"She said, 'Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party?'"

May 12, 2017 10:29 PM

A SONG-BY-SONG ANALYSIS/COMMENTARY OF EVERY (*MORE OR LESS) SONG WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED BY PAUL SIMON.
Now, our speaker may or may not know a cinematographer. He may or may not have been to this party, and he may or may not have met this woman there. Even if he did, he may or may not remember her. But he can't tell her this. And anyway, it doesn't matter-- she knows him now. If I say "no," he thinks, the conversation is over. But I can't give a definite "yes," either. So he obfuscates. He says something like, "Sure, why not just say so, if it means we can talk?" But in this case he opts for the more poetic, more off-handed, "Who am I to blow against the wind?"
posted by thatnerd (54 comments total)

There used to be in my town a small cafe that did amazing things to deviled eggs and baked bries and such. The decor was weathered gold and heavy red velvet, and the soundtrack was what we always referred to as "The Very Best of Paul Simon Muttering to Himself, Vol. II."

Might be nice to know what all that muttering was about, I suppose. I'd rather have the restaurant back, though.
posted by darksasami at 10:39 PM on May 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

That... seems like a marvelous restaurant.

Having never been there, nor imagined that such a place might exist before reading your post, I think I'd rather have the restaurant back, too.
posted by thatnerd at 10:52 PM on May 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

The interpretation of "Mother and Child Reunion" is quite interesting and not one I'd have thought of (rather polarizing to many people, as you can see if you read the comments).
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:18 PM on May 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Does it mention stealing most of Graceland from Los Lobos?
posted by humboldt32 at 11:56 PM on May 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Hey, Los Lobos were adept at stealing from everyone else, too!
posted by notyou at 12:16 AM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

(I think maybe the audience for Paul Simon's work may be the grey beards who mentored the folks who eventually bossed MetaFilter's userbase (which itself is aging), and so it'll be interesting if any reminiscing happens here. Mine won't involve Bay Area tech, but a Pasadena Coffee Bar (long before Peet's and Starbucks were national concerns) run by some old time Bay Area ladies. My stepmom, who I now realize was an LA Woman before she became a NorCal catlady was a huge Paul Simon fan from the early 70s (which places me as 'old'). I am glad that it is a Blogspot blog, which lends it some authenticity and a nod from the grey beards, yeah. This is the kind of site we will lose when we lose net neutrality, isn't it?).)
posted by notyou at 12:30 AM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Fun fact:
The song "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" lists only 6 ways to leave your lover.

By way of comparison: The song "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music, which makes the modest claim of listing only "a few" of the said things, lists fourteen of them.

Paul Simon is a lazy, lazy man.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:36 AM on May 13, 2017 [37 favorites]

Garfunkel
posted by philip-random at 1:02 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is wonderful, thank you! I will be sending it to my mum immediately. In fact, it's a perfect Mothers' Day present, so I offer you many thanks, thatnerd.

I'm 32 and was raised on Graceland (my mum once blew out my dad's fancy stereo speakers with the drums at the start of 'The Boy in the Bubble'). No beard in sight yet, grey or otherwise, but I live in hope. :)
posted by daisyk at 1:46 AM on May 13, 2017 [14 favorites]

Noting that if "Kodachrome" was written today it'd be called "Instagram"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:01 AM on May 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

I love this sort of thing, so thanks for posting! Now someone needs to do the same for Springsteen.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:33 AM on May 13, 2017

Does it mention stealing most of Graceland from Los Lobos?

He did rip them off, but it was one song.
posted by davebush at 4:36 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am so glad that Paul Simon has an appreciator of the superb caliber of the "other Paul". These are wonderfully detailed and sensitive analyses of Simon's songs, with nothing pushy or smarty-pants about them. If this blog were a book, I'd refer to it often. My unbounded admiration for Simon's songs gets seriously bounded after "Graceland", but the "other Paul" proves its still worth sifting through the wreckage.
posted by Modest House at 5:23 AM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think his reading of "I Know What I Know" is pretty much spot on, but I think that the bow tying the lyric together is that the apparently down to earth chorus seems to be a fairly arch reference to the chorus of Prufrock, which deals, at least in part, with the same settings and themes in a similarly weary way: "In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo".
posted by howfar at 5:29 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

