long time: "winter that lasts until June." This may be the lack of human companionship... at least the sort that is awake. So again, he's alone, with no angelic company. (Also, Simon just rhymed "Moon" with "tune" and "June" so slyly we didn't notice.)

Now, two choruses and a verse into the song, we finally learn what the Insomniac's Lullaby is. It's a song that turns out to be one word long:

"Sleep."

Well, of course. What else do you need?

The next verse seems to be about death. "They say all roads lead to a river." While I have never heard "they" say any such thing (all roads lead to Rome, I thought) it is true that every major city is built around a river-- every city more than 100 years old, at least. A river was necessary as a source of water, but also transportation of people and goods.

But, "they" supposedly continue, "one day/ The river comes up to your door." Well, there are plenty of places that don't flood, so this must mean something else. What comes to every door? Only, as Franklin said, "death and taxes."

Hearing this axiom, the speaker asks, "How will the builder of bridges deliver us all/ To the faraway shore?" This is less sincere doubt than simple amazement. When watching a magic trick or feat of athletic prowess, we mutter, "How does he do it?" but only rhetorically.

This is a much nicer metaphor for death than some hooded skeleton reaping our souls with a huge blade, isn't it? A walk across a bridge, is all death is. (Or, if you're Jacob or Robert Plant, you may prefer a ladder or stairway.)

In the next iteration of the chorus, the speaker again asks for sleep, but now so that he can avoid having to face "questions [he doesn't] understand" and "wrestle [his] fears." This is completely understandable. Who wants to do that, all night?

"The sound in my ears/ Is the music that's sweeping the land/ The Insomniac's Lullaby." Maybe the "lullaby" is the agglomeration of sounds coming from everyone insomniac's radio and stereo. Or maybe it's his own radio, and he's listening to contemporary pop (on his headset, so as not to wake his wife) for inspiration. After all, a musician likes to stay current.

Finally, he arrives at dawn, the "light from the East." It is "soft as a rose," and that color, too. "As if all is forgiven," meaning that the questions and fears of the night are resolved, or at least feel that way.

"Wolves become sheep" at this time. The nocturnal animals, like wolves and burglars, are replaced by pleasanter ones, like sheep and ice-cream truck drivers. Also, the menacing gray clouds of night are supplanted by white, woolly ones.

It might be a reference to his song "Pigs Sheep and Wolves," but more likely it's a circling-back to the "Werewolf" of the opening track.

Alternately, one famous sleep aid is "counting sheep"; the idea of imagining sheep jumping a fence, and counting them doing so, is said to help one drift off. This connection of sheep and sleep is possible because of how the song ends: "We are who we are/ or we're not" but either way, "At least we'll eventually all fall asleep."

Like any good bedtime story, the song-- and the album-- end with a yawn and a "nighty-night."

Is the song about death? Is "we'll all fall asleep" about... the Big Sleep, as it is in Hamlet? I don't think so. There are no insomniacs when it comes to death, no "in-necr-iacs." Some people complain, "I just can't sleep," but no one complains, "I just can't die." So this is about sleep, and to the degree it is about the lack thereof, it is about the resolution of that issue.

It's also a very pretty song.

Simon has recently stated that he is retiring from music. If he is, he has earned it. But I can't imagine he is. Music has been his entire life. Now, he is 75. He just finished working on an album and touring the world in support of it. He's tired, is all, and he's talking like a tired person. Once he has a vacation, I bet we'll get another album-- or two-- out of him yet.

I just think that if he stops making music, he'll die. And he isn't ready to do that yet.


MUSICAL NOTE: Bobby McFerrin does the background vocals. In pop circles, he is considered a one-hit wonder because of the dippy-- but perfectly so-- song "Don't Worry, Be Happy." In jazz circles, he is considered a living legend and one of the greatest vocalists ever to live, able to create whole arrangements with just his voice and body slaps. In classical circles, he is that fun conductor who sings the notes along with the instruments and harmonizes with them. Just go on YouTube, type in his name, and enjoy.

Some of the instruments were invented by a man named Harry Partch, who could hear 43 tones to an octave; most mortals can hear only 12. So had to invent instruments to make those sounds. They have names like: cloud chamber bowls, sonic canons, kithara and the chromelodeon. The original instruments are at Montclair State University, in New Jersey, where the song was recorded. (More in the entry on the Seven Psalms album).

Next Song: Like to Get to Know You

The Riverbank

The widely reported figure of "22 veteran suicides a day" is an overstatement, with regard to young or recent veterans. Among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the early 21st Century, it's about 1 a day. That's still far too many, of course. Each such death sends a shockwave through its community, and this song is the story of one such impact.

