This album was one of an ever dwindling supply of cross-over favorites between my parents and I, right as I was hitting adolescence and finding my own musical tastes. I think this was Paul Simon returning to musical prominence after his downswing in the 70s. I also think there was a kind of general attempt for the hippie boomers to find a new cool for their middle age and it’s a damn sight better than where they’ve gone since. The follow-up album, “Rhythm of the Saints” tried to do a similar thing with Brazilian music and ain’t bad either. The supporting tours for both were pretty much the musical highlights of my early teens too. I guess it’s hard now to see the cultural impact of the anti-apartheid and “world” music movements, but even my cynical self has to acknowledge what seemed like an earnest attempt and honest self-aware positivity and a push for what we’d call ‘social justice’ now (for better and for worse).
Paul Simon toured the world with this group of musicians in support of this album and I was fortunate enough to see it when it came to a state near mine. The trip was worth it. It remains one of the best concerts I have ever been to.
Paul Simon is one of my wife’s favorite artists. I’ve come to love his music. I could be wrong, but this was written during the heart of Apartheid. There was a heavy boycott to South African music. Simon wanted to make music where blacks and whites came together and made something people can enjoy. I wasn’t alive during this time or even know too much about this. But there is a tremendous amount of joy in many of these songs. The album itself is considered a peak of the meshing of culture music.
Wonderful, right? What you might not have noticed, is that the instrumental tambers and styles of playing (by the South African musicians) much belong to the South African pop style. The album (Graceland) met quite some protests (within and outside South Africa) calling it a white man's usage of the oppressed and criticising the non political lyrical content. Others welcomed this effort to highlight South African artists and musical culture outside Africa. Paul Simon stated that his aim was to collaborate with those artists as a statement that American (white) musicians could join forces with South African (black) and create popular songs for the world to enjoy. Political lyrical messages would mostly be preaching to the saved. Better to make people enjoy first and maybe elicit some thinking when realising the conditions those great South African musicians were under.
Great info there. I didn't catch most of this is of South African pop but I have so little, if any, experience with that region's music. It's pretty neat how much of a fusion of cultures this was!
I really only know Paul Simon from his music with Simon & Garfunkel (among my favorite folk music) and a handful of tracks from his solo career. Haven't heard this one, but I did vaguely know about how these world music crossovers was en vogue for a short while during that time. This was a fun, folky, jammy listen. The tone is so light and airy and the world-ish elements and bass add just enough spice to prevent it from becoming milquetoast.
I've posted this analysis elsewhere, and at the risk of repeating myself, I remain surprised that the lyrics are consistently misinterpreted when the story is obvious. The "diamonds on the soles of her shoes" refer to a rich girl's liberal use of cocaine, so much of it that she's literally walking in it. The poor boy is just along for the ride and she's a little resentful of that ( "...You've taken me for granted because I please you, wearing these diamonds, etc.") "She makes the sign of the teaspoon..." What do you think that means, if not what I'm suggesting? "...take me dancing (clubbing)..." and they end up crashing...in a bodega doorway on upper Broadway. I know I'm throwing cold water on this little love story, and I promise you I don't always seek out a more sordid side of lyricism, but in this case, it is what it is. Still a great song, as is the whole album.
Great analysis as always, Bryan! This was an awesome pick and I'm glad we've gotten such a diverse set of songs this week. I'd like to add that the guitar work is very African-inspired also. I don't exactly know which part of the continent, but it sounds very close to what other artists in the afropop realm usually do. A more recent example of this guitar work could be Strawberry Swing by Coldplay for instance.
I think the guitarist here is Ray Phiri who is South African. To me, though, the guitar sounds like it's in the style of Soukous, which is mainly a Congolese style. My favourite soukous artist is Kanda Bongo Man, who I recommend highly if you're interested in checking out more soukous.
I listened to this song (as it appears on the album) in preparation for your take on this, and thought you would probably have things to say about the production. And then it turned out you were doing a live recording. Oh well. Graceland is a really classic case of an album I think is good, but which I don't really like or have any desire to listen to. It seems like a pretty effective blend of music, but I don't personally connect to this kind of South African choral music. Your comment about people getting out of their bubble made me laugh, since "The Boy in the Bubble" is another song on the album.
I hope this isn't unfair of me, but there is an incomplete comment in this video that echoes what I have heard you say before, basically about whether there is modern music out of Africa, or modern updates of traditional music from Africa. The same sort of thing came up in the Hawas reaction, where you were maybe slightly surprised by the use of synthesizer in a relatively traditional song. Your intuitions about this perplex me. Just because something is coming from a non-western culture doesn't mean it based on some unchanging tradition! Africa, the Middle East, and pretty much the whole world, as far as I can tell, all have all sorts of variations of tradition combined with elements borrowed from elsewhere, including the latest available technologies. Arabic popular music, as one example, has always put a lot of value on novelty, in theory anyway. (In practice, it certainly gets into its ruts just like other popular music forms.) There are new electronic dance forms out of South Africa (amapiano! among others). There is a ton of really good deep house out of South Africa. And there are also avant-garde electro-acoustic projects out of South Africa. And Joy Division covers: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UKfwSFI8LhQ.html It's, of course, fair to say that you personally have never heard, say, Arab folk traditions blended with electronics, but I would strongly recommend *expecting* that such things exist, across cultures.
Yeah, I really need to explore more music from the middle east and middle asia as my of my knowledge about them is their folk music of old. A lot of this sounds fascinating so I'll have to dig into it all.
@@CriticalReactions Anyway, my abbreviated point is that it's safer to assume that all cultures are musically mixing and matching and incorporating new technologies all the time than to assume that because they are non-western, or because they have ancient roots, they are only interested in maintaining existing traditions. (Sure, there may be some small tribes here and there that aren't changing their musical forms much, but when it comes to more complex societies, there is usually a lot of flux.) Whether you get around to listening to some of that music is up to you. I certainly don't try to listen to everything.
I always felt that Simon (with or without Garfunkel) was a Folk-Pop genre... potātotes / potahtoes😊, I guess. This song is one of many he wrote that were played on FM radio. Hey has anyone mentioned the song Sukiyaki? Originally sung by Kyu Sakamoto, it hit US Billboard #1 in June 1963 - with all Japanese lyrics! The music is a rather generic Western orchestra, like a love song from a 1950's MGM musical. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8Omyf8JVdww.html There was a more interesting cover of Sukiyaki made in the Disco era (though still a ballad) by A Taste of Honey.
