i'm kinda obsessed lately with the sneakily subversive fuck you that is paul simon's "my little town"

i heard this song so many times when i was a kid. the radio played it all the time. especially AM radio. i always loved it. for years i had no idea it was a paul simon song. until i actually played the album it was on! but, also, i don't think i ever listened to the words very closely either. until i played the album and actually listened to them. kinda freaked me out. i imagined all these stay at home moms in the 70's dancing around in the kitchen to it while their radio played on the counter and the irony of that chorus "NOTHING BUT THE DEAD AND DYING BACK IN MY LITTLE TOWN" filling the air. and filling supermarkets for years. its such a sad sad song and if you don't listen too closely you would never ever know that. which, to me, in some ways, is more punk than punk. plus, the lyrics included with the album actually begin with a quote from the suicide-inducing ted hughes. how sad is that? plus, the structure of this song is a marvel to me. and maybe someone who knows more than me about songcraft could explain what he does with the music/words on this song.

"To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
But flying
-Ted Hughes

In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps His eye on us all
And He used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord I recall
My little town

Coming home after school
Flying my bike past the gates
Of the factories
My mom doing the laundry
Hanging our shirts
In the dirty breeze

And after it rains
There's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just imagination they lack
Everything's the same
Back in my little town

In my little town
I never meant nothin'
I was Just my father's son
Saving my money
Dreaming of glory
Twitching like a finger
On the trigger of a gun
Leaving nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa62m5cl0LU

A seventies driving song if I can ever remember one.

It's like Come On Eileen without the irony. Or the girl.

its meanspirited in a way that a lot of post-dylan lyrics were - and post-simon&garfunkel lyrics were - but it does feel heartfelt in a way. even though paul simon grew up in queens and thus in the greatest city in the world and not a small factory town. but thats art for you. ART the thing not the dude.

I was 11 when this hit the radio, and my parents had just uprooted us from California to Mississippi. I identified.

"Simon has stated that the song is not autobiographical; instead he says that it is about "someone who hates the town he grew up in. Somebody happy to get out."[3] He has been quoted describing the writing of the song: "It originally was a song I was writing for Artie. I was gonna write a song for his new album, and I told him it would be a nasty song, because he was singing too many sweet songs. It seemed like a good concept for him."[3] After playing the song for Garfunkel, the two decided to collaborate again in the studio on this one track.

While Simon insists it is not autobiographical, Garfunkel has explained, in recent interviews, that it was about his own childhood, how he "grew up in an area where a career in music was not seen as either desirable nor exciting"."

"The first verse mentions Garfunkel's religious views, "God keeps His eye on us all" and how, as a Jew, he was expected to "Pledge allegiance to the (western) wall". The second verse describes him "coming home after school", where his mother, Rose (a housewife), would be "doing the laundry". It goes on to describe the lack of creative output and inspiration, in the form of a monochromatic rainbow. The final verse describes how Art had no identity of his own other than being "(his) Father's son", and how he was "twitching like a finger on the trigger of a gun" (presumably, from anxiety to escape the dead-end life the lyrics describe) before the final chorus plays."

see, i didn't know it was actually supposed to reflect art's upbringing. you learn something new every day!

although he grew up in queens too, so, i'm still a little confused, but what the hell do i know about queens. sure it could be stifling for a young sensitive boy with a voice like an angel.

my friend peter lived a block away from paul simon's house growing up.

my mother lived across the street from woody herman in queens as a girl.

yeah this song is great. the sweet-sounding-tune-crossed-with-bitter/ugly/sad-lyrical-sentiments seems like a staple of the 70s singer-songwriter ouevre to me (Simon, Joni, Steely Dan, Jim Croce)

i was 7 or 8 when this song came out and it hit the top ten and i'm pretty sure at that age i would have run around just singing "la la la la la la la la..my little town..." cuz i loved a jaunty tune. the words wouldn't have registered with me at all. same with steely dan only more so. jim croce i loved when i was little because i love rap music and the razor in someone's shoe just seemed like a great detail at the time.

I like it because my dad was a traveling salesman and he would often take us on trips with him. We drove through many beat-up towns in the midwest and south. Not to be mean-spirited, we found lots of small towns not so sad and beat up. It makes you think why some places and not others. So I don't see it as condemnatory, just sad.

Garfunkel's vocal reminds me of Gerry Rafferty.

great bass poke around the 2:10 mark

I was living in a little town when this came out. I def got the lyrics.

my mother lived across the street from woody herman in queens as a girl.

yes!

oh i should also mention that this song kinda reminded me of SOS by Abba in a weird way when i was younger.

the title of this song could have been SOS as well.

its meanspirited in a way that a lot of post-dylan lyrics were - and post-simon&garfunkel lyrics were - but it does feel heartfelt in a way.

otm. this kind of meanspirited is one of my favorite things tbh.

and both this song and SOS were hit singles from 1975, so, i probably heard them both a lot that year. and the choruses remind me of each other.

the big difference between the two songs would be that SOS is the greatest pop song of the 70's and My Little Town isn't.

Interesting comparison! Funny thing about ABBA, when I was a kid ABBA were unrock and not to be listened to. Wow, 1975 is such a late year for such an evocative song! I liked ABBA but I had to go on vacation to hear their music.

Besides Woody, I believe you once mentