Funny How My Memory Slips While Looking Over Manuscripts of Unpublished Rhyme
"Hello darkness my old friend"
Well i have had quite a productive few days (unfortunately still havent done an album review for all my fans who are waiting, keep waiting sorry): miraculously finished off all three essays due this week. The one for short stories was fairly easy, the one for italiano was a bit more time consuming and the last one for Texts was murder, but anyway who wants to read about that?
So i have been listening to a lot of paul simon and simon and garfunkle lately... a lot of their more underrated, unknown songs are really good too, not just the classics.
Hazy Shade Of Winter Time, Hear the Salvation Army band. Hang on to your hopes, my friend. Seasons change with the scenery; At any convenient time?
Time,
Time, see what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities.
I was so hard to please.
Look around,
Leaves are brown,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Down by the riverside's
Bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned.
Carry your cup in your hand.
And look around,
Leaves are brown,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
That's an easy thing to say,
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again.
Look around,
The grass is high,
The fields are ripe,
It's the springtime of my life
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
Funny how my memory skips
Looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme.
Drinking my vodka and lime,
I look around
Leaves are brown,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hazy shade of winter is a song about the passage of time, and Simon's own mortality. he use of seasons as a metaphor would support this: 'hazy shade of winter', 'springtime of my life'. The imagery is rich ('looking over manuscripts/of unpublished rhyme' 'weaving time in a tapestry') and the song makes us reflect on our own lives. Often I feel, as i look around that the leaves (what i have achieved) are brown (worthless and discardable), but the hazy shade of winter itself is a product of the world. Our world is in a hazy shade of winter, and there is nothing that we can do to change that by ourselves.
"In restless dreams I walked alone"
Graceland
The Mississippi Delta was shining She comes back to tell me she's gone I'm going to Graceland And my traveling companions There is a girl in New York City In Graceland, in Graceland
Like a National guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war
I'm going to Graceland
Graceland
In Memphis Tennessee
I'm going to Graceland
Poorboys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland
My traveling companion is nine years old
He is the child of my first marriage
But I've reason to believe
We both will be received
In Graceland
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead
And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow
Memphis Tennessee
I'm going to Graceland
Poorboys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland
Are ghosts and empty sockets
I'm looking at ghosts and empties
But I've reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Oh, so this is what she means
She means we're bouncing into Graceland
And I see losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow
I'm going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me wants to see
Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now
Maybe I've a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland
Yes losing love is like a window in your heart. Graceland is Paul Simon's single greatest output. Music aside, the lyrics speak volumes about Simon's personal life, his political beliefs and the truth about what America had become. How a song can be both deeply personal (about the end of his first marriage) and a political remark about the trivialisation of American society and still be a great song baffles me. The graceland which he speaks of starts out as the home of the dead Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, but later in the song it refers to a slum Simon visited in South Africa, where he was touched by the spirit of the poverty stricken residents: this is the antithesis inherent in graceland, the symbol of american consumerism and the image of starving african children, which i am afraid we have become desensitized to.
"And in the neon light I saw/Ten thousand people maybe more"
The boxer
I am just a poor boy Asking only workman's wages Then I'm laying out my winter clothes The boxer is one of those songs which has extreme intrinsic value for me, for reasons i shan't discuss right now. It also remains to this day the one song that has made me cry, and again we shan't go into that. The boxer tells the story, ironically, of a boxer. It's hard to pin down just one interpretation of the song, and so i like to take it just as a narrative poem, and enjoy the music, lyrics and of course Simon and Art's amazing vocals. Well thats all from me i guess Actually wait one more thing, thanks heaps to Sandy for 'sponsoring' my livejournal account 'tales of your greatness shall be spread throughout the land' :):):) also i am now in love with meadow soprano...
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know
Lie la lie ...
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there
Lie la lie ...
And wishing I was gone
Going home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Bleeding me, going home
In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains
Lie la lie ...
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Source: https://sgtpepper9.livejournal.com/3060.html