Musically, Graceland was composed very differently than most of Simon's other work. Simon went to South Africa after hearing a tape given to him by a friend called "Accordion Jive Hits Vol II" which featured a track called "Gumboots" by the Boyoyo Boys. Simon's career was in a slump due to the Simon and Garfunkel reunion album turning into Hearts and Bones which was his first commercial failure, and also his marriage to Carrie Fisher falling to bits so he went to South Africa with basically nothing to lose at that point. There were no songs written ahead of time, just an idea which resulted in long jams being cut to tape and basically being edited into instrumental tracks resembling a song, on which he would write the lyrics after the fact. One of the things Simon always said about the songwriting process for Graceland is that he had to listen to the tracks a lot more deeply because he had a verse here that fits with the progression, and then another that doesn't and it should, but ok I'm going to listen to this again, and again, and oooh that's why - the bass is the lead instrument in this part and the guitar takes a backseat to what the bass is doing. And even cutting together the tape to assemble the tracks from these long jam sessions was very difficult to do on analog tape in 1985. Samplers were still very primitive, computers were only used as MIDI sequencers to control other synthesizers as well as some fader automation, but the act of editing audio the way Graceland was done was a very painstaking process. Taking these four bars here, put it over there - very easy to do in Pro Tools/Cubase/(your favourite DAW here) on a laptop. Standing over a tape machine with a pair of headphones, a grease pencil and a razor blade rocking the reels trying to find your in/out points and splicing it altogether on the other hand and then writing those lyrics on top of the assembled tracks over the playing of musicians who were very different than what he was used to was not only a "stroke of genius"/"capturing lighting in a bottle" but it was also painstaking sometimes screwdriver work to make it work.
Thanks for mentioning that National guitars are a specific brand. Not knowing that, I had interpreted "shining like a national guitar" as the delta being a gleaming source of uniquely American music. Seeing a picture adds a new dimension to my interpretation. I see Graceland as a metaphor for heaven, so that by the end, "we all will be received in Graceland" has nothing to do with a tourist spot and everything to do with a final destination.
I get a completely different vibe from this song. Hours of driving and your mind drifts in and out of random thoughts. On your way to 'anywhere' , kid with you. You think of the kid, you think of the mom, you dive into details you miss about that life. Then you regroup, some self reflection and back to real time on your way to Graceland. Back to your love again, repeat. That's what driving does!
Paul Simon said in an interview (video) that part of 'Graceland' was about his trip to Graceland, and then he said the meaning switched to Graceland as 'a state of grace', a place where you get to, in life, where you realize you've made mistakes, but you give yourself grace for your mistakes.. This is what Paul meant by 'I've reason to believe we all will be relieved in Graceland'-- a state of grace. And the marriage he talked about, and 'losing love' was all about Carrie Fisher. He said she 'came back' (after leaving New York City) to tell Paul she 'was gone.' 'As if I didn't know that' ( he already knew). 'Everybody sees you're blown apart, everybody sees the wind blow'--Paul was talking about how the break up was being talked about by everyone (celebrity news). The professor got most of this wrong..his opinion, but not facts.
In interviews Paul has said that as the track was being put together he was using the refrain about Graceland, which had just popped into his head, as a filler lyric that he would eventually replace. But perhaps because the backing track reminded him of rockabilly and the music coming of Sun Studios, he found he couldn't get away from the line. He decided he had to go to see Graceland. The opening verse is simply description of what he experienced driving down Highway 61 into Memphis. He joined a tour group going through Graceland. So that part of the lyric is pretty literal. Many people tend to categorize Paul as a folkie who later joined the folk rock movement, but in truth he was originally a rock and roller in the style of the doowop groups of the 50s, and Elvis was an important figure for him. Like most early rockers he remembers exactly where he was when he heard his first Elvis song. Many of his post-Tom and Jerry solo songs that never sold were more like Elvis than Dylan (and Dylan himself was originally a rocker himself akin to Buddy Holly). Paul was more a rocker who took advantage of the folk revival of the early 60s. In a poignant moment in his movie "One Trick Pony" his band is playing the morbid game Dead Rock Stars, each player naming another one and if they can't, they're out (even in 1980, only 25 years since the dawn of rock and roll, they don't have any trouble coming up with names). Near the end of the game someone mentions Elvis, and Paul stops playing, just saying something like, Yeah, Elvis too. He still had that connection to the King.
