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Comments posted on:
Cracking the Simon Code
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Comment re "How Can You Live in the Northeast?"
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Let's set aside the fireworks. They reappear in the seventh section (see the annotation at www.CrackingTheSimonCode.org ) where we'll be able to discuss them because we'll know more.
That brings us to "How can you live ... How can you be a Christian?..." This is a rant by an angry Simon character. The songpoet answers in the third section (that reprises the music from the fireworks). "Names and religion come / Just after date of birth." The given and family names come literally just after we pop out of the womb. Religion's not so quick, but it works the same way.
We are raised in the religion of our parents. (This is the common case. Essayists can digress with a discussion of parents who do not share a religion. Poets cannot digress without destroying their most important points.) To make it personal, how can I live in the Northeast? Simple. I was born here. (Paul Simon was also born in the Northeast, though in his case it was New York City.)
Given at birth: Tongue to speak? Check. Inner voice? Check. Day at end of week? Check. Note that the sabbath is "to wonder and rejoice" which is critical.
"If the answer is infinite light, ..." I don't believe I get this fully. I don't, in fact, think that "the answer" is infinite light. I'm used to the system where we have light in the day and dark at night. Sleeping in the dark works for me. It's the basic diurnal thing. Does this line show the return of the ranting character? [P.S. In Islam, Muhammad is called "the infinite light."]
Next we get a rant repeat. We know it's a Simon-created character because "The holy man only breaks bread" is just plain wrong. Lao-Tse (original Taoist) ate from a rice bowl. Confucius ate from a rice bowl. If I knew anything about Japan's Shinto I'd probably find some more rice bowlers. (This was the first insight that let me into this song.)
Now the fireworks return. When you watch good fireworks you are probably reduced to banalities, like, "Oh, wow!" and "Awesome!". I know I am. They're thrilling. They are something that triggers a feeling of "wonder and rejoice." The broker's call in "I Don't Believe" reminds us that faith can be purely secular. The fireworks are a secular example of "wonder and rejoice." Another example is the "path of stars, / Over the endless skies."
There's that word, "awesome" (poor, over-used, abused word). It means (or meant) filling with awe. The Grand Canyon from the south rim fills you with awe. The cathedral at Chartres fills you with awe. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D Minor, played with great vigor, fills you with awe. In Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, Rembrandt's "Night Watch" fills you with awe. Surprise fills me with awe. The not-at-all secret purpose of this blog and website is to help others to their share of this awe.
Finally, I dismissed the Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu "How can you..." as a rant. Let's think about it outside the rant. It seems that people all over the world have their religions, whether they break bread, eat from rice bowls or whatever. Simon names the four largest religions plus his own. In "How Can You Live in the Northeast?", Simon is probing something deep in the psyche of the human, the capacity to wonder and rejoice, that was created by, or that impels us to create, religions.
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Comment re "Everything About It Is a Love Song"
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11/19/2006 [Date of blog to which comment is attached.]
Thoughts. It's all about thoughts.
First, "walk along the riverbank" as he thinks of words for the song. Then "my vanishing memory with its catalog of regrets." Then "make a wish." Finally, "I shoot a thought into the future ...".
Now what the hell does this have to do with the coda? A question that must be answered since the name of the track is "Everything About It Is a Love Song."
11/29/2006
On "Everything About It Is a Love Song"
Previously I said this was about thoughts. Correct, but not specific. It's about thoughts of the future and of the past, alternately.
We begin with imagination being used to find the right combination of words to use in a melody line. A song will grow out of this process. The songwriter is creating the future.
Then we go back to the twentieth century, have "vanishing memory" and a "catalogue of regrets." But before this part of the song ends we are back to the future, waiting "for the hour of my rescue."
Next we're back to regrets, "and then it's, 'Oh, I'm sorry'" followed by a photographic reminder that the past also holds "love when it was new." And then right on to thinking about what's coming with "Make a wish." (another act of imagination) and "Surprise. Surprise. Surprise."
The next part remembers, "Early December, brown as a sparrow ..." and then shoots, "a thought into the future, and it flies like an arrow, through my lifetime. And beyond."
Penultimately we are on the "ancient road" and then "remember me, as I'll remember you." Note that the exhortation to "remember me, as I'll remember you" is about the memories we'll have in the future.
Finally, we get to "Everything about it is a love song." which I can explain as the thought of another Simon-created character, but the explanation strikes me as forced. I'm missing something.
Missing piece aside, this is a track about memories, thoughts of the past, and imagination, thoughts of the future. The intricacy of the interweaving is breathtaking. The imagination of future memories is amazing.
12/13/2006
I started with "thoughts." Then honed in. This time I'm precising the previous. Here goes.
The past, the present and the future all live in the mind. The past is in our memories, and the future in our imagination. As time roles along, the future becomes the present and the present becomes the past. Paul Simon's past's future is your present, if you're listening to "Everything" (or if you're reading a blog about "Everything").
Note the past tense: "I took a walk ...". At some indefinite time in the past, which Simon is remembering, he took that walk "along the riverbank" of his imagination and created this song (and all the others). The song came after the walk. Your hearing it and reading about it comes after the song is recorded. Your present is Simon's past's future.
The past and future don't alternate as simply as I suggested earlier. They intertwine with the present, too. "Sit down, shut up..." is very definitely present tense. "Think about God" is tied to, but not the same as, imagination.
I also overlooked "surprise." What is a surprise? A surprise happens when a bit of future roles into the present and it is not as you imagined it. Hopefully, that birthday present (for which you made the wish) turns out to be way better than you guessed. You're delighted. Happy birthday! (Of course, surprises aren't all of the good sort, though we'll stick to the good ones since we're at a birthday party.)
I called "early December" a memory. I think that was wrong. It is the present, as the verb "shoot" is used. ("I shoot a thought into the future." There's no metric or other reason why he couldn't have "shot a thought", but he chose "shoot.") That's not the past or the future tense. It's present tense.
I was right about the "as I'll remember you" bringing up the complication of imagining future memories, but that's only fitting after the complexity of the opening remembrance of past imaginings.
The earth is blue in the pictures we get back from space. Astronauts all speak with awe of the earth's beauty, seen from space.
Now if only someone could help me connect the dots from here to "Everything about it is a love song." Anyone?
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Comment re "Outrageous"
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"Outrageous" is a portrait of an aging, vain, insecure man. This comes out in the outrageous complaints that lead off. "Who's going to love you when your looks are gone?" is his insecurity. It's the thought inside his head.
"Painting my hair the color of mud." is his in-your-face way of saying, "I dye my hair. You gotta problem with that?"
"God will, like he waters the flowers on your windowsill" is our anti-hero's way of saying, "God will. Yeah, right. Don't count on it."
"I'm an ordinary player in the key of C." C is the beginner's piano key. It doesn't use the black keys. Our anti-hero is vain about his looks, not his accomplishments.
This is really a very sad portrait. Even 900 situps a day (he needs to change personal trainers) won't do more than postpone the inevitable. Without some accomplishments to fall back on, the man's bitterness can only grow.
This was the first song I cracked. "Wow, this IS outrageous," I thought.
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Comment re "Sure Don't Feel Like Love"
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Those crufties at the top? I was trying to put up a nice box to separate the first-time-visitor stuff from the rest of the blog. Planning to repeat that first-time-visitor stuff above each blog, to catch the attention of first-timers. Gotta go do some experiments.
Here's the crack:
To be scientific, love happens in the brain, between the ears, not in the heart. It's a wonderful feeling. Unfortunately, between the ears is also the location of other feelings.
You could be embarassed, feel like a fool. "People say it all the time / even when it's true." That doesn't feel like love.
That pang of guilty conscience is another thing between the ears that doesn't feel like love.
Crying, which is "not concerned with blame or fault" comes from real sorrow. It could be the pain of loss: lost love, lost loved ones or lost friendship. It's another thing betwwen the ears that doesn't feel like love. Simon draws the clear line between sorrow and guilty conscience, the latter definitely concerned with blame and fault.
Feels like a threat.
A voice in your head that you'd rather forget.
No joke, no joke.
You get sick from that unspoken.
