Paul Simon's "American Tune"

Paul Simon has long been a favorite songwriter of mine. On this Independence Day, I'd like to consider one of his greatest but lesser-known songs: "American Tune".

Featured on his second solo album, 1973's There Goes Rhymin' Simon, "American Tune" stands in stark contrast to the generally upbeat mood created by the other songs on the album. It is a dark and exhausted look at what it meant to be an American at a time when the Dream appeared to be in tatters: long gas lines due to our first national fuel crisis, a disquieting end to the Vietnam conflict, and Watergate undoubtedly weighed heavily on Simon's mind during the composition of it.

Of course, this song has staying power because the Dream always does seem tattered, especially these days, right? Let's go through the lyric and contemplate what Simon is saying. He opens by stating baldly that America has disappointed him many times, not just at the moment he's singing.

Many's the time I've been mistaken

And many times confused

Yes, and I've often felt forsaken

And certainly misused

But then a stoic note is injected in the song, one that forms the heart of its message.

But I'm all right, I'm all right

I'm just weary to the bone

Still you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant

So far away from home

So far away from home

Mention of home resonates, because you immediately think of America's place in the world, and how far we had fallen at that time as democracy's saviors in the Second World War. (I'll leave it to you to decide how steep the descent has been since then!)

But home also works as simply a metaphor: it's a place where you feel comfortable and secure. With the economy in the tank in 1973 and with little faith in our leaders, as a country we were truly adrift.

Simon continues:

I don't know a soul who's not been battered

I don't have a friend who feels at ease

I don't know a dream that's not been shattered

And driven to its knees

Now back to the resignation:

But it's all right, it's all right

'Cause we've lived so well so long

Still, when I think of the road we've travelled on

I wonder what went wrong

I can't help it, I wonder what went wrong

Simon then transitions to the bridge. In his dreams he takes flight from his troubled mind.

And I dreamed I was dying

I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly

And looking back down at me

Smiled reassuredly

And I dreamed I was flying

And high up above my eyes could clearly see

The Statue of Liberty sailing away to sea

And I dreamed I was flying

This notion of sailing away was first encroached a couple of years earlier in Randy Newman's masterful album Sail Away. To quote from that song:

Here in America we get food to eat

Don't have to run in the jungle and scuff up our feet

We just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day

It's great to be an American

Later the song's narrator invites his listener to climb aboard, to sail away and "cross the might ocean to the Charleston Bay." But now it's the Statue of Liberty that's sailing - away from America!

I know that Paul Simon was a great admirer of Randy Newman. To me, it's clear that his ambition is to write a song as great in his eyes as Newman's. From what I know of Simon, he's a competitive guy and, according to Marc Eliot in his biography Paul Simon: A Life, the fact that "American Tune" did not become a hit was a "major" source of disappointment to him.

Let's get back to the song itself. After the bridge, we enter the song's conclusion.

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower

We come on the ship that sailed the moon

We come in the age's most uncertain hour

and sing an American tune

Feeling hopeful? Time to wake up from this dream you've been having!

But it's all right, it's all right

You can't be forever blessed

Now for the killer couplet at the end:

Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day

And I'm trying to get some rest

That's all, I'm trying to get some rest

This is such a moving song, and so durable: I wish that it could enter the canon, and be there for all Americans to consider on holidays like the Fourth of July.

In any case, it's a song that is firmly lodged in the memories of anyone alive at the time. Another brilliant turn from one of our country's finest lyricists!

Click here for Paul Simon singing "American Tune" solo and here for a duet on the song with Willie Nelson.

Click here for Randy Newman's "Sail Away".

Finally, here is a link to a discussion of this great song.

Art Garfunkel

Every morning I check out the celebrity birthdays in the newspaper. Yesterday was Art Garfunkel's 70th. My thoughts have lingered upon him.