For me, Paul Simon's lyrics are so much more impressive than mere poetry. Their relevance of the lyrics lies as much in the way that they effortlessly combine with his intricate, multilayered music as in the meaning of the words and phrases themselves. Surely in this sense, Simon has no peer as a poet or a musician.
I always interpreted "Graceland" as Heaven. "We all will be received into Graceland" equals his hope/belief that at the end of (or despite) the trials and tribulations of our lives we will enter Heaven.
"I may be obliged to defend every love and every ending, or maybe there's no obligation now. But I've reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland..." This, to me, is one of the most devastatingly heartfelt yet hopeful lyrics in rock music.
I’ve always interpreted Graceland as a secular gospel, with music as a sort of cultural deity towards which we all gravitate. The speakers of that gospel (Elvis, etc.) become the prophets that tie various regions and cultures of people together.
Funny how in the face of all that explanation... the speaker never mentions that the album is about the concept of "borrowing versus rights"- as if a foreshadowing of the controversy that surrounded the album (only because it was incredibly successful and different from anything else going on in music in 1986). The concept of borrowing music- as Elvis did of the blues and soul to create a heaven in Tennessee... so was Simon doing by borrowing from South African music in a way that to this day is as uniQue to Paul Simon's style as Elvis became of his own legacy. This interplay of meaning unlocks the technical meaning behind the logic of each of the lines. This is a basic principle of Simon's music- that the subject relates back line for line to a core conversation in which one is only hearing half the dialog.
According to the Poet and Polymath Goethe ( 1749 - 1832 ), 'The difference between poetry and prose is whether the imagination is active or not. In prose we are taken by the hand and shown in detail everything, in poetry we fill in with the imagination.
So wild to me that scholars who attend so closely to language don’t care whether automated captions of their work are accurate at all. Time to get it together!
Nice critical dissection and analysis of the lyrics if this song. Your thoughts regarding the meaning of the lyrics are pretty much the same as mine. However, I've always thought of empty eye sockets - like as in a skull perhaps - when considering the "ghosts and empty sockets" line, which, of course, only further enhances the haunted ambience of that particular line.
I had the same reaction to the lyrics as the lecturer. Much of the lyric sounds like Simon pieced together parts of different songs.Other parts seem to be Simon's disjointed stream of consciousness. Fortunately, Simon is such a poet and musician that it somehow hangs together. Thanks for this lecture. By the way... to the other commenters who used the criticism 'straining for pretention", I ask if English is your nativge language. One does not strain to show they are not knowledgable.
My one complaint of his presentation is that he seems to make a point only to equivocate each time. For example, it doesn't matter to me how truly autobiographical any of it is. It still evokes a personal story of someone. And even if fictional, I can still relate to it. So just tell me what it means to you. I may get something different, but I still want to hear your interpetation.
I'd love to see you dissect the lyrics of "You can call me Al" with its "I'm in this world filled with expectations which I don't know if I can fulfill" verses and its "if I can make an alliance with you, we can face those things together." chorus. "A man walks down the street he says: why am I soft in the middle, why am I soft in the middle, the rest of my life is so hard. I need a photo opportunity, a shot a redemption, don't want to end a cartoon in a cartoon grave yard."
"The most beautiful human potential talent creations by God are often not necessarily having to be always perfect. Often imperfect and mistake liven lives are the most special gifts we miss out on as human's forever with our own mild to extreme ignorances. The grace of God and His glory is not always revealed in human's potential greatness, power or perfection but actually in their weaknesses, failures and the emptiness need to be filled inside them."