My parents played "Graceland" and "Rhytm of the Saints" on an endless loop over about six years. I both enjoy both records and basically consider them the epitome of Baby Boomer midlife crisis material (falling somewhere between sports car and tai chi on the Your Parents Are Definitelu Getting Divorced, Stephanie, So Go Ahead And Figure Out Which Boombox*You Want When Your Dad Tries To Buy You Off On His Custodial Weekend list). Simon's had some clever songs (I think this guy is a bit too literal) and some cringeworthy ones). That said, I have been quite unable to even think about "Hearts and Bones" (which I think is a pretty great, pretty sad song) since Carrie Fisher died.

*Mine was a Sony, but a circuit city floor-model bought as-is with a broken CD player because Dad's a cheap bastard.
posted by thivaia at 5:36 AM on May 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

Garfunkel Without Garfunkel is Paul Simon.
posted by chavenet at 5:40 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The albums immediately post the break with Simon were played repeatedly at my parents' card parties with my cool aunt and uncle. The double layer of my nostalgia wrapped in the songs about nostalgia is a warm blanket of my late pre-teen experience. Thanks for this.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:45 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Noting that if "Kodachrome" was written today it'd be called "Instagram"

Instagra-a-am
They give us Hefe and Willow
They give us Mayfair and Juno
Makes you think all the world’s a filtered day
I got an I-phone camera
I like to take a pho-o-tograph
So Apple, don’t take my Instagram away
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:50 AM on May 13, 2017 [22 favorites]

Graceland was stolen not only from Los Lobos, but from various African musicians
posted by Tom-B at 6:05 AM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Mod note: The Los Lobos (et al) thing is becoming a pretty big derail here, so maybe we've hit the main points on that and can get back to something closer to the post topic. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:14 AM on May 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

I always thought that " Mother and Child Reunion" was about an adopted person reuniting with his natural mother. These reunions are often bittersweet. "the course of a lifetime runs/over and over again..."

I do not see the "suicide" interpretation at all. Of course my interpretation comes out of seeing personal experience in the song, which most of us have often done with music. Ambiguity and different interpretations are what makes some songs intriguing.
posted by mermayd at 6:40 AM on May 13, 2017

So, then, what did Mama saw?
posted by jonmc at 6:49 AM on May 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Notyou writes: "This is the kind of site we will lose when we lose net neutrality, isn't it?"

Why yes it is, I'm reading this from behind China's great firewall .... Blogspot is not available
posted by mbo at 7:05 AM on May 13, 2017

So, then, what did Mama saw?

I heard it was against the law.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:56 AM on May 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Paul Simon also broke the anti-apartheid musicians' boycott to record Graceland. It's an album that comes from a lot of bad behavior and, like Rhythm of the Saints, is actually programatically culturally appropriative.

But my dad loves Graceland! And long before I knew of its dubious origins, I listened to it all the time. It was - weirdly, because it was not in line with my usual punk rock!!! tastes - basically the soundtrack of my senior year. Just a few notes - "the Mississippi delta was shining like a National guitar" - and I am completely back in autumn 1991, confident that I am finally getting out of here. It's an album that is so wound up with strong feelings and happiness for me that I can't totally let it go, even though I know it's dubious.
posted by Frowner at 7:57 AM on May 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

Does it mention stealing most of Graceland from Los Lobos?

They co-wrote one song at one recording session, & there is contention between the two parties about how that transpired, & credit due. I haven't heard any allegations about any of the rest of that album being stolen or mis-appropriated.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:07 AM on May 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Sorry, taz, missed the mod note. We've covered this ground 20 times, anyway.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:09 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The song "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" lists only 6 ways to leave your lover.

But it doesn't promise to list 50 ways. It just says there must be. Much like a departing lover might simply speculate there must be something better than this, with or without having apprehended the specifics. Probably about as correctly. Thanks for nothing, Paul.
posted by wildblueyonder at 9:34 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mermayd, like you my assumption has always been that it was about a mother and child reuniting after being separated as a result of adoption. The lyrics do seem to fit--the "saddest day" could be the day they were separated rather than the day of reunion; the apprehension about "false hope" the desire not to have expectations be too high that they could have an immediate close bond after all the years of separation. The "let it be" that "they say" could be the people who tried to convince the mom that giving her child up for adoption was a good thing to do and she shouldn't pursue a reunion.