This whole track is about the things that run between the ears that you'd really rather not have running there. You'd prefer "some chicken and a corn muffin ...".
The problem could be indecision. You could think "Yay" and then "Boo" about something. (A Jimmy Buffett favorite: "Indecision may or may not be part of my problem.")
You could be afraid of making a mistake. You could combine that fear with pangs of conscience over past mistakes.
Love happens between the ears. Lots of other things happen between the ears, too. This track is a catalog of the unpleasant things that don't feel like love. It's just what the title says.
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Comment re "Wartime Prayers"
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Got that First-Time visitors box fixed! Now, on to "Wartime Prayers."
"Wartime Prayers" is a song about prayer. Simon explores the variety of reasons people pray. In times of peace, "...silent conversations.
Appeals for love or loves release, in private invocations."
He also has an unkind word, one presumes directed at those who profiteer from Christian fundamentalism. [P.S. and/or Muslim fundamentalists.] "People hungry for the voice of God hear lunatics and liars."
Wartime prayers are, "For every family scattered and broken."
People also pray for wisdom and personal spiritual improvement. "I'm trying to tap into some wisdom. Even a little drop would do. I want to rid my heart of envy, and cleanse my soul of rage before I'm through."
(The lyrics enclosed with the CD are written in prose style. I'm faithful to the printed lyrics in preserving the boldface that emphasizes every reference to water.)
Is Simon referring to himself here? It's possible. "... cleanse my soul of rage" ties directly to "Outrageous" (wherein the character's soul is anything but cleansed). Also, and equally certainly, the speaker may be a Simon-created character. What we can be sure of is that some people do pray for wisdom and spiritual improvement.
You can also pray for relief from pain. "But when the wounds are deep enough, and it's all that we can bear, we wrap ourselves. In prayer." (Yes, the printed lyrics make the last two words a separate sentence.)
Finally, there is the mother comforting her children. "To drive away despair she sends a wartime prayer."
Is this an anti-war song? Is it specifically against the war in Iraq? You can certainly hear it this way, but the lyrics are clearly about prayer in general with the title, and ending focusing on wartime prayers.
Later Comment:
Just read a Simon interview in which he says he wrote "Wartime Prayers" shortly before the war in Iraq, when people saw the war coming.
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Comment re "Beautiful"
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"Beautiful" is beautiful. It's about family love and the wonderful parts of winter and summer. It's the counterbalance to all those emotions that are outrageous and don't feel like love.
From our northeastern winters there is hardly anything more jolly than the snowman. By itself, the snowman's the perfect symbol of winter fun. There's usually a family involved in making that snowman. Mom, Dad and the kids all playing together. Bet there was a snowball fight, too! Do you see the snow angel?
The adoptions are precursors of love and joy. (Obviously, for this family they work. You wouldn't do something three times if it didn't prove to your liking.)
And summertime, summertime! Go kart: you "don't need a ticket to ride" it. (Sounds like our man Simon is alluding to another group's work, no?) Water slides, candy stands and those children in the pool. Is there any sound more joyous than a bunch of kids in a pool?
Stuck by itself, "Beautiful" would be corny, sappy, Pollyanna-ish. But in a group with other musings on the mind, it's necessary to round the picture. Love and happiness do exist in the human mind. Perhaps not as often as we'd like, but you couldn't have things that "don't feel like love" if you didn't also have love.
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Comment re "I Don't Believe"
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"Maybe and maybe and maybe some more." I don't believe that you can really be sure if the songpoet isn't at all sure. It turns out, though, that the songpoet is sure about some things, and that gives us a handle on this complex track.
To begin, religious faith can be consoling. To a Christian or Muslim, death is the entry to heaven, which is certainly consoling if you lose a relative or friend. But our songpoet, or the character created by our songpoet (maybe and maybe...), does not believe, and therefore is not consoled.
It is not the fairytale forest in which disbelief is expressed. It's the view that acts of kindness are beneficial, "like breadcrumbs in a fairytale forest," (simile, here). Our character or our songpoet leans closer to the fire, but is still cold. This is an echo of a primitive time when fire meant heat. Maybe. Or it's a purely psychological chill, triggered by disbelief and the fire is in a well-appointed mansion. Maybe. Both work.
Then we learn that the earth was born in a storm, and that "'the universe loves a drama,' you know." (Line credited to an unnamed "E. B." Simon is married to Edie Brickell.)
Prehistory yields to contemporary life with head-spinning speed when the broker calls. (As noted at www.CrackingTheSimonCode.org/lyrics/i3.html the music is unchanged between prehistory and the broker's call.) This introduction of the broker is necessary to set up the broker's second appearance, where his mission is realized.
Returning to the original music ("Acts of kindness, ...") we see what Simon does believe: he believes in children, love and familial happiness. Let's fast forward to the return of the "born in a storm" music and then rewind to the guardian angel.
For a long time I was confused by the "heart is part of the mist" line. Then I slid into my car seat to run an errand. The mountain I live on (well, big hill - 540 feet above the valley floor) was fogged in. You couldn't see. I drove half a mile to the end of my road, said "to hell with it" and returned home. On the way home, a big head-slapping "How obvious!" came to me.
Substitute "fog" for mist (sorry about messing up Simon's poetry - this is only for explanation). "Maybe the heart is part of the fog." It's part of that which prevents you from seeing clearly. Maybe the confusion is all that there is or that could ever exist. Maybe this is about religious faith. Maybe the author is an agnostic, wrestling with the question of God's existence. It is this wrestling that has him asking his guardian angel to stop taunting him. Maybe. (From "Everything About It Is a Love Song," "Sit down, shut up, think about God, ...).
So there's the broker on the line. He blew it. "Maybe some virus or brokerage joke" (there's that word "maybe" again) "And he hopes that my faith isn't shaken." Our songpoet has challenged himself to look at these topics from all angles. Here he points out that faith applies to far more than religious concerns. You can have faith in your acountant, broker, carpenter... I have faith in my Linux computer (last booted two months ago).
Faith in religion can be consoling. Uncertainty in religion can be troubling. Having faith in secular things, whether that is a loving family or a broker, is also a good thing. The title, "I Don't Believe" points straight at the subject matter. Belief is another thing that happens somewhere in the mind.
For me, I still don't believe that I've figured out the final line. Won't someone help out? "To pantomime prayers with the hands of a clock." What?
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Comment re "Another Galaxy"
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There are multiple kinds of dreams. One is the kind that runs between the ears while you sleep. "That night her dreams are storm-tossed like a willow." (For those of you who don't live in the Northeast or South, did you ever see a willow in a storm? The branches are very flexible. Looks like a bunch of bullwhips being cracked by a madman. Scary. Sure don't feel like love.)
Then there are daydreams. Some are idle: I dream I'll hit the lottery. Some are real goals: this blog and the companion website were my dreams back in November when I started the blog.
There may come a moment, a chip in time, when you can convert an otherwise idle daydream into action. "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years," is a phrase that Google finds 162 times. " "When leaving home is the lesser crime," gets 66 hits. Both these are about the moments when idle daydreams convert to action, when the heroine takes charge of her own destiny, steps outside her comfort zone, reaches for another life in another galaxy. I wish them luck.
And Mom, stop crying. Think about what's best for your daughter.
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Comment re "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean"
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Geologically accurate as anyone who hikes in the Catskills knows. As you get to the mountain tops, you're struck by the fact that you're standing on sedimentary rock. Reconointer Rock, a glacial erratic neatly balanced on a point by a receding glacier, shows its ocean origins clearly. (Peekamoose Mountain at 3,000 feet.) Geologists tell us this was ocean bed thrust up four million years ago. But this song is not about Earth's geology.
This is the portrait of a loser. He has a dead end job, but no way to get out of it. (A way to get out of one job is to get another.) He lives in a "room" with a hot plate, TV and fridge (small, one assumes). No, this man doesn't really have a lottery ticket to cash in. Unlike "Outrageous" this track has a definite story line.
Think about home? No, he takes some pride in not thinking about home. "Then comes a letter from home. The handwriting's fragile and strange." This would be a letter from someone - not family or the handwriting would be familiar - taking care of the affairs of a deceased, unspecified relative. "Fragile" suggests the writer is a woman. I'll assume this letter announces the death of the protagonist's mother. (You can assume any relative you like. The track leaves this detail out.)