But the song takes a moment to reveal its story. It starts with a startling nighttime phone call. The news is sad, and the recipient does not go back to sleep, but prays all night instead.

There was a "price already paid," but now on top of that price comes an awful tax: "A son gone to the grave." Nothing is sadder than outliving one's own children, we are told.

And so there is a memorial service, a "sorrowful parade," to be made to the riverbank.

This son was highly thought of. The high school and police station have shut down for the day so the entire town can attend the service. There is crying and hugging and a choir.

Now we get more information: "Army dude." So, the family lost a son in battle. How terrible-- yet we agree this is noble, and a price both the family and solider were willing to pay.

Except, no. That "price" was already paid. He was gone from his home and family, he was in harm's way, he lost friends to his enemies... he paid his dues.

So, if he didn't die in battle, he died after he came home? Oh, what a horrible irony. It must have been a car crash or something.

No, not that either: "Nowhere to run/ Nowhere to turn to/ He turns to the gun."

It was suicide. Brought on by PTSD, the psychological scars of war or other trauma.

"It's a cross" to bear. It's a "stone," a weight he carried. "It's a fragment of bone," which could be what he saw of a friend, or himself. And he found no one else who could help him carry this weight, or relieve him of it.

The song pivots again to the mourners: "It's a long walk home/ From the riverbank."

And then back to the victim. Surely, we can all understand the veteran's insomnia, his "nightmares" and their incessant reminders that "life is cheap."

We end with the "Army  dude's mama." She is "limp as a rag." Among her thoughts must be: "All these people, mourning now... where were they when my son was hurting?"

She is holding a flag presented to her by the Army, folded neatly into a triangle. She is walking home, past the car "dealerships and farms."

And..."Then a triangle of light/ Kissed the red and blue and white/ Along the riverbank."

What might this be? Lights, from a spotlight down to a laser pointer, are usually round, not triangular. Was this a Heavenly light? Is the triangle a reference to the Trinity? I looked up the expression "triangle of light" but found nothing useful. I admit this image has me stumped. (NOTE: A comment by a reader gave me an idea of what it might be, weeks after I had posted this. It could be the sunlight refracting off the triangular, clear case the folded flag is kept in, once it was removed from the casket and folded. See the comments for a more detailed explanation.)

Whatever it is in specific, it is meant to be a calming, reassuring gesture, judging by the word "kissed." (In "Sound of Silence," Simon writes of eyes being "stabbed by a neon light," quite the opposite effect of light.)

In "Wartime Prayers," Simon discusses the kinds of prayers the mothers of soldiers might make. Surely many pray for their sons to come back, and come back whole if possible. But how many pray that their sons, and now daughters, come back mentally whole?

(This is far from Simon's first song about suicide, but his first in a while. Also it is not the first to use the imagery of a "riverbank;" that was also in the song "Can't Run But.")

How abysmally sad, to have a war kill your son even after he'd survived it. Some kinds of shrapnel just don't show up on any MRI.


Musical Note:
Flamenco music was a major inspiration for Simon on this album, especially the rhythmic stamping and clapping. One of his percussionists, Jamey Haddad, introduced him to a Boston flamenco troupe. They ended up recording the basic rhythm tracks for four of the songs: this one, "The Werewolf," the title track "Stranger to Stranger,"  and the first song to debut from the album, "Wristband."

In fact, the song intentionally uses the same clapping rhythm, and some of the same bass lines, as "Wristband."


Next Song: Insomniac's Lullaby

Proof of Love

This is a deeply spiritual song, even a religious one.

Even though "love" is in the title, this is not romantic love that is being spoken of, asked for "proof" of, but... love itself, as a concept.

"Does love exist?" the speaker asks of God. "Well, then... prove it!"

The first part of a song describes a journey. The speaker has no "guide," but sets out anyway. Oh, and it is late in the day-- or perhaps late in life-- so he wants to set out "before the bells of twilight peal" (those would be the "vespers," for those unfamiliar with Catholic timekeeping; the ones in the morning are "matins," as explained in the nursery rhyme "Frere Jacques.").

We're going to guess the "twilight" reference means speaker is older, as the first line is "Begin again-- no easy trick." So he has begun before, and now has to start all over.

At least the road is easy, a "spiral" downhill path (this could be a reference to "Spiral Highway," an obscure Simon song from his One-Trick Pony film that did not end up on the soundtrack).

But is the road easy? It reminds him of a coiled "serpent." Not only does he not have a "walking stick," he doesn't have any food! Just a "teaspoon of desire for [his] meal." Also, "the road is steep/ The air is thin." It seems less like he's on a hill than a mountain.

