“We all will be received in Graceland”

For Christmas Daughter Dearest gave her brother a copy of Lyrics 1964-2008, an anthology of Paul Simon’s lyrics from songs spanning those years. Quite a career. Of course, these lyrics are all available free online, but the book makes for easy perusing not to mention an attractive coffee table addition.

Both kids are Simon fans, as we might expect, since they grew up with the music in the background on trips and around the house occasionally. Simon is a poet, and so there were always “meanings” to discuss — something to think about. That and the music. Since they were meant to be sung, the lyrics scan well, and while some of them might be considered “simple,” they supply a kind of natural American experience and catalog of emotion representative of the FIVE DECADES Simon’s work spans.

Reading through the lyrics, as with any poet’s works, I find it interesting to look for patterns of development in style, theme , or content. Simon has moved from the dark, melanchoy world of “Sound of Silence” (Hello, Darkness, my old Friend) and “I am a Rock” to fun works like “Call Me Al.”  (Simon with Chevy Chase)   that parodies music videos. There’s a kind of middle period with lyrics more mature, knowing, and disillusioned like “Fifty Ways” and “Slip Sliding Away.” Something for everybody.

Simon slips in plenty of irony, paradox, imagery, allusion, and metaphor to satisfy literary cravings as in my all-time favorite: “Graceland.” Working from the allusion to the Elvis home in Memphis as a metaphor for this, what I call “travelling song,” the gently driving music leads us through places of heartache and lonliness to a pilgrimage toward a place of solace and salvation — grace — favor. The kind we don’t have to deserve.  And the speaker has a “reason to believe/we all will be received in Graceland.”  Adding to the metaphor are images of the South and its hospitality,  not to mention Bible Belt Christianity.

The similes work: 
The mississippi delta was shining
Like a national guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war
I’m going to graceland
Graceland

He also writes

And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow.

and a metaphor –

There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when Im falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Oh, so this is what she means
She means we’re bouncing into graceland.

I’d put “Graceland” in the category of songs of hope — optimisitic words from one who has known failure but who still is able to glimpse and reach for something better — a kind of salvation at least.

Mike Ragogna at the Huffington Post has some thoughtful remarks on Simon and the new book as well as some good commentary on the music industry.

Though it’s hard to separate a song like “Mrs. Robinson”  from the music, for fans it’s enlightening to read the lyrics as stand alone poetry.  And though Barnes and Noble has it rated at three stars, I would recommend it to any Simon fan’s library.

“This Christmas Day” by TSO

“Just because it’s a Christmas song doesn’t mean it’s good.” I say this to myhusband when he insists on scanning radio stations for Christmas music. I draw the line at Anne Murray’s “The Little Drummer Boy” and punch the CD button.

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra performs solid Christmas songs that are a welcome take on the traditional mix. A personal favorite is “This Christmas Day.” The singer is a man whose daughter (I had previously thought it to be his wife or lover) is returning to him and to the relatiionship on Christmas day.  He wonders whether his prayers for her return have been answered or if the prayer was just “wishes in disguise.” He concludes that indeed his prayers were answered.

Midway the tune shifts, and powerful guitar riffs accompany the affirmative lyics.  Confidence replaces wondering. His Christmas and his life are restored, and his enthusiasm builds as he admires “the ornament” “the perfect tree” the “string of lights.” So “Everything is now as it should be.”

Finally he shows his appreciation speaking in metphors, I believe, to God calling him “the first [dream] I knew” and “the star” who has been faithful all along. The song is significant because it incorporates the restoration of relationships with the surface articles of Christmas. In other words, it offers one contemporary application of the true meaning behind the season.

The lyrics look simplistic without the fine instrumentation and vocals of TSO, but do try to listen to the full song during the holidays. It’s on the Christmas Eve and Other Stories album.

For of all the dreams
You were the first I knew
And every other one
Was a charade of you
You stayed close when I was far away

In the darkest night
You always were the star
You always took us in
No matter who we are
And so she’s coming home this
Christmas Day

Queen’s “Hammer to Fall”

Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” has become one of those songs that will be appreciated for decades. Its theme is existentialism: “Nothing really matters . . . to me.” We can sing it from memory echoing its hopelessness and despair.

Equally existential is their less-well-known “Hammer to Fall.” I used it to teach metaphor. Look up the lyrics sometime. The theme is the relentless pursuit of death. That’s the hammer.

“Every night and every day, a little piece of you is falling away . .. .build your muscles as your body decays” and so on. It addresses ways that Westerners fight and deny the approach of the “hammer.” “You lock your doors, but rain is pouring through your window pane.” Irresistable death.  Inevitable.

But unlike Dylan Thomas (“Rage, rage against the dying of the night”) Queen’s song offers us nothing. It ends “We’re just wainting for the hammer to fall.” Brings to mind Becket’s Waiting for Godot — just waiting. Hopeless. And, of course, God isn’t coming in either work.