And this is where, "Nothing is different but everything's changed." He had no ongoing connection with home, ("Never going home."), but now there's a death in the family. Something unstoppable has been put into motion.
Next, he goes to the funeral. It's in a small-town church. Stained glass and choir tell us it's a church; frayed cuffs, mended suggest that it's a modest one. Old hymns and family names "flutter down like leaves of emotion." Nothing is different. He's still a loser with a dead-end job and a room with a hot plate. But emotionally he's changed.
The choir singing "Once Upon a Time..." is a "conceit" in at least two senses. Defining "conceit" home.cfl.rr.com/ighsap/apterms.html says "See John Donne's 'Valediction Forbidding Mourning,' for example: 'Let man's soul be a sphere,...'". Man's soul is not actually a sphere, and the choir didn't actually sing the song in which the choir sings. As to the other sense, Simon's earned the right to pat himself on the back.
It's interesting how this ties geologically to "I Don't Believe" where "The waters receded. The mountains were formed."
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Comment re "That's Me"
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I love interior rhyme (rhymes that are not at the ends of lines). "And get to the place where you can read my face" is a good example. He's still our Rhymin' Simon.
And he's self-deprecating, to an extreme. If Yale had awarded me an honorary doctorate I would be very, very proud of it. I wouldn't refer to it as "a bogus degree," though this is technically accurate.
"And money never cared for me." This from a man who is said to have lost several millions on his ill-fated musical, Capeman. Is it possible he got a call from his broker?
"Searching for the emerald sea, boys" is a good way of describing his unending pursuit of something that hasn't been done already. Surprise shows just how great it can be when a great artist refuses to settle for a repeat of his last achievement. (I fear that Surprise sets such a high standard that it will be difficult for Simon to go further. I don't expect to hear from him again unless he is convinced he can go further.)
First love? Yes, it moves you. But I've got a problem with the bear.
I hike regularly in the Catskills, small mountains in central New York state. Bears there shy away from men, usually. This may be due to the fact that we have a bear-hunting season. One time, a medium-sized black bear did not shy away from me. She was walking through the forest parallel to the trail I was hiking, perhaps twenty yards away. I was not held in her sight and her power. I was terrified. I guess the difference is that Simon's bear was running, presumably not toward him.
When the going gets steep, counting steps is a natural. I'm partial to humming "A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall." (Four bars, four beats, sixteen steps per bottle.)
"Forgotten is a long, long time." On the other hand, Paul Simon's shot a thought into the future. It will go through his lifetime and long, long beyond.
"I'm in the valley of twilight." One reviewer said that this was a humble comment on his position in his career. How can you pair twilight with realizing fully the most ambitious work of your life? Surprise isn't twilight, it's blazing sun.
On the continental shelf? "The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent which is covered during interglacial periods such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas ...". (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Scuba diving? Also from Wikipedia, "The South China Sea lies over another extensive area of the continental shelf, ..." Bringing home babies? I don't believe I understand this line.
"... answering a question I am asking of myself." Not satisfied with "maybe" as your exit?
And if you are beginning to think that your cracker is not cracking with clarity at the end of this track, let me add my big concern. Every other track is about what goes on in the mind. More exactly, each is about one specific aspect of what goes on in the mind, such as insecurity, prayer, things that don't feel like love and so on. If "That's Me" is about a specific aspect of the mind, I don't believe I understand it.
Well, I guess this one needs some more spins. We really need some other active crackers. Don't be bashful!
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Comment re "Father and Daughter"
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I am the doting father of two wonderful daughters. I heard "Father and Daughter" the first time and it immediately moved into a special place in my heart. That place already held (and still holds) another father/daughter love song, Jimmy Buffett's "Little Miss Magic" from his 1980 album, Coconut Telegraph.
"Your mother is the only other woman for me
Little Miss Magic, what you gonna be?"
I never thought "Little Miss Magic" would have company. Now she's got a sister. I think they'll get along. (Buffett is an avid fly fisherman. He'll be grabbed by "It's just like goin' fishin'.")
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