I did know about his inspiration by the name of the Chinese dish with chicken and egg, though. Maybe I read about it here on Mefi...
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:45 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" has always so obviously been about adolescent homosexuality to me (even since I was a wee Rhilet and didn't really know much about sexual orientation, just that people seemed to freak out when boys wanted to kiss boys) that I was baffled the first time anyone ever mentioned there was ambiguity.
posted by rhiannonstone at 10:57 AM on May 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

"Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" has always so obviously been about adolescent homosexuality to me...."

I like this. It doesn't fit "When the radical priest come to get me released we was all on the cover of Newsweek." which is very clearly about Daniel Berrigan. But it really fits the first two verses well ("queen of Corona" indeed).

Although.... Berrigan was a leader among Catholic priests in ministering to AIDS patients in the 80s and 90s. "Both the church and the state are finding ways to kill people with AIDS, and one of the ways is ostracism...." I'd have to do some more research to see if Berrigan was ever particularly thoughtful about homosexuality in general and the church's approach to it in specific.
posted by aureliobuendia at 12:08 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I always thought it was about the characters floating around in the Yippies/Chicago Seven/Weather Underground era.
posted by kersplunk at 1:44 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The thing about Paul Simon lyrics is that they often defy coherent explanation, which is why they are both so interesting a frustrating. Not always - the aforementioned "Hearts and Bones" is very clear (and indeed heartbreaking). But very often.

Simon has himself said that they are often the result of wordplay - the music usually comes first and then he comes up with lyrics that feel right with the music. "Ever since the watermelon" from "All Around the World" is a famous example of this. This is pretty common in pop music, where there are a lot of stupid lyrics that don't mean anything. But the interesting thing is that Paul Simon is lyrically gifted enough that these nonsense lyrics are often quite beautiful and do match the music in a way that is emotionally really affecting.

Tom-B: Regardless of whether or not that blog post supports the claim, the mix at the top is really, really great and I am enjoying it a lot on a Saturday that has, thus far, been a bit crappy, so thank you!
posted by lunasol at 2:43 PM on May 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

my mum once blew out my dad's fancy stereo speakers with the drums at the start of 'The Boy in the Bubble'

I used this to wake people up on high school trips and retreats back in the early 90s. It was never really well received by anyone but me.
posted by Flannery Culp at 3:32 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've always absolutely loved The Cool, Cool River as a piece of poetry just for what it means to me personally-- my own spiritual journey away from anger & despair towards hope, or at least calm resignation, whichever, as best as I am able, day to day. I'd never stopped to wonder it if was about anything more, but the blog author here does a fine job of expanding on my incohate feelings about this piece of music, one of few that can consistently bring me to tears when I'm in "that" mood.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:09 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

And yeah the emotional sap that I am, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life was to take my daughter to college in another state & drive away from her dorm alone, so when I got home I made a mixtape for her with Father & Daughter as the centerpiece. It always gets me weepy.
The way he balances wanting to protect her from harm, but wanting to watch her fledge & grow is really perfect.

I don't know if he's a good dad or not, but he plays a good dad on paper.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:17 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

When I was 12 or so my mom told me that Me And Julio were burning their draft cards and I ate it up. A bit gobsmacked to think that it could be anything else but the homosexuality story makes sense. Wonder if my mom was just ending the conversation with young-me!
posted by some chick at 5:02 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I always figured they were just burning one, but I never gave it much thought until now.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:09 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I disagree with the linked I Know What I Know gloss so I had an initial negative impression, but after browsing a few more damn if that isn't an etnertaining, faux-simplistic, infectiously fun blog.

From That Was Your Mother:

The television show How I Met Your Mother is a hit, but I am not sure that the how-I-met-your-mother story told in this song would have made for a popular sitcom.

For one thing, the speaker is not exactly father-of-the-year material. His priorities are decidedly not family-oriented, and he seems too willing to share personal information with his son. Whom he addresses as "Dude."

[ . . . ]

Our salesman has some time to kill, so he is looking for a bar. He would like to "get a little conversation," hopefully with "those Cajun girls." (Is this something a child needs to know about his father?)

I've also found I remember a ridiculous number of verses from Graceland and his other big hits, despite not listening to very much of him for a couple decades.
posted by mark k at 5:14 PM on May 13, 2017

I've also found I remember a ridiculous number of verses

I remember them well because I can't not sing along when pretty much any Simon and/or Garfunkel (I take Paul's parts on the harmonies) comes on in the car because he's smack dab in my singing range so it's natural, & I love his melodies.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:50 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

(I think maybe the audience for Paul Simon's work may be the grey beards who mentored the folks who eventually bossed MetaFilter's userbase (which itself is aging), and so it'll be interesting if any reminiscing happens here.

Ouch. Ageism is one of my least favorite things about MetaFilter, but I just want to say: I'm 47, my parents are nearing 70. Yes, they are Simon's contemporaries, but I'm the one that actually grew up with Simon, childhood to adulthood. I have plenty to reminisce about there. And I'm pretty sure I'm part of MeFi's userbase.

Anyway, this sort of thing is fun. It reminds me a great, great deal of Alan Pollocks's Notes On... Beatles series, also discussed here previously, way back when we had to wind the Internet up every morning and give it a kick above the steam valve when it sputtered.
posted by Miko at 6:12 PM on May 13, 2017 [15 favorites]

" My unbounded admiration for Simon's songs gets seriously bounded after "Graceland"

It's weird, I feel like popular artists will often write an album that propels them into a mega-popular artist... The album that makes them their actual riches... Then that album and albums after that are - crap (or considerably shittier than their previous work).

Dire Straights, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, U2 are all examples that pop into my mind, but I'm sure there are plenty more.
posted by el io at 6:34 PM on May 13, 2017

I suppose I would have a grey beard if I didn't pluck my chin hairs so fervently, but there we are. My dad was a Simon and Garfunkel guy (he played a lot of folk music on guitar and listened to a lot of Peter, Paul, and Mary as well) because while he went on to be a government official, he had a secret passion to be a hippie folk dude. He gave me my love for Paul Simon that's very strong to this day by presenting me with Negotiations and Love Songs on a day when I was being a mopey teen.

(Also, he's had several great albums since Graceland. Yeesh.)

Anyway, off to read.
posted by PussKillian at 7:49 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

(Also, he's had several great albums since Graceland. Yeesh.)

Yeah. Graceland was just one of those things, a collision of ideas, style, cultural moment, money, market, radio play, etc. It was huge - deserved to be, sure, but it wasn't an anomaly among his work. I like So Beautiful or So What and Rhythm of the Saints every bit as much, though I have more family memories about driving around singing to Graceland.
posted by Miko at 7:57 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

It's weird, I feel like popular artists will often write an album that propels them into a mega-popular artist... The album that makes them their actual riches... Then that album and albums after that are - crap (or considerably shittier than their previous work).

When an artist has a massively successful album, the follow-up very often sells less and is perceived as somewhat of a failure, regardless of the actual artistic achievement. Unfortunately, the cultural landscape tends to distil reviews down to either "amazing" or "shit". I feel like a ton of great albums go under appreciated because they're being judged against the artist's big seller.
posted by davebush at 5:30 AM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

It wasn't the sounds of silence that got me, it was evoking darkness, my old friend. Then it was late in the evening. Poets have and annoying way of causing the hair to stand up on the back of one's neck.

I read a story telling about Simon hiking in Peru. He heard a song coming from a hut, where he found a young local girl strumming her guitar and singing "El Condor Pasa." If not true, it ought to be.
posted by mule98J at 11:05 AM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

I grew up with Paul Simon (and coincidentally Garfunkel). My dad says he'd sing Scarborough Fair to get me to sleep as a baby. At age 3 my parents came home and were shocked to find out my babysitter had taught me the lyrics to Cecilia. Nowadays I identify more with Cloudy, Flowers Never Bend, and the "one and one-half wandering Jews" of Hearts and Bones.
posted by WizardOfDocs at 12:41 PM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

As a junior-high kid, I fell in love with Graceland. (Which I still claim made the world a better place, though I cringe a bit when I hear some of the tracks now.) As a new college student, friends introduced me to Simon and Garfunkel, a small portion of which is genuinely good. (I'm looking at you, "a poem on the underground wall." Go drown yourself beneath a bridge over troubled waters, "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.") Later, and long after it was recorded, I discovered "Songs from the Capeman," which is unambiguously great.

