Graceland and the self titled debut by Paul Simon

When a friend asked me if I knew the album Graceland by Paul Simon, I didn’t have a straight answer. I went through the musical Rolodex in my head….

Sure I knew who Paul Simon was. He did that eerie song “The Sound of Silence” with Art Garfunkel. And Paul Simon….yeah, he’s done some great pop songs as a solo artist too, some of which I even had mp3s of on my computer. I had a surface knowledge of the man, but had never gone any deeper with his music.

Paul Simon….Graceland….sure, I know the song….but…I reluctantly admitted the answer “No. No I don’t know the album Graceland.”

A copy was burned for me to take on my solo road trip – San Francisco to Chicago and back. I popped it in the first time while driving through the Nevada desert.

Alone in the middle of pure unadulterated beauty the title track comes on:

The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar,
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war

The scenery is different, but the feeling of beauty, freedom, and awe is the same.

I listened to it again before I left Nevada, then again somewhere in Utah. The album became the anthem for my trip. I passed a guy on a motorcycle wearing a Graceland Harley Davidson shirt. Then the stretch of I-55 I was on in IL became the “Paul Simon Freeway” (after the Senator from IL). I considered making a pilgrimage to Graceland right then and there. Not for Elvis, but for Paul Simon.

Paul Simon can write a great hook, but more than that the man is an amazing storyteller. His songs tend to not be grand fabricated stories about sex, drugs, and/or rock and roll. Instead, he is a master of the casual story. The everyday mundane is beautiful and perfect when told through his soft and high-pitched voice.

And the man isn’t afraid to take risks. He experimented with funky rhythms not typical at the time to the white pop/folk artist. Graceland, for example, was recorded in South Africa and the influence of the region is infused throughout the record.

When I got to Chicago I scoured my dad’s old record collection for some gems to bring back to SF with me. I came across Paul Simon, the self-titled solo debut.

Holy hell. What an amazing album. While softer and more “folksy” than Graceland, the storytelling is just as brilliant. There is also a hint of world music influence. The first song, “Mother and Child Reunion,” is a reggae tune. Where Graceland’s South African influence weaves throughout the album, the reggae influence stops with the first song on Paul Simon. Where it is slightly less cohesive in its sound than Graceland it’s not less brilliant. Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard is a funky and upbeat song that was a top 40 hit. The rest of the album is more low key than the aforementioned tracks, but has a subtle beauty that is impossible to ignore.

Understated beauty: Papa Hobo from the album Paul Simon

While these two albums have made it into my large list of desert island music, I’ve been reluctant to explore Paul Simon’s music further. I’ve read that his discography is pretty hit or miss and sometimes uninspired, but I would be thrilled to find this description inaccurate.

Tags: Graceland, Paul Simon