Musical Monday #23

I was tempted to write today's Musical Monday about Elvis Costello. And you never know, when I'm feeling short of ideas I might just wheel him out -- along with an anecdote about a girl who thought he had a song about zombies.

But I can tell you're impatient. You don't want to beat around the bush today, you want to be taken out to dinner, wined and dined, and you want to hear what today's Musical Monday is all about.

Paul Simon. No, not that Paul Simon -- not Paul Simon of "curtain superstore" fame. This Paul Simon. I know it's not fashionable to admit to liking Paul Simon, in many places it's probably enough to get you shot. But I'm fairly confident that you won't find anyone else talking about Godspeed You! Black Emperor alongside Paul Simon in the same blog.

I think my liking for Paul Simon -- like many odd choices of music, including Billy Joel -- is probably rooted in my childhood, and hearing these songs in the car with my parents. I don't remember them ever playing Simon and Garfunkle, or actually any Paul Simon album other than Graceland. I think it was probably new at the time, and they would have copied the album onto cassette in order to play it in the car. It's strange, imagining my parents younger and that passionate about music.

Graceland features the engaging African harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I try to recreate that feeling of being five year's old and in the back of my dad's car, probably drifting in and out of sleep, and hearing these voices so unlike anything else I knew. And it's the song Diamonds On the Soles of her Shoes that I feature in today's post.

It's not just that one song that I love so much -- the whole Graceland album has so many great songs. The album starts with The Boy in the Bubble -- and though I don't know what it's referring to I like how lines like "the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio" are contrasted with "these are the days of miracle and wonder". The title track starts with the striking imagery "The Mississippi delta/was shining like a national guitar", and the song itself is a traditional song of love and loss, with lines like "She comes back to tell me she's gone. As if I didn't know that.". Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes is about your traditional rich-girl-poor-boy star cross'd lovers, she wants to be taken out dancing but instead end up sleeping in a doorway.

By way of closing, I would like to mention that I'm not a complete heretic; even though this post is about Paul Simon as a solo artist, and in particular Graceland, I am a big fan of Simon and Garfunkle. The song America seems desperately sad and lonely and wistful -- and probably more so than anything by Simon alone.

"Kathy, I'm lost" I said, though I knew she was sleeping, "I'm empty and aching, and I don't know why"

Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes