33. The Rising - (Bruce Springsteen)

"Come on up for the rising / Come on up lay your hands in mine..."

This is the most deceptively brilliant song I've ever heard.  Musically, it's not Springsteen's strongest.  Not by a longshot.  But lyrically, it may very well be my personal favorite. And from a guy like me who was born and raised in the Garden State? Picking your favorite Springsteen song is like telling one of your kids that you love them more than the rest. So that's saying something.

Let's do today's entry in the form of a guessing game:

Can you figure out what's so special about the narrator of this song before the end of this post?

To help you out, the pertinent clues have been highlighted. And to keep things interesting -- I'll throw in a few lines of smarmy analysis, just to throw you off the scent.

(If you haven't already -- click the video above and give this song a listen BEFORE reading today's entry. Things will make a lot more sense if you have a working knowledge of the piece before reading).

Now then -- let's get to it!

Can't see nothin' in front of me 

Can't see nothin' coming up behind 

I make my way through this darkness 

I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me

From the sound of it, our story starts off like a typical "lone protagonist sets out on a voyage of self discovery" tale, yes?  Judging from the imagery in the first stanza, the world is a dark and spooky place, and our narrator feels like he's inexplicably tied to some force greater than himself.


Darth Vader: "Yes (deep breaths) The Force is strong with this one..."

Fair enough. Back to the lyrics...

Lost track of how far I've gone 

How far I've gone, how high I've climbed 

On my back's a sixty pound stone 

On my shoulder a half mile line

By the looks of things, our wandering hero has been at this "voyage of self discovery" thing for a while. You can hear it from the grit in his voice: he's a workin' man with that all-American toughness to him -- so we'll forgive the rather generic examples of figurative language. "Heavy" baggage, "long" ropes, "high" climbing -- we've heard these things before. It's not earth-shatteringly original, but it's a Springsteen protagonist: blue collar through and through. So we'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Moving on to the refrain...

Come on up for the rising 

Come on up, lay your hands in mine 

Come on up for the rising 

Come on up for the rising tonight

Well, so much for that solo voyage for self awareness, eh?  Hmm.  Springsteen's use of the second person pronoun ("your" hands) isn't just an indication that this guy isn't going on this journey alone, it's a flat-out invitation for the listener to come along for the ride.

The plot thickens...

Left the house this morning 

Bells ringing filled the air 

Wearin' the cross of my calling 

On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

I know, I know -- so we're looking at just another Christian pilgrim chasing the American dream or some other nondescript message along those lines, right?  Not even close. The deeper meaning is simply too good to spoil just yet. But once you figure out what this song is actually about, the very act of re-reading these lines will give you chills. Seriously, it's that well-written.

Now for the freaky lyrics of the bridge:

Spirits above and behind me 

Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright 

May their precious blood forever bind me 

Lord as I stand before your fiery light

Oooooo -- spooky! Spirits and ghosts flooding the skies! At this point, it's obvious that Springsteen's going a little heavy on "The Waste Land" imagery...


Ghost of T.S. Eliot: Seriously, Bruce -- enough already.

But the deeper meaning is just inches below the spectral surface. Didja' get it yet?  Only one verse to go ...

I see you Mary in the garden 

In the garden of a thousand sighs 

There's holy pictures of our children 

Dancin' in a sky filled with light 

May I feel your arms around me 

May I feel your blood mix with mine 

A dream of life comes to me 

Like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line

If you're keeping score at home, the narrator's story is a sad one since "Mary" is only a "dream of life" now that she's lost somewhere in this "garden of a thousand sighs." Translation: the girl is pushing up daisies.

Epiphany:

"Oh, so he's trying to put together the remains of his life after the death of a loved one!!!"

Gah -- you're ALMOST right. But the final imagery of the song actually reveals a story much deeper, broader, and more tragic than that. It's a classic twist ending -- M. Night Shyamalan style. Wait for it!!!

Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life) 

Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life) 

Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life) 

Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)  

Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life) 

Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight 

Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life) 

Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life (a dream of life)

And this is where your brain explodes from the brilliance of this song. Ladies and gentlemen...

"The Rising."

Here's the recap, Sixth Sense style:

Song Lyric	Corresponding Image
Can't see nothin' in front of me  Can't see nothin' coming up behind  I make my way through this darkness  I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me	A fireman ascending a rescue ladder into a smoke-filled building, tethered to a fire hose or a safety cable.
On my back's a sixty pound stone  On my shoulder a half mile line	The weight of the fireman's gear and oxygen tanks weighs roughly 60 pounds. Behind him, a safety cable (or fire hose) is anchored to the rescue vehicle
Come on up for the rising  Come on up, lay your hands in mine	The firefighter raises a wounded survivor from the wreckage of the ruined building. (Alternately: he implores fellow citizens to join in the relief efforts.)
Left the house this morning  Bells ringing filled the air  Wearin' the cross of my calling  On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here	The fire fighter left the fire station (affectionately, the "fire house") when the warning bells rang. The "cross of my calling" is not the mark of a Christian -- it's the crest of the fire company, on whose "wheels of fire" (a fire engine) he speeds to the site of the 9/11 attacks.
Spirits above and behind me  Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright  May their precious blood forever bind me  Lord as I stand before your fiery light	Thousands are dead or wounded. Countless others are covered in heavy, black ash amid the rubble. The fiery light is both metaphorical of the afterlife and painfully literal, as the flames rise from the ruined buildings.
I see you Mary in the garden  In the garden of a thousand sighs  There's holy pictures of our children  Dancin' in a sky filled with light  May I feel your arms around me  May I feel your blood mix with mine  A dream of life comes to me  Like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line	In the days following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, New York City residents held candlelight vigils. Others posted a sea of homemade signs, photographs and posters and all across the city.  These "holy pictures of our children" with images from happier times prayed for the souls of loved ones and requested information regarding the whereabouts of those lost in the attacks -- "a garden of a thousand sighs."

*Are you viewing this article anywhere besides Blogger? Cool! Click here to check out the music video that's embedded in the original post.

31. And So It Goes - (Billy Joel)

"But still I feel I've said too much / my silence is my self defense."

Damned if ya' do, damned if ya' dont.

Ever find yourself heading home late at night with a police officer driving right down the road behind you? Inexplicably (and yet without fail) -- that old "Oh my God, what have I done wrong?" instinct kicks in, and you find yourself overcorrecting at every turn.
Such is the story of the Piano Man in this, arguably one of the few truly great songs on his (regrettably) uneven "Greatest Hits: Volume 3" collection.

By way of an extended metaphor of every heart being a series of rooms in which people build themselves an inner sanctum while past lovers come and go, Billy Joel paints for us a picture of a guy -- let's call him "Billy" -- who's finding it hard to figure out just how far to let somebody in when it comes to romance. Don't believe me? Just ask him:

"In every heart, there is a room 

A sanctuary safe and strong 

To heal the wounds of lovers past 

Until a new one comes along."

Damn -- this guy's puttin' up some serious walls.

But really, who can blame him? When you've had as many ex-wives and alimony payments as The Entertainer, it's only natural to keep those Uptown Girls at something of an arm's distance whilst you sing us a song and drown your sorrows in a bottle of red (...a bottle of white).

(Yup, that's four -- count 'em, FOUR -- Billy Joel jokes in one sentence. Boo ya).


Let's be honest here: if you got dumped by *THIS*? You'd drink, too.
Boozy meanderings not withstanding -- the gist of the piece rings loud and clear: Billy doesn't quite know what to do or say when those familiar feelings of love start bubbling right back on up to the surface, and so he chooses to keep his mouth shut altogether. For (in his own words) "my silence is my self defense."

Not the worst play in the world -- well, until we get to this fun little wrinkle right here:

But if my silence made you leave... 

Then *that* would be my worst mistake."

Oh snap.
So *talking* didn't get the job done, but now poor old Billy boy is right back on the outside looking in simply because he WASN'T talking? Hey, that sounds an awful lot like...

"He who hesitates is lost."- Joseph Addison, "Cato" (1712)
Moral of the story?

While there's certainly merit to letting your heart "heal the wounds of lovers past / until a new one comes along," it looks as if Billy Joel's doleful ballad is a pretty solid example that there's also something to be said for striking while the iron's hot.

Or as that unrepentant ass clown* Oliver Cromwell once said:

"Not ONLY strike while the iron is hot... but make it hot by striking!"

*(re: "unrepentant ass clown" -- Look, the guy killed my ancestors by the thousands. Clearly, name-calling is well within the realm of appropriate recourse).

30. Why I Am - (The Dave Matthews Band)

"Heaven or hell, I'm goin' there with the GrooGrux King."
The elegy is one of the oldest and most widely accessible forms in all of poetry. What's an elegy, you ask? Simply put, an elegy is a poem of loss and remembrance -- and one that typically begins with a mood of lamentation before shifting toward one of consolation.

(In other words, it's an "I miss you" poem -- usually addressed to a deceased loved one -- which starts off sad and ends up hopeful).

The Dave Matthews Band's "Why I Am" is a fantastic contemporary example of precisely such a poem. In it, the band is waxing philosophical on old times and dedicating their verse to their recently departed saxophone player, the late, great LeRoi Moore:



Like any good elegy, "Why I Am" starts off by looking backwards and recalling a bunch of memories both happy and sad from yesteryear. To that end, it's no surprise that we encounter a whole bunch of verbs that are presented in the past tense: Dave sings about where he "grew" from and where he "was," then he recalls some of the crazy adventures (and mind-altering escapades) that brought him to this particular place and time.

As he retraces his nostalgic sojourns on the chemical frontier, Matthews talks about a "ghost" and makes repeated references to a mysterious "GrooGrux King."

"King of men? It makes no sense."

You're not kidding, Dave. But speaking of "makes no sense" -- just *what*, exactly, is a "GrooGrux King" anyhow?

According to DMB drummer Carter Beauford, "GrooGrux" was the band's made-up word to describe the overall vibe and energy of their sound. And since their late, great, saxophonist LeRoi Moore was at the epicenter of the "GrooGrux" vibe -- it seemed only natural to honor him with the title of "GrooGrux King."


"You're the Banana King, Charlieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."

Anyhow --

As the elegy unfolds, Dave recalls the good times he's shared with the newly-dubbed GrooGrux King, and proceeds to inform his listeners that even though the King's passing "makes no sense," he remains convinced that he'll see the big guy once more when all is said and done. Here, take a look:

"And when my story ends it's gonna' end with him
Heaven or hell, I'm goin' there with the GrooGrux King"

No longer is Dave simply mourning the loss of his storied bandmate. Instead? We gradually observe his shift towards a mindset of quietude and comfort. This is where the elegy really shines, as he stays true to the elegiac form by moving from lamentation to consolation, ultimately ending his refrain with the repeated chorus of:

"Don't cry baby, don't cry."

Say -- that's kinda' nice.

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29. Breathe (2 a.m.) - (Anna Nalick)

"Life's like an hourglass / glued to the table."

Fun fact: Anna Nalick, like, totally has a thing for similes.

(Similes -- for a quick refresher -- are comparisons using the words "like" or "as." To dust off an old joke -- one might even say they're "like" metaphors.)


See what he did there?

Similes (and metaphors) are a pretty handy tool* for songwriting, too. Since words are at a premium in your average pop ballad, you've really got to put some extra effort in so as to make sure that every last syllable on the page is actually being used to paint the kind of picture** you want your audience to receive. This is where stuff like similes (and metaphors, allusions, etc.) are worth their weight in gold*** -- because they allow an artist to use an existing image (or two, or ten) in order to pack an otherwise tiny track with some really big, broad imagery to get the listener's wheels a-spinnin'.****

(Meta-joke/ frame of reference: check out all of the handy examples of figurative language we used in the last paragraph alone!)

* Handy tool = likens an abstract technique to a physical instrument
** Paint the kind of picture = recalls an artist crafting a visual image
*** Worth their weight in gold = monetary image to suggest richness, value
**** Wheels a-spinnin' = implies momentum, forward-moving thought

As you can see, figurative language is a great way to draw on existing conventions, connotations, and imagery in order to get a really big message across in what might otherwise appear to be a relatively small window of opportunity. Heck, you might even call metaphors "bouillon cubes of brilliance."


Just add water poetry and let the truth soup flow!

Thanks to a steady diet of figurative language, one sees quickly why Anna Nalick's chart-topping "Breathe (2 a.m.)" is absolutely brimming with truth bouillons. Nalick tackles some pretty heavy life issues (unplanned pregnancy, abortion, alcoholism -- you name it). But thanks to the ever-present similes and metaphors? Our balladeer never actually has to come right out and address any one of these particularly loaded issues by name.

Instead, she employs some slick figurative language to draw on existing imagery and offer up repeated images of doubt, confusion, and an almost soul-crushing determinism. And in the end? Her song is all the more thought-provoking accordingly.

Here's a quick recap of the figurative language we encounter:

"And you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable."

"There's a light at the end of this tunnel..."

"I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd."

"These words are my diary screaming out loud."

(and my personal favorite)

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table."

Ahh, so THAT's why Dorothy didn't just flip that sucker upside down when time started to run out.

(... the more you know... )

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28. Hear You Me - (Jimmy Eat World)

"May angels lead you in."

"Hear You Me" isn't exactly a phrase we tend to use all that often in the modern vernacular. After all, it's kinda' Yoda-esque to rearrange words in that particular fashion. "Hear YOU Me?" Wouldn't that be ten times easier to understand if it just said "listen to me" (where the sentence remains imperative and the word "you" is implied thanks to the more active verb)?

Like I said -- kind of unwieldy for everyday conversation.


"What I say what? Now hear you me, Mr. Smarty Pants..."

Funny thing is --

As languages evolve over generations and centuries, certain words, phrases, spellings, and semantic conventions typically end up being standardized or simplified in order to help the spoken and written word keep up with the times. "Colours" become "colors." "Inflammable" becomes "flammable." And longer, more complicated idioms typically end up finding themselves chopped, cropped, and condensed in order to make themselves easier to remember to the common ear.

For example:


"All that gliSters is not gold."
- Prince of Morocco The Merchant of Venice, II.vii

"Glister?" Who in the blue hell even knows what a "glister" is these days, anyhow? And thus we end up with a more modern approximation, like so:


Fun fact/ gratuitous pot-shot: "Glitter" was hardly gold OR platinum for that matter. Seriously, this album is terrible.

But anyway --

Words and phrases can change over time. And that means that even while we're speaking quote-unquote "English" today, the language that we take for granted as "standard" is actually a heckuva' lot different from the English that was spoken by our grandparents, our great grandparents, and the countless generations that preceded them all the way back to antiquity.

"Hear You Me" is precisely the type of clunky old phrase that time tends to erase. It basically means "listen up." But to the modern ear? It's almost as if the phrase is missing a word or two. That said -- waaaay back in the heyday of William Shakespeare? This kind of thing would actually sound quite commonplace. After all, when 'ish got real (i.e. -- like, for example, when a bunch of people ended up dead all at once) they were often known to start talking all super-formal and stuff. Kinda' like this:

"Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"
- Horatio Hamlet, V.ii.

Wait a minute -- singing to dead folks in sentences that could probably benefit from an extra noun of direct address?

Oh yeah. I've heard that one before:

"May angels lead you in
Hear you me, my friends
On a sleepless road the sleepless go
May angels lead you in."

The syntax is tricky. But the message is clear: "Hey man, I really miss you. And I hope you get to heaven."

Betcha' Shakespeare WISHES he'd thought of that!

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27. Into the Mystic - (Van Morrison)

"Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic"*

(spoiler: Yes, I realize that the above video is, in fact, Jakob Dylan and very much *not* the aforementioned Van Morrison. But Van is kind of ornery when it comes to letting his material be shared across los intrawebz -- hence the gratuitous Orlando Bloom video and accompanying Wallflowers soundtrack).

Now then...

Van Morrison has a total man crush on William Butler Yeats. He'll deny it, mind you -- but his music tells another tale entirely. Here's Morrison's own half-hearted attempt to distance himself from Ben Bulben's poet laureate, excerpeted from an old Rolling Stone article:


"[Critics would listen to my songs and say] this is sort of Yeatsian,’ and I’d go ‘Really? I didn’t know. I’d never read him.’ So I’d go out and get Yeats and see, but I hadn’t read him before the article.

(Ring ring... Um, Mr. Morrison? I have your bluff on line one.)

Gee, that's strange. For a guy who knows nothing about Yeats' writings, Van The Man "conveniently" found himself cribbing a boatload of the guy's material. Heck, just look at these Van Morrison record titles:

• Astral Weeks (1968)
• Moondance (1970)
• Beautiful Vision (1982)
• Cuchulain (2001)
• Magic Time (2005)

And then check out these Yeats writings from a full half-century prior:

• A Vision -- which deals extensively with which Yeats calls "astral" -- or star-like -- matters (1925)
• "The Phases of the Moon" (1919)
• Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea (1925)
• "Magic: An Essay" (1903)

But why stop there? Here's a verse from Morrison's 1983 song, "Rave On, John Donne" in which the songwriter comes mighty close to flat-out asking "that-guy-I-swear-I-never-read!" out on a man-date. Take a look:

"Rave on, let a man come out of Ireland
Rave on, on Mr. Yeats,
Rave on down through the Holy Rosey Cross
Rave on down through theosophy, and the Golden Dawn
Rave on through the writing of 'A Vision'
Rave on, Rave on, Rave on, Rave on, Rave on, Rave on"

Oooh SNAP!


Yeah, you know what you did.

Ok, it's settled: Van Morrison pretty much made a career as a wholesale ripoff of his countryman and poetic forbear. But Morrison's BIGGEST Yeats ripoff of all time? None other than the songwriter’s classic 1970 hit “Into The Mystic.

As Morrison begins his 1970 track, he sets the stage for a song that takes place in a liminal threshold between two realms, singing:

“We were born before the wind / Also younger than the sun”

Just a simple throwaway line, right? Not on your life. We already know that Van Morrison is certainly not above cribbing from Yeats' source material. So let's see how these lines fit into the Yeats canon:


No, no, no -- not *that* Cannon.

"Into the Mystic" tells the story of two lovers who were born “before the wind" but "also younger than the sun." Conveniently (read: plagiarist-ically?) these two symbols also just so happen to rather neatly coincide with two actual events in the life of one W.B. Yeats.

First up: "born before the wind" -- in 1899, Yeats put himself on the map of literary giants with the publication of a collection of poems titled The Wind Among The Reeds. What were the poems about, you ask? Why what else besides all sorts of crazy and other-worldly themes like mist, mysticism, and matters of the occult.

(Hey wait a second here...)

Next up: "younger than the sun" -- true story: Yeats was obsessed with an impressive array of fringe religious sects in his lifetime (heh heh, "sects") -- the most noteworthy of which just so happened to be a quasi-cult known as The Order of The Golden Dawn. The group's philosophy? A full-tilt focus on worshipping (wait for it) the SUN, and a pretty clear-cut obsession with the unending circle of birth and death.

("Born before the..." ooooh, gotcha.)

How fitting that a song about going "Into the Mystic" is set smack-dab "before the wind" and "the sun," eh?

In the lines that follow, Morrison takes his Yeats influence a step further by lifting entire lines directly from Yeats' poetry (the NERVE of that guy!). Case in point: check out Yeats’ “Crazy Jane and the Bishop,” where the poet's heroine talks about how she dreams of a day when she can “wander out into the night.” And then Yeats' very next poem in the sequence (“Crazy Jane Reproved”), where as a blustery Bishop shoots Jane down, saying “I care not what the sailors say."

But in "Into the Mystic," Van turns the tables --

"Hark, now hear the sailors’ cry!
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic"

Hey! That almost sounds like Van put Yeats' thing down, flipped it, and reversed it.


Missy Elliot: ".ti esrever dna pilf ,nwod gniht ym tup I"

Actually, the whole "flip it and reverse it" trick is a move stolen from right of Yeats' playbook, too -- since the man spent pages and pages of his life's work all but consumed by the image of the twisting gyres. Since Yeats' was something of a nutjob, however, his philosophy on the matter can get a bit convoluted -- so perhaps we'll wrap this entry up with a handy visual aid before segueing into our closing remarks:


Exhibit A: The gyre. See the twisting? Literally "it puts a thing down, then flips it and reverses it."
In Yeats' estimation, gyres were the ultimate symbol of an interpenetrating universe. He loved the notion of sunsets, twilights, sunrises, moonrises, and foggy periods of uncertainty where one realm gradually gave way to the next. To that end, a huge chunk of his poetry and philosophical writings were dedicated precisely to these "mystic" portals between two realms where fantasy and reality collided and anything was possible.

As Yeats saw things: with all of this liminal fluxuation twisting and unfolding around us, nobody can ever really quite tell you for sure if they are actually sleeping or awake in a given moment. Really, all we're doing is floating "into the mystic."

For Yeats, this was the stuff that dreams (and poems) were made of.

You might even call it "Magic Time."
Figures.

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26. Graceland - (Paul Simon)

"Losing love is like a window in your heart."
Earlier this week, the kind folks over at Spin Magazine compiled a list of what they believe to be the top 125 albums ever to have been released since their little publication debuted waaaaay back in 1985. Noticeably (and dare I say "egregiously") absent from that list? Paul Simon's Graceland (1986).

(Angry face).



SPOILER ALERT: Dynamite comes in small packages.
DOUBLE SPOILER ALERT: Expect a good number of "Paul Simon is short" jokes to follow accordingly.

How in the blue hell Spin hopes to be taken seriously after leaving such a monumental album off of its "best of" countdown is anybody's guess. Perhaps it wasn't tall enough to reach the minimum height requirement of their list?

(short joke #1).

But all kidding aside -- Spin's oversight is glaring, and it seems as if they're virtually alone in ignoring just how awesome Graceland really is. Time magazine loves the thing. Paul Simon called it the best work of his entire career. Fellow musicians emulate it to this day (I'm looking at YOU, Jason Mraz). Heck, even His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has listed this little-album-that-could (short joke #2) among his own personal ten best pop albums of all time.

That's right: Paul Simon got a shout out from THE FREAKIN' POPE. How's that for high praise? The man is infallible!


Little-known fact: The Pope also has the ability to shoot evil Force lightning from out of his fingertips. I kid you not.

So for today's entry, howzabout we tackle "Graceland" and show those self-important hipsters from Spin just what they're missing?

Reason #1 Why "Graceland" is Certifiably Awesome: Figurative language!

"Figurative language" is pretty much the blanket term that we English dorks like to kick around when talking about writing that comes pre-packed with a boatload of imagery. Similes, metaphors, allusions -- you name it. Figurative language is the poet's go-to tool for "heavy lifting," as it allows an author to cram a pretty massive meaning (and some pretty big ideas) into what might otherwise seem like a relatively small amount of space.

We'll tackle these things immediately. But the key point to remember is that "Graceland" is absolutely brimming with the stuff.


Reason #2 Why "Graceland" is Certifiably Awesome: Similes.

Metaphors are comparisons that DON'T use the words "like" or "as." And similes are comparisons that do. Or, if you wanted to get cheeky -- one might even say that "similes are like metaphors" (see what I did there?).

Regardless, "Graceland" is full of both. Here's two killer similes to start us off:

"Mississippi Delta was shinin' like a national guitar."

Exhibit A: The Mississippi Delta -- (note: "shinin' like a national guitar" optional)
From the opening notes of the song, the pint-sized Paul Simon does a tremendous job of linking real, physical places with figurative and musical images. To that end, the "national guitar" that is so rich and storied in its own musical legacy (southern jazz, blues, and rock music) instantly becomes giant-sized as it seems to "shin[e]" amid the highways and rivers that criss-cross this basin of American culture.

Suddenly, real places take on near-mythic qualities. Open roads morph into oversized musical instruments. Graceland becomes Mecca and the Holy City all rolled into one. And our undersized-singer finds himself "falling, flying, [and] tumbling in turmoil" alongside "ghosts and empty sockets" on a quest to discover the deeper spiritual truths that lie within.


Animated Johnny Cash Coyote: "I'm your spirit guide, Homer."
But our pint-sized songwriter is just getting started. And the awesome similes continue throughout the song:

"Losing love is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everyone can feel the wind blow."

A "window in your heart," you say?


Ok, ok -- so Paul Simon is totally Jewish. Still, the "window in your heart" imagery is kinda' unavoidably spiritual, now that we look at it...

Christian or Jew, all this talk of "a window in your heart" seems to suggest a that our traveling troubadour is embarking on a much broader and more weighty voyage than a mere road trip to that oft-discussed Elvis Presley uber-mansion. And in the metaphorical imagery that follows, Paul Simon bears precisely such an explanation out to its logical end.


Reason #3 Why "Graceland" is Certifiably Awesome: The Grand Allusion (see what I did there?).

Since we were talking about "spiritual journeys," things can get heavy in a hurry -- and so metaphors are a must. As such, let's start with the most obvious, which we hear sung time and again throughout the song:

"For reasons I cannot explain
There's a part of me that longs to see Graceland"

Hmm -- if I'm hearing him right, it sounds like Paul Simon keeps finding himself drawn to seek a mythical "Land" of "Grace." But WHY? Who knows. Though I've gotta' say -- I really don't think we're just talking about Memphis, Tennessee anymore, Toto. And this is getting downright heavenly, now that you mention it.

The riddle goes even deeper just a few lines later:

"Maybe I have reason to believe
We all will be received in Graceland"

Now sure, Graceland could just be the former residence of The King of Rock and Roll. But when people start singing about how they have this deep and abiding sense that "poor boys, and pilgrims, and families... will be received" in this safe haven -- one can't help but wonder if our knee-high-balladeer isn't *only* singing about the brick-and-mortar resting place of one Elvis Presley.

In fact, this sounds an awful lot like...


(*Actual Heaven may vary. Jewish/Protestant/Buddhist/Muslim/etc. Heaven available upon request. See store for details)
Long story short?

"Graceland" isn't merely a tune about walkin' in Memphis. Instead, Paul Simon's musical pilgrimage takes him not only through the cradle of American rock & roll, but down into the very depths of his soul as a singer, songwriter. and a person of faith -- however allusive that faith may be.

Moral of the story:

Paul Simon is one tiny dude, but he can write pop music with the best of them. And in leaving Graceland off of their best albums of the past 25 years list? Spin Magazine missed the boat...

BIG time.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist)

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