So, this is not an easy downhill path. This is more of a "it's all downhill from here" path. In fact the whole "town" is downhill, which implies that others face this same fate.

At this point, our speaker needs a shot of faith. So he prays, crying: "I trade my tears to ask The Lord for proof of love." He's not even sure he believes in God, or if there are only "stars" above him (a far cry from the prayer offered at the end of the song "Duncan"-- which also mentions "stars" and "The Lord," which Simon has begun playing again in concert; in fact, a new recording of it is included on the deluxe version of this very album).

To his own prayer, he says, "Amen." Or it may be others in the town who testify to his prayer.

Then... he seems to receive an answer to his prayer! Only, it does not come from Heaven above but from "inside [his] skin." It is a response of consolation. "Your days won't end with night," it reassures, "Let your body heal its pain."

Another clue. This "road" is the road to recovery, perhaps from an illness or injury. That explains "begin again." In physical therapy, a person may have to re-learn skills mastered as a child, like speaking or walking.

What does the voice recommend as treatment? An injection of Nature, first: "Feel the sun/ Drink the rain." Next, a large dose of faith: "bathe beneath a waterfall of light."

This time, he tearfully prays for proof of love to know "what my dreams are made of" (The original line for Shakespeare's The Tempest is "we are such stuff as dreams are made on.") He wants to know that his dreams are made of something substantial and good, not flimsy and false. If there is love, he can dare to hope.

He has kept walking downward, meantime, and now he can see "the valley below." It is, he sees, "an ocean of debris." Not the answer he was banking on.

OK, time for another prayer. No tears this time. At long last-- does love exist? "Love is all I seek!" he says, and says again. Now, he is out of tears, and out of "words." So he turns to "music" to express himself.

He is exhausted with walking and worry. Spent, he lays down by a "white oak tree." He has had it. He asked for proof of love, and got a treacherous road that led him to a valley full of rubble. He was supposed to find nourishing sunshine and rain, and only has hunger and "pain" and not even enough "air"!

He as much as dares death to come-- "No deadly nightshade, belladonna, dare lay a leaf on me." Nightshade is a poisonous plant; its Latin name is "atropa belladonna."

But the night is "silent." It is "still as prayer." And it's not "dark," either. In fact, "Darkness fills with light/ Love on Earth is everywhere." Beautiful.

But let's unpack it anyway. If he wanted to get underway before "twilight," and that implies that he was old or, as we learn later, near death, if due to not age but ailment... what does "darkness" mean? It means, well, death.

One prayer was answered by a sense of calm, the promise that his days would not end with night, and that he would bathe in a waterfall of light. If this is his death, then that promise comes true. His days don't end with "night" but with "light," and if the light fills the world, it is certainly enough to bathe in.

There is an alternate interpretation I would like to offer, though. It is foreshadowed by the reference to "bells of twilight." It's possible that this song is not just religious-- it's possible to read it so that it is about religion itself.

Some clues: A man is coming down a mountain. He doesn't have his usual "stick" with him. He is talking to God on the way. There is a reference to a "serpent." When he gets to the bottom, the valley, he finds disaster.

Might this be about... Moses? Walking down the mountainside of Sinai? And then coming to the bottom to find a pit of idolatry. (Moses turns his stick, or staff, into a serpent more than once.)

The next clue: "Silent night." Or should we say, "Silent Night." Simon already recorded that carol, so he knows it well, and it's about the birth of Jesus. A "tree" is a common metaphor for the Cross, too. So Moses asks for proof of love, and gets it, in Jesus.

I'm not saying this is what Simon means to say. But it is possible to read this interpretation into the song.

More likely, the song is about someone dying peacefully after suffering from cancer or a stroke or something, after there had been some initial hope of recovery.

We get some information as to the symptoms. Likely there was some blindness involved, requiring a "guide" or "stick" to help him find his way; now, he is supposed to be able to walk without that. He can see again, but has been spending much time in bed, gazing upward at what he hoped was more than just "stars." Also, he has trouble breathing ("the air is thin"), and at the end had trouble speaking ("words desert me").

He decides to try natural remedies ("drink the rain"), like a sunlamp ("a waterfall of light") and to "let [his] body heal" itself. He doesn't want toxic chemotherapy, or some poison that will kill him quicker ("no deadly nightshade"). But all he gets is sicker ("an ocean of debris"). Then he dies, and in death finds peace, and light, and love.

What is our the proof, then, of love? Of all things, it may be death. Dying is terrible-- painful, frightening. It takes you apart, piece by piece. But then you get to die.

