Graceland
The Album, not the residence.
I played "pull out a CD" as I was getting ready to cook dinner tonight and came up with Paul Simon's Graceland. Dated from the 80's for sure, but a wonderful recording, worth a second look. I was particularly struck with the alliteration in Boy in the Bubble:
It's a turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation
throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical
and magical is art,
think ofThe Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart.
I played "pull out a CD" as I was getting ready to cook dinner tonight and came up with Paul Simon's Graceland. Dated from the 80's for sure, but a wonderful recording, worth a second look. I was particularly struck with the alliteration in Boy in the Bubble:
It's a turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation
throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical
and magical is art,
think ofThe Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart.
posted by stewdog | 9:12 PM | Permalink
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5 comments
5 Comments:
Well, now I know what I'll be digging out of my own collection before driving to work this morning. :)
I think one of the strengths of Graceland is that it sounds like nothing else. Many of the lyrics don't make much sense, but the songs have a certain unusual mood that no other "pop" album can touch.
Agree. Simon uses lyrics as poetry to make languange another instrument in the song. Procol Harem also did this, and had a guy in the group who did nothing but write the lyrics. Simon didn't quiet match Graceland with Rhythm of the Saints, but came close, in incorporating music from elsewhere into his unique American idiom.
That's one of my favorite pop music CD's. I must say the title track is my favorite (followed by Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes and You Can Call Me Al).
There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying, and tumbling in turmoil
I say "Whoa, so this is what she means.
She means we're bouncing into Graceland.
And she says,"Losing love is like a window in your heart.
Everybody sees you're blown apart.
Everybody feels the wind blow.
Ohhh, in Graceland.
Ahhh, that takes me back. Anyone remember "Hearts and Bones"? I was going to say that's a guilty pleasure of mine, but it's not really guilty.
Under African Skies is another great song on that recording. . .great background vocals by Linda Ronstadt.
"This is the story of how we begin to remember.
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the veins."
Simon's lyrics throughout his career merit "poet" status.
Add Jethro Tull to groups whose lyrics don't tell a nice neat linear story, but, rather, evoke mood and imagery. . .I'm thinking especially of Thick As A Brick and Passion Play.
I'm partial to the "Baker Street Muse" cycle on the album Minstrel in the Gallery. I never went to London during the 1970s, but that album makes me imagine--perhaps with no justification, but so be it!--what it must have been like.
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