Although Art has released some fine albums and acted in at least one great film, he is mostly a sad and slightly comic figure in mind--and it's not just the hair that prompts this comment. (The hair was indirectly memorialized in So I Married an Axe Murderer. Check out Mike Myers telling his kid to put his noggin down.)

I'm also thinking about Art Garfunkel claiming that he's read over a thousand books. (They're dutifully cataloged on his website.) Or perhaps it's the image of him walking across America, or across Europe (as he's currently doing, apparently). Here's a famous guy who has always struggled to assert himself as an artist.




In regards to his acting, Garfunkel's best was his first: Mike Nichols's Carnal Knowledge. Sharing the screen with Jack Nicholson is definitely a career highlight, even though his departure from the studio to work on this film led directly to the breakup with Paul Simon. (Think again about the song "The Only Living Boy in New York" from Bridge Over Troubled Water and the lines "Tom, get your plane right on time/I know you're eager to fly now". (Tom was Garfunkel's name when he and Paul first started out as the duo Tom and Jerry.)

Garfunkel's acting career fizzled after the 1970s. His performances weren't embarrassing and his films were well-received: witness Catch 22 and Bad Timing.) But it seems he simply dropped out in the 1980s. That's when the walking and the writing poetry began in earnest.

His departure from the pop scene was spurred not only by the dismal sales of his solo releases in this period, but also by the suicide of his long-time girlfriend. His thoughts during this period are captured in Still Water, a collection of poetry that you can enjoy on his website. (It's pretty good, although there are some embarrassing moments.)

There's no middle ground in regards to liking his music. You either think it's unbelievably wimpy and begin immediately to ridicule it, or you fall into it because you're a sucker for soft sentimental sounds. I fall into the latter camp.

My favorite albums are 1975's Breakaway and his collection of Jimmy Webb songs that followed it, Watermark.

The former features outstanding versions of "I Believe When I Fall in Love" (by Stevie Wonder) and "Rag Doll" (by Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys--who would later pen Barry Manilow's immortal classic, "I Write the Songs").

Breakaway was initially a commercial flop. Columbia pulled it from the market and fortified it with a single ("What a Wonderful World" with Paul Simon and James Taylor providing backup vocals) before rereleasing it and enjoying a better outcome. I simply love Jimmy Webb, and there are great versions of his songs on this album, especially "Crying in My Sleep", "All My Love's Laughter" and "Marionette".

Art Garfunkel has always worked with people that I admire. Kenny Rankin provided vocal backup for him on 1988's Lefty. Richard Perry, whose name as a producer appears on many albums in my collection (since he worked with Carly Simon and Ray Charles), has produced Art Garfunkel. Why, even when Art chose to try his hand at songwriting in 2003, he selected a contemporary singer I adore, Maia Sharp, to work with him.

I've been a faithful follower of Art Garfunkel (although I declined purchasing his latest collection of standards, thinking such a sleep aid is unnecessary for me these days). I hope that he recovers from his vocal problems that may be partly due to smoking. I urge you to spend time checking out his work, as I've done for the past couple of hours it took me to put this entry together!

The Second Time Around

As you can tell by reading my blog entries, I am an enormous fan of the singer-songwriter. I've been writing about my favorites since I began this blog a couple of years ago. It has struck me that I've yet to write about the two giants in my esteem: Randy Newman and Paul Simon.

Perhaps I figure that there's not much to say. They practically created this musical category. Their music will endure because any future practitioners of the craft must study their work.

I was pleased to read in The New York Times today that Paul Simon's musical The Capeman is being performed again in Central Park this weekend. How clearly I recall his struggle to get the financing and get this work on Broadway in 1998! (He began the project in the early '90s. Basically, he spent almost a decade on it!) I made a trip to New York to see the show and loved it. I was crestfallen to then learn that it had been cancelled after only 68 performances.

Boy, Paul Simon must have felt so stung after that! I'm sure that he sunk some of his own personal fortune in it, along with his creative capital. In the years since, I've seen practically no discussion of this work in the press about the singer. Who knows? Maybe the topic is out-of-bounds!