And rest. In peace.

(NOTE: It would be interesting to contrast this song with Simon's similarly named "Proof," which contained the repeated lines: "Faith is an island in the setting sun/ Proof is the bottom line for everyone.")


Next Song: The Riverbank

That's My Story

In an interview, Simon once explained how he discovered metaphor. He rushed in to tell his father about a song he had just heard, "See, she's an angel... but she lives on Earth!" The song, of course, was 1954's "Earth Angel" by The Penguins.

This 1958 song is like that one, but only in cadence and mood. In other words, it is a slow dance number, such as was heard at proms.

The song's title is somewhat misleading. The song does not follow a narrative or tell a story. Rather, it might be the response to a query like: "Why ya so glum, kid? What's yer story, eh?"

The "story" is one of the oldest, summed up in the song's line, "I can't tell you I love you." It's one thing to have a love that's unrequited, but this one is simply unspoken.

It all started, you see, "a month ago," or an eon in teen-time. It was a classic case of love at first sight: "That's when I saw you/ Your eyes were aglow/ And then I could see/ That you were for me." The crush is so innocent, it would not have ruffled a feather in the days of troubadors with their lutes.

The speaker dreams of her all night long, but then awakens to heartbreak, because he can't speak of his affections except in fantasy. He never says what's holding him back-- perhaps simple fear of rejection. There is no mention of a rival, for instance.

Metrically, the line quoted above is bravely asymmetrical. The verse goes:
"I go to sleep at night
And dream of you
I wish I could hold you tight
The whole night through
But when I'm awake
My heart could just break..."

And then we expect a line with maybe two or three metrical feet. Instead we get the jarring, almost stumbling "I can't tell you I love you," which throws off the rhythm entirely.

This effect mirrors his problem. He's fine right up until he thinks of actually expressing his feelings, and then he gets tongue-tied and trips over his own words.

As in the previous song, the next participants in the story are his "friends." They notice that he has become morose, "always moody and blue." But he can't tell them about his crush either. He wishes he could tell them, so they would know that he is "not to blame." But once again, he can't just spit it out.

The 1966 Beach Boys song "God Only Knows" supposed to be the first pop song with the name of The Deity in it. But here, the next verse starts: "O Lord above please hear my prayer/ Show me where she is and take me there."

In a way, Simon's invocation of the Almighty is more brave. Brian Wilson and company use the word in the sense of the cliched expression "God only knows," which one might say if asked what happened to his missing bike; it is the equivalent of "Who knows?" "I have no idea," or "Search me." Here, Simon speaker is actually offering, he says, "a prayer."

Part of the problem in this case, it seems, is that there is always someone else around, especially (we assume) at school. What the speaker prays for is "one moment alone" with the object of his affection. Then, he says, without the distractions of others, "we'll know we're in love."

How many of us can appreciate the pain the speaker is in, seeing her so closely, yet being kept apart by his own fears and the potential whispers of the schoolyard.

The speaker concludes-- in the same drawn-out speech pattern we later hear in the spoken bridge of "You Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"-- "That's my story." You and a lot of other people, pal.

Funny as it is to hear a poet like Simon admit to being at a loss for words, we all know it's easier to say on paper, and in dreams, what we simply can't bring ourselves to say aloud.

Next Song: Teenage Fool

Love is Eternal Sacred Light

"Man plans and God laughs" is a classic Yiddish saying. Here, Simon paraphrases that: "Mankind theorizes, and God laughs." (This is the second of three songs on this album whose titles start with the word "love.")

This uptempo song starts with the chorus, defining the opposites of "love" and "hate." The former is a "light," the latter a "darkness." The former is "eternal," but the latter is a destructive "demon that feeds on the mind."

The first set of verses summarize the theory of the universe's beginnings: "Started with a bang... stars and planets... fire... colors... Moonlight... earth." While scientifically accurate, Simon's version is poetic as well, with verbs like "sang," "flew," and "warmed."

The next verse summarizes all of human history. "Earth became a farm/ Farmer takes a wife" (this last phrase is from the children's song-game "Farmer in the Dell"). So we have agriculture, society, even religion and poetry: "Wife becomes a river and the giver of life."

The next line takes us up through the Industrial Revolution-- "Man becomes a machine"-- and then terrorism: "a bomb in the marketplace." This takes up some of the themes and images of Graceland, especially the "Boy in the Bubble."

Well, now it's God rebuttal. Creation? "Big Bang/ That's a joke I made up." How do we know it's God? He says he has "eons to kill." Sadly, we haven't figured out when He's "joking/ someday they will."

God's summary of human existence is different as well. "'Love me'/ That's the main request I receive." Does He answer such prayers? "I love all My children/ Tears me up when I leave."

[Note: in the song, Simon lowers his voice to indicate that God speaks these two verses. He then raises it to its usual pitch for the next verses, which indicate that it is no longer Him. However, in the lyrics, the first-person is not changed at this point, so from the point of view of the song as a poem-- without the clues of the performance-- it continues to be God speaking.]

The idea of God leaving is reiterated from the previous track, "Love and Hard Times." The same way that this off-hand God jokes, He also is, in the words of the Allman Brothers, a ramblin' man: "Sometimes you gotta fly down that highway... [in] a new pre-owned '96 Ford."

Of His ability to take such vacations, God mockingly quotes some human cliches: "Free as a bird, knock on wood, thank the Lord." He's not thanking himself, just pointing out that such pagan concepts as knocking on wood sit comfortably in human minds alongside religion, despite our protests to the contrary.

According to Simon, God is not a fan recent human culture, either: "...pop music station/ That don't sound like music to me." Turning the dial allows Him to comment on another human innovation: "Politics is ugly." God, it seems, is not impressed with millennia of human endeavor.

Except... "At the end of the dial there's the gospel show." While Simon is no secret fan of such music, it is interesting that he thinks God might be, too. Yes, it is beautiful and powerful and harmonious, but it also praises God endlessly. Seems that while God gripes about how all the humans want is for God to "love" them, He's not above soaking up some admiration and adulation Himself.

At this, God pulls off the highway. Why? "There's a blizzard rolling down off the banks of Lake Michigan." Wait, can't God stop the storm? Or divert it only away from Himself?

Sure... but why? God, being omnipotent and beyond time, is in no rush. He also has no real reasons to interfere with the weather patterns He set in motion. Lastly, he seems glad for the excuse to "rest."

Throughout the song, the chorus repeats. Love is light, hate is "sight without sight." As Simon said long ago in in "Sound of Silence," "talking without speaking" and "hearing without listening" lead to despair and idolatry. So "sight without sight," or "looking withing seeing" is a result of hate-- you see the person's skin or clothes, not the person.

Regardless of which is true-- the Big Bang or The Good Book (or even the Big Bang being the "how" of Creation, and the Bible being the "why")-- love is eternal, and eternally good. And hate is evil and destructive, the opposite of creative.

This is the second song on the album so far to deal directly with the idea of Heavenly love, and here that seems the focus, love as a concept, not a romantic relationship. We shall return to the triptych a few songs hence.

Musical note:
The musical referents on this song show that, while Simon has explored the world's music, he is still an aficionado of American roots music.

The background vocals are done by Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, a bluegrass act we met in the earlier song "Dazzling Blue."

The harmonica solo is performed by blind harpist Sonny Terry, a folk-blues legend. He played Carnegie Hall back in 1938, made recordings for The Library of Congress, and accompanied Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. He even had a two-year run on Broadway as part of the musical Finian's Rainbow. In the 1950s, he turned to R&B, then back to folk when that wave swept through the '60s. His recordings with guitarist Brownie McGhee are acoustic classics, prized by fans of both folk and blues music. He passed away in 1986, at age 74.

There is also a sample of a 1929 song called "Train Whistle Blues," a Jimmie Rodgers... track. Known as "The Singing Brakeman," Rodgers was a country singer specializing in train-related songs. This particular song is a standard-style blues number about a penniless man hopping a passing train. It is used in the background when the radio in the song reaches the gospel station.

Next song: Questions for the Angels

Wartime Prayers

This is one of Simon's best, strongest songs. It ranks-- in terms of its sheer poetic quality, its moving melody, and its profound insights-- with his finest work overall.

Does Simon believe in God? Well, that depends on what you mean by "believe in." In the sense of "Do you believe in angels?" it seems so. In the sense that a coach means when he says, "I believe in you," to a nervous little-leaguer, perhaps not. Even in his first song with Garfunkel, "Bleecker Street," he believed that there was a "fog" that "hides the Shepherd from His sheep."

Yet, here, it seems Simon does believe in, does put stock in, prayer! It may seem disingenuous to say that prayer works if God is unresponsive. But again, it depends on what you mean by "works." Does God answer all prayers the way we wish? Well, no. Does praying help us feel better? It can.

The speaker, probably Simon himself, starts here by delineating the difference between peacetime and wartime prayers. Peacetime prayers, he says, focus on "appeals for love"-- maybe romantic, or familial, or even Divine-- or "love's release," a less clear idea. Is this a release from love? Does it mean that we pray to stop loving someone, or that they stop loving us? Or is this "release" in the sense of salvation-- yes, we have love, but we wanted it to save us, and it has not! (And perhaps it is a release of a more, ahem, physical nature.) In any case, peacetime prayers are "silent" and "private" and seem to take safety for granted, now upping the request for fulfillment.

Simon, unlike Springsteen, did not write an immediate response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still raging when he wrote and published this song, with what seems a clear reference to those attacks-- "the fires"--  which targeted his beloved New York.

In an post-9/11 world, "people hungry for the voice of God"-- one of commanding reassurance-- "hear lunatics and liars." These unspecified miscreants must include politicians, pundits, and clergy of all faiths, all in full-throated condemnation of each other, accepting no blame unto themselves.

So these days, we have "wartime prayers," given "in every language"-- including ours and those of our enemies! And not for love, anymore, but "For every family scattered and broken." All sides in a war send soldiers away... and either do not receive them back at all... or the same. Such families no longer take basic safety for granted. No longer is the prayer "please let him/her love me," but "please let him/her not get blown up."

Having defined his terms, Simon dismisses the notion that he has any answers to the situation, even cynical, public relations-style ones: "I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind with a genius marketing plan."

He does, however, lay out his personal plan of action. He acknowledges that prayers are not accepted from a less than pure heart: "You cannot walk with the holy if you're just a halfway decent man."

First, let us pause to find the source of this expression, "walk with the holy." In the early part of The Book of Genesis, we meet Noah, who it says is "a man of righteousness, perfect in his generation." The next line? "With God walked Noah." Noah was a man who also lived at a time of great destruction, yet was able to rise above it, both figuratively and literally.

Back to our speaker. What is the plan for achieving a higher state of decency, and thereby, holiness? To seek a source of "wisdom," to "rid [his] heart of envy," and "cleanse [his] soul of rage." So it is a matter of adding some more knowledge and insight, making room for these by ridding himself of some distasteful traits (that happen to be two of the Seven Deadly Sins, "rage" and "wrath" being synonyms).

"Wisdom" is more than just "intelligence," the ability to think. And it is more than "knowledge," the accumulation of facts. Wisdom is the result of the application of intelligence to knowledge-- what you think about what you know. This is such a laborious process that the speaker is willing to settle for "a little drop" of wisdom! (John Gorka's song "Wisdom" is very good discussion on this matter.)

"Envy" is the wanting of what someone else has. Not just ambition, wanting what you don't have, but wanting you to have it... and them not to. And "rage" is such a high level of indignation that one becomes undignified altogether. So both are self-consuming passions, devouring much while producing nothing.

Returning to current events, yes, there are wars, repression, and recession, "But everyone knows/ all about hard times." So what's your plan to cope? "Well, you cry and you try to muscle through/ And try to rearrange your stuff." Realizing your powerlessness over global events, you focus on yourself and your immediate world. (This passage echos the Serenity Prayer, which speaks of the "serenity to accept what I cannot change" and the "courage to change what I can.")

But then comes the breaking point. When that is reached: "We wrap ourselves in prayer." And so Simon comes back to his theme.

The image of "wrapping" oneself "in prayer" may come from the religion Simon was born into-- Judaism. The Jewish prayer shawl is called a "talit" (tah-LEET) in Hebrew, from a word meaning "to cover." To don the shawl, one wraps oneself in it, pulling it across one's shoulders all the way around one's bowed head. Once so cocooned, one utters the blessing regarding the commandment "to wrap" ourselves in this garment.

Nevertheless, the metaphor of being wrapped in prayer is so easily understood that the Jessy Dixon Singers are able to sing the line in soaring gospel harmony without, one assumes, guessing that it may have a specific ritual origin, let alone a Jewish one.

The song closes with none of the global geopolitics or moral philosophizing of the above verses. Rather, we see a "mother" allowing her babies to share her bed; she is falling asleep and "draws [them] closer." She nuzzles and "kisses" them. Then, "To drive away despair/ She says a wartime prayer."

Where is her husband? If this is the prayer she whispers, hers must be one of those "families scattered and broken." So he is at war.

Perhaps the babies are in the bed for their sake; they might be having nightmares with him gone. Or maybe they are there for her. Maybe she needs them close because of her own loneliness and fear; she is also at the point of "all that she can bear."

Does prayer work? It must, on some level. Otherwise, we would not keep doing it after thousands of years. As long as there are love and war, it seems, there will be prayer. Whether Anyone is listening or not.

MUSICAL NOTES
Jessy Dixon, along with his backup singers, performed with Simon in many contexts, including on his television special, on Saturday Night Live, and his Still Crazy and Live Rhymin' albums. Dixon died in 2011 of cancer, but not before writing for female superstars like Diana Ross, Cher, and Natalie Cole.