I always assumed it was Carrie Fisher that he was talking about because it was copyrighted in 1986 which was after their divorce and it seems to fit the kind of cookie way she was which I loved she came back to tell him she was gone sounds like something she would do as opposed to the other the first wife who we never hear anything about at all but we hear a lot of Carrie Fisher's bipolar and drug use and all those things but we also hear how much he loved her. I think it was Carrie Fisher she was involved still with him until around 1990 when she called it quits for good, just my opinion.
I have an MFA in creative writing and this is precisely everything I hated about the poetry program. It's the lack of context of in terms if the author's worldview and straining too much for pretension where none exists.
There’s a girl in NYC who calls herself the human trampoline = The statue of liberty. Graceland is South Africa…the roots of rhythm and Rock and Roll, and also the US…where Rock evolved…
Professor Reed is pleasant to listen to and is probably a great teacher, but he doesn't even scratch the surface of this song or the album that bears its name. There's a lot more to say, good and bad, and he ends up talking more about the song's geographical indiscrepancies
Thank you immensely for the thoughtful close reading. I think the song merits such an approach. For me as a European Graceland as a specific topographic place is not my first association. (Even though he calls it Graceland Tennessee). I would think you missed the allusion to Graceland as a land where you receive grace (where you are pardoned) for all your sins or missteps. For me it seems a journey into a new, hopeful country and era.
I dont know how this got into my queue but it is supremely idiotic. All 18 minutes of it. He s a professor? God save poor souls in his class.He sounds like he heard the song two days ago (if) in passing..
Musically, Graceland was composed very differently than most of Simon's other work. Simon went to South Africa after hearing a tape given to him by a friend called "Accordion Jive Hits Vol II" which featured a track called "Gumboots" by the Boyoyo Boys. Simon's career was in a slump due to the Simon and Garfunkel reunion album turning into Hearts and Bones which was his first commercial failure, and also his marriage to Carrie Fisher falling to bits so he went to South Africa with basically nothing to lose at that point. There were no songs written ahead of time, just an idea which resulted in long jams being cut to tape and basically being edited into instrumental tracks resembling a song, on which he would write the lyrics after the fact. One of the things Simon always said about the songwriting process for Graceland is that he had to listen to the tracks a lot more deeply because he had a verse here that fits with the progression, and then another that doesn't and it should, but ok I'm going to listen to this again, and again, and oooh that's why - the bass is the lead instrument in this part and the guitar takes a backseat to what the bass is doing. And even cutting together the tape to assemble the tracks from these long jam sessions was very difficult to do on analog tape in 1985. Samplers were still very primitive, computers were only used as MIDI sequencers to control other synthesizers as well as some fader automation, but the act of editing audio the way Graceland was done was a very painstaking process. Taking these four bars here, put it over there - very easy to do in Pro Tools/Cubase/(your favourite DAW here) on a laptop. Standing over a tape machine with a pair of headphones, a grease pencil and a razor blade rocking the reels trying to find your in/out points and splicing it altogether on the other hand and then writing those lyrics on top of the assembled tracks over the playing of musicians who were very different than what he was used to was not only a "stroke of genius"/"capturing lighting in a bottle" but it was also painstaking sometimes screwdriver work to make it work.
Thanks for mentioning that National guitars are a specific brand. Not knowing that, I had interpreted "shining like a national guitar" as the delta being a gleaming source of uniquely American music. Seeing a picture adds a new dimension to my interpretation.
I see Graceland as a metaphor for heaven, so that by the end, "we all will be received in Graceland" has nothing to do with a tourist spot and everything to do with a final destination.
I get a completely different vibe from this song. Hours of driving and your mind drifts in and out of random thoughts. On your way to 'anywhere' , kid with you. You think of the kid, you think of the mom, you dive into details you miss about that life. Then you regroup, some self reflection and back to real time on your way to Graceland. Back to your love again, repeat. That's what driving does!
Paul Simon said in an interview (video) that part of 'Graceland' was about his trip to Graceland, and then he said the meaning switched to Graceland as 'a state of grace', a place where you get to, in life, where you realize you've made mistakes, but you give yourself grace for your mistakes.. This is what Paul meant by 'I've reason to believe we all will be relieved in Graceland'-- a state of grace.
And the marriage he talked about, and 'losing love' was all about Carrie Fisher. He said she 'came back' (after leaving New York City) to tell Paul she 'was gone.' 'As if I didn't know that' ( he already knew).
'Everybody sees you're blown apart, everybody sees the wind blow'--Paul was talking about how the break up was being talked about by everyone (celebrity news).
The professor got most of this wrong..his opinion, but not facts.
In interviews Paul has said that as the track was being put together he was using the refrain about Graceland, which had just popped into his head, as a filler lyric that he would eventually replace. But perhaps because the backing track reminded him of rockabilly and the music coming of Sun Studios, he found he couldn't get away from the line. He decided he had to go to see Graceland. The opening verse is simply description of what he experienced driving down Highway 61 into Memphis. He joined a tour group going through Graceland. So that part of the lyric is pretty literal.
Many people tend to categorize Paul as a folkie who later joined the folk rock movement, but in truth he was originally a rock and roller in the style of the doowop groups of the 50s, and Elvis was an important figure for him. Like most early rockers he remembers exactly where he was when he heard his first Elvis song. Many of his post-Tom and Jerry solo songs that never sold were more like Elvis than Dylan (and Dylan himself was originally a rocker himself akin to Buddy Holly). Paul was more a rocker who took advantage of the folk revival of the early 60s.
In a poignant moment in his movie "One Trick Pony" his band is playing the morbid game Dead Rock Stars, each player naming another one and if they can't, they're out (even in 1980, only 25 years since the dawn of rock and roll, they don't have any trouble coming up with names). Near the end of the game someone mentions Elvis, and Paul stops playing, just saying something like, Yeah, Elvis too. He still had that connection to the King.
Imagine , getting paid handsomely to think about the meaning behind Paul Simon lyrics.
For me, Paul Simon's lyrics are so much more impressive than mere poetry. Their relevance of the lyrics lies as much in the way that they effortlessly combine with his intricate, multilayered music as in the meaning of the words and phrases themselves. Surely in this sense, Simon has no peer as a poet or a musician.
I always interpreted "Graceland" as Heaven. "We all will be received into Graceland" equals his hope/belief that at the end of (or despite) the trials and tribulations of our lives we will enter Heaven.
"I may be obliged to defend every love and every ending, or maybe there's no obligation now.
But I've reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland..."
This, to me, is one of the most devastatingly heartfelt yet hopeful lyrics in rock music.
if songs were written like this,they would never get done.
I’ve always interpreted Graceland as a secular gospel, with music as a sort of cultural deity towards which we all gravitate. The speakers of that gospel (Elvis, etc.) become the prophets that tie various regions and cultures of people together.
simon definitely and most officially confirmed as the great poet songwriter he is...
We all want to be received...somewhere.
Funny how in the face of all that explanation... the speaker never mentions that the album is about the concept of "borrowing versus rights"- as if a foreshadowing of the controversy that surrounded the album (only because it was incredibly successful and different from anything else going on in music in 1986). The concept of borrowing music- as Elvis did of the blues and soul to create a heaven in Tennessee... so was Simon doing by borrowing from South African music in a way that to this day is as uniQue to Paul Simon's style as Elvis became of his own legacy. This interplay of meaning unlocks the technical meaning behind the logic of each of the lines. This is a basic principle of Simon's music- that the subject relates back line for line to a core conversation in which one is only hearing half the dialog.
According to the Poet and Polymath Goethe ( 1749 - 1832 ), 'The difference between poetry and prose is whether the imagination is active or not. In prose we are taken by the hand and shown in detail everything, in poetry we fill in with the imagination.
So wild to me that scholars who attend so closely to language don’t care whether automated captions of their work are accurate at all. Time to get it together!
Nice critical dissection and analysis of the lyrics if this song. Your thoughts regarding the meaning of the lyrics are pretty much the same as mine. However, I've always thought of empty eye sockets - like as in a skull perhaps - when considering the "ghosts and empty sockets" line, which, of course, only further enhances the haunted ambience of that particular line.
We all want to be received...somewhere.
We all want to be received...somewhere.
Yes, i can't imagine you can call me Al.
I had the same reaction to the lyrics as the lecturer. Much of the lyric sounds like Simon pieced together parts of different songs.Other parts seem to be Simon's disjointed stream of consciousness. Fortunately, Simon is such a poet and musician that it somehow hangs together.
Thanks for this lecture.
By the way... to the other commenters who used the criticism 'straining for pretention", I ask if English is your nativge language. One does not strain to show they are not knowledgable.
My one complaint of his presentation is that he seems to make a point only to equivocate each time. For example, it doesn't matter to me how truly autobiographical any of it is. It still evokes a personal story of someone. And even if fictional, I can still relate to it. So just tell me what it means to you. I may get something different, but I still want to hear your interpetation.
I'd love to see you dissect the lyrics of "You can call me Al" with its "I'm in this world filled with expectations which I don't know if I can fulfill" verses and its "if I can make an alliance with you, we can face those things together." chorus.
"A man walks down the street he says: why am I soft in the middle, why am I soft in the middle, the rest of my life is so hard. I need a photo opportunity, a shot a redemption, don't want to end a cartoon in a cartoon grave yard."
This is brilliant
"The most beautiful human potential talent creations by God are often not necessarily having to be always perfect. Often imperfect and mistake liven lives are the most special gifts we miss out on as human's forever with our own mild to extreme ignorances. The grace of God and His glory is not always revealed in human's potential greatness, power or perfection but actually in their weaknesses, failures and the emptiness need to be filled inside them."
I always assumed it was Carrie Fisher that he was talking about because it was copyrighted in 1986 which was after their divorce and it seems to fit the kind of cookie way she was which I loved she came back to tell him she was gone sounds like something she would do as opposed to the other the first wife who we never hear anything about at all but we hear a lot of Carrie Fisher's bipolar and drug use and all those things but we also hear how much he loved her. I think it was Carrie Fisher she was involved still with him until around 1990 when she called it quits for good, just my opinion.
I have an MFA in creative writing and this is precisely everything I hated about the poetry program. It's the lack of context of in terms if the author's worldview and straining too much for pretension where none exists.
......and we''ll all see the King, I do believe. Great song..lyrics and music.
I think the girl in NYC is a friend who suffers from bipolar personality disorder
Yes, i can't imagine you can call me Al.
There’s a girl in NYC who calls herself the human trampoline = The statue of liberty. Graceland is South Africa…the roots of rhythm and Rock and Roll, and also the US…where Rock evolved…
Professor Reed is pleasant to listen to and is probably a great teacher, but he doesn't even scratch the surface of this song or the album that bears its name. There's a lot more to say, good and bad, and he ends up talking more about the song's geographical indiscrepancies
Thank you immensely for the thoughtful close reading. I think the song merits such an approach.
For me as a European Graceland as a specific topographic place is not my first association. (Even though he calls it Graceland Tennessee).
I would think you missed the allusion to Graceland as a land where you receive grace (where you are pardoned) for all your sins or missteps. For me it seems a journey into a new, hopeful country and era.
Edit: It's the lack of taking into context the author's worldview and straining too much for pretentious meaning where none exists.
Ugh.., I despise poetry.., but I sure love Paul Simon songs..
I dont know how this got into my queue but it is supremely idiotic. All 18 minutes of it. He s a professor? God save poor souls in his class.He sounds like he heard the song two days ago (if) in passing..
I don't think you're even close man...