Anyway, it is a typically terrific Paul Simon record, filled with sinuous rhythms and top-notch lyrics. The article in the Times suggests that perhaps this weekend-long revival is an opening step towards a re-introduction of the work on Broadway. (The argument is that audiences are now more open to it, given the success of shows like Fela! and In the Heights.)

I'm hoping that happens. As I also hope to one day again see Faust, Randy Newman's stab at a musical. I saw it at the Goodman Theater in Chicago and adored it. I was disappointed that it never made it to New York.

Both works definitely deserve a second look. If you've never heard them before, get listening!

Click here to watch Paul Simon sing "Bernadette" from The Capeman. Dueting with him is one of the stars from the 1998 show, Marc Antony.

Clikc here to watch Bonnie Raitt perform "Feels Like Home" accompanied by Randy Newman. It's from Faust.

Lyric Lover

As a younger listener, when asked whom I liked, I always named Paul Simon, Don McLean, Loudon Wainwright III, and Randy Newman. These were the artists whose new releases I eagerly snapped up. I was invested in their music, and still am today.

I will never forget once having a new Paul Simon record and sitting my father down for a listen. Here, I thought, was surely music that would cause him to admit that my heroes were every bit the artist that his were. (You know, Frank Sinatra and his lot.)

Dad hung in there as I bubbled forth. Then, after sitting respectfully through one last song, he fielded my big question, "So, Dad, what do you think?"

"I think he sounds like Paul Simon," was the response.

I walked away shaking my head at his riddle but over time I finally figured it out. I needed to understand where Dad was coming from. Ella Fitzgerald and her songbooks was my first gateway artist to his music. My journey began in my junior year of college, and it has never stopped.

If asked now to name whom I like, I sometimes sidestep the question by saying, "I like anyone who can communicate a lyric. I admire singers who get you involved immediately in the message when they deliver a lyric. There are very few who have had this impact on me: when they sing, I remember the words afterwards. They move me on the spot."

The singer-songwriters that I mentioned at the outset did that for me. I will always treasure sitting down with their new releases, and listening over and over again, letting the lyrics sink in, feeling the rhythm and considering the production. (Yep, I studied those liner notes!) I still approach their music the same way today.

My father was saying, though, that they're limited because no one else can perform their songs. They have a distinct sensibility that begins and ends with them. Was my Dad right? It's a provocative point of view that I continually ponder as my boomer artists enter senior citizenhood. Will the songs begin and end with them?

Anyway, my stable of favorite musical artists expanded greatly once I started listening to Ella Fitzgerald. I immediately jumped to Frank Sinatra and completely understood what my Dad saw in him. Then I just continued onward, dedicating myself to finding these great singers.

Early on I fell in love with Bobby Short. Like Ella, he did a series of songbooks (some 20 years after the First Lady of Song). I loved how he did not only familiar songs associated with the great songwriters, but lesser known numbers. I drilled these songs into my head. It was so pleasurable singing along to them because the lyrics were so clever. I mean, someone like Ira Gershwin--you'll always find him reaching for the humor and clever rhyme.

This morning I slapped on some vinyl: an album called Bobby Short is K-R-A-Z-Y for Gershwin. I just had to hear "Come the Revolution" and sing along. (Was it due to the political talk show I had just been listening to?) Here's a patch of lyric from it.

Comes the revolution
Everything is jake
Comes the revolution
We'll be eating cake
When the streets and rivers run with red
I'll be underneath the bed
Butcher and the baker, undertaker too
Thank their Lord and maker
under skies of blue
Come the revolution
All is jake
And soon we'll be eating cake?

Anyhow, Bobby Short is one singer who gets the lyric across immediately. I can't tell exactly why. I know that a part of it is his arrangement. He always has a clever way to breathe life into a song.

If you haven't given Bobby a serious listen, try him out. Maybe soon you'll have your own personal listening revolution, as I had mine!