On piano is Herbie Hancock, a jazz legend. While he played with the challenging Miles Davis, he was remarkably accessible in his own work, integrating electronics and funk into jazz. He had a hit video with his instrumental "Rockit," and in 2008 won the Album of the Year Grammy for a Joni Mitchell tribute album.

Next song: Beautiful

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

The Rhythm of the Saints

The last track gives us the title of the album The Rhythm of the Saints. The story I heard of the title's source comes from the days of the American slave trade. The slaves continued, in the New World, to pray on drums to their usual deities, as they had in Africa. When questioned about this practice, they lied to their "masters" that they were praying with their rhythms to the Christian saints.

The song begins with what was an afterthought-line of "The Coast": "If I have weaknesses/ Don’t let them blind me." It's a plea to be free of deception. Yes, I know I have faults, the speaker says, but I hope I do not therefore miss something important while I am distracted by them.

Here, the thought is continued, "...or camouflage all I am wary of." These weaknesses could also make him miss the warning of something dangerous. Say he knows he should be "wary of" financial come-ons. Yet, he has a weakness for sob stories. While he might not be taken in by someone grinning while selling the Brooklyn Bridge, he might try to help out a person posing as a wronged Third World prince who sends him an e-mail of woe.

The weakness he describes seems to be an over-involvement in whatever emotion he is experiencing at the moment. He doesn't just laugh and enjoy himself, he "could be sailing on seizures of laughter," which sounds both out-of-control and almost violent. He doesn't get over break-ups easily, either, but finds himself slowly, painfully "crawling out from under the heel of love." He hears no answer to his prayer for greater awareness of his surroundings.

It seems he prays to Olodumare, a gender-less, incorporeal Yoruba deity who is the ruler of heaven, the creator of energy, and the source of morality, who also allows for the interaction between creatures and forces we in the West call "The Butterfly Effect." Since the speaker believes that Olodumare is "smiling," he answers his own question. Do our speaker's prayers remain unanswered? No, they have been answered, and in the affirmative.

Then comes this repeated chant: "Reach in the darkness/ A reach in the dark." All faith is, after a fashion, an attempt to grasp something that we can't see in a space that is impenetrable to human senses. Also a reach in the darkness is life itself. If Heaven is "dark" to our senses, then so is tomorrow. Not every "enemy," "obstacle," or blade is visible. Somehow, we must sense their presence before we cut ourselves and "glide away" from danger before it attacks. The speaker realizes the enormity of the task. We must "dominate" even what it is "impossible" to.

Further, we may have thought that it was "impossible" to, for instance, lose our jobs, contract a fatal illness, or lose a limb in an accident-- and yet, here it is, shockingly possible after all. And yet, we must forge ahead. Another weakness our speaker feels he has is that he is not popular. He feels that he is "always a stranger," and worse, "when strange isn’t fashionable" (So not, say, at Studio 54, where it was).

And what is? "Fashion is rich people waving at the door." Whether they are waving at their own door or the speaker's is immaterial-- he can no more enter their rich home than they would enter his poor one. Also, fashion is "a dealer in drugs or in passion/ Lies of a nature we’ve heard before." What's popular? Being lied to. "Tell me sweet little lies," coax Fleetwood Mac; "Lie to me/ I promise I'll believe," pleads Sheryl Crow.

This time, the prayer is directed to "Babalu-aye." He is Olodumare's representative on Earth, and has the power over the Earth and physical things, including possessions but also the body, health and disease. Because of this association with illness, he is seen as a disciplinarian... but also a healer, even if he is depicted as disabled himself.

The image of this god of "spinning on his crutches" should not imply constant spinning, but more like "he spun on his heel." The god turns to leave, as if to say, "Oh, is that all this was about?" tossing the reply over his shoulder as he hobbles over to his next petitioner. So the prayer is: "I never feel like I fit in!" And the reply this time is not just a smile but a verbal answer: “Leave if you want." You don't like it here? Well, who's making you stay? You don't fit in anywhere you have been? OK, so try somewhere you haven't been!

Another "reach in the darkness," to travel somewhere unfamiliar, where even the razors and knives are new. This song forms an interesting companion with "Spirit Voices." In that song, the spirits were eager to interact; here, they are less so, yet still helpful.

The rhythm of the "saints" seems very much like the rhythm of a heartbeat. The same blood that pumps out of the heart is pumped back in, then out again. It helped to voice his concerns aloud, but he held the answers within all along. Perhaps the "darkness" is not a deep cave, or the night sky, or anywhere external. It's dark inside a person, too.

Musical Note:
This song was sampled on a song called "Reach Out" by an act calling itself Eligh. I can only assume that is an imaginative spelling of the name Eli.

Next song: Thelma

Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy

In his Oscar-winning turn in As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson's character has this memorable line: "Some [people] have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car."

And no one in this song, either: "Some folks' lives roll easy... some folks' lives never roll at all." In the first verse and last, the speaker talks in general terms about people in general.

He uses the metaphor of motion. Easy lives are depicted with the effortless "roll," the relaxing "drifting," and the purposeful "heading."

Other lives "stumble" and "fall." Not necessarily in the sense of heartbreak, as in the Mamas and Papas' song "Trip, Stumble and Fall," but somehow.

"Most folks never catch their stars" changes the imagery a bit, and it is a vague line. You can "catch" something that is fleeing away from you, like a bus... or something that is thrown to you, like a ball. Stars are distant, so it could be the former, but they are also said to fall, like a pop fly in baseball. In the end, "most folks never catch" them either way, so it matters little whether they failed to fulfill an "impossible dream" or didn't open the door when opportunity knocked.

The chorus is repeated twice, and it is much more personal. It is a prayer, one of the few Simon recorded. It states the usual supplication of "I'm not worthy" found in many prayers: "I ain't got no business [being] here."

But then he uses that humility to his advantage. Rather than slink away in his unworthiness, he says, "Well, You said You would raise me when I was down... and now I am 'so low,' I'm 'busted' flat. I have 'stumbled', I have 'fallen,' and I can't get lower. So now, I that actually qualify for Your attention, I'd like some, please."

The song is about weariness, but it is not simply weary. It is world-weary. It is about being weary of being weary.

The rest of Nicholson's quote is: "But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good."

This is less the sentiment in this song. There is no resentment for those whose lives do "roll easy." Since those who have empty star-catching mitts have them "through no fault of their own," the same might be said for the easy rollers-- they are not responsible for the ease of their lot, either.

There is a difference between envy and jealousy. I forget which is which, but one means "I wish I had a lake house with a boat and noodle-salad picnics, like you." And the other means "I wish I had your lake house and boats... and you had none."

Jack's character seems to feel the latter, our speaker the former. He does not begrudge others their lives of ease-- he does not even pray to share it, to roll easy. Right now, he'd settle for any kind of rolling at all, instead of the endless falling. While he notes the sadness of others, he is mainly concerned with his own.

This is proven through the general/specific switch noted earlier. After noting that some people are fortunate and some not, the speaker prays only for himself (in first person). He does not pray that of his friends-- the ones with "battered souls" and "shattered dreams" from "American Tune"-- all get boats.

His weariness has led him to become self-focused. Not out of ego-- quite the contrary-- out of humility born of humiliation. If he is going to get a prayer answered, he figures will likely be a small one, so it might as well be for himself.

Simon revisits the theme of weariness often, but this is one song entirely on the subject. Another is "Long Long Day" from the One Trick Pony soundtrack. Understandably, these are short songs-- who has the strength for a long one?

The version of this song on the In the Blue Light album has a much longer last verse. The original repeats the title, then contrasts that with, "Some folks' lives never roll at all/ They just fall/ Some folks' lives."

But in the remake/remix of the song, Simon adds quite a bit after repeating the title:
"Some folks' lives gaze out from a window to a wall
The sunlight written in a scrawl
The gift that God intended for us all
But some folks' lives"

This echoes one of Simon's very first published songs, "Bleeker Street," in which a fog prevents God from seeing the suffering of his flock. Here, the benighted person has the view only of a wall from his window, and sees not direct sunlight, but that which hits the wall. This reflected, refracted image of the "gift" makes God's "intended" message unintelligible. Their misfortune is compounded by the fact that the circumstances caused by misfortune itself makes their redemption impossible.

I just read an Angolan folktale about a slave who wanted to buy his freedom, only to have all of his side-job earnings confiscated by his master under the law that slaves-- being owned themselves-- can't legally own or earn anything. It is just this sort of Catch-22 Simon describes.

(In the folktale, the slave uses his master's greed against him, saying that he will split the side-job earnings with him. Eventually even half of his earnings are enough to buy his own freedom. Not that it relates to the song or its meaning-- I just wanted you to know the ending of the story.)

Musical Note:
One of the sax players on this track is David Sanborn, a highly regarded jazz musician who just (as of this writing) put out his 24th solo album. He also has racked up a long career backing popular musicians of nearly every stripe since the '60s.


Next Song: Have a Good Time