But, despite my love of both Paul Simon and crazy fans who are willing to air their thousand-person-hour obsessions in public, this particular analysis doesn't seem to add much to the songs themselves. For example,

Does Simon wish this individual would be apprehended, sent to a school to learn the rules of proper poetry and educated in the history of literature?

Are you fucking kidding me? I don't know what you and Julio have been doing down by the school yard, but the idea that this is even a viable rhetorical question seems incredibly silly. Did you actually listen to the rest of the song?

But, it's okay if people express their love of fantastic things in ways that slightly annoy me when I happen to read them. In fact, it's great.
posted by eotvos at 1:31 PM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thank you for this. I expect that I will eventually read every word posted on the website.

A couple of months ago I came across this version of American Tune. It was recorded in Central Park in the early '80s, so it's reflecting Reagan-era despair. I'm glad I didn't know then that I would live to see worse. I can't imagine a more fitting song for the times. Hearing them sing "But it's all right, it's all right, you can't be forever blessed" breaks my heart.


Many's the time I've been mistaken,
and many times confused
And I've often felt forsaken,
and certainly misused.
But it's all right, it's all right,
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
bright and Bon Vivant
So far away from home,
so far away from home.

I don't know a soul who's not been battered
Don't have a friend who feels at ease
Don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees.
But it's all right, all right,
We've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on,
I wonder what went wrong,
I can't help it
I wonder what went wrong.

And I dreamed I was flying. I dreamed my soul rose unexpectedly,
and looking back down on me,
smiled reassuringly,
and I dreamed I was dying.
And far above, my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty,
drifting away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying.

We come on a ship we call the Mayflower,
We come on a ship that sailed the moon
We come at the age's most uncertain hour
And sing the American tune
But it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's gonna be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest,
That's all, I'm trying to get some rest.
posted by she's not there at 12:18 AM on May 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

The thing about Paul Simon lyrics is that they often defy coherent explanation, which is why they are both so interesting a frustrating ... Simon has himself said that they are often the result of wordplay.

It is for this reason that I would love to hear a collaboration between Simon and Beck. It'll never happen, but ...
posted by DrAstroZoom at 1:58 PM on May 15, 2017

Okay. I give up. How do you search that site?
posted by thursdaystoo at 2:28 PM on May 15, 2017

Very top left, in the dark blue bar.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:14 PM on May 15, 2017

My own faves are the ones everyone seems to ignore -- the totality of Hearts and Bones, a handful of tracks off The Rhythm of the Saints, "Late in the Evening."

And from the earlier Simon, "Scarborough Fair," "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her," and "Homeward Bound" are pretty much branded into my DNA because they were released around the time I was born and were very probably listened to constantly by my hip weed-smoking Peter Fonda-look-alike uncle with the bead curtains in his doorways.
posted by blucevalo at 6:57 AM on May 16, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's weird, I feel like popular artists will often write an album that propels them into a mega-popular artist... The album that makes them their actual riches...

Your premise may or may not be correct, but it certainly apply to Simon at all. He had had four US #1 albums, both as S&G and solo, by the time he released Graceland. Graceland's highest charting was at #3.

I'm the same age as Miko, and I love Paul Simon. My wife is a few years younger, and loves him too. Our four year old son loves him too, and regularly requests "against the law" [Me & Julio], and speaks knowledgeably about whether the album version or the demo (released on the deluxe reissue) is better. FWIW, he prefers "against the law #2" [the demo]. My wife told me just this week that she thinks Paul Simon is as good an album as Joni Mitchell's Blue. I think she's wrong, but I feel good because I'm the person who put it on heavy rotation at our house.

I think Simon is just an extraordinary song writer.
posted by OmieWise at 9:42 AM on May 16, 2017 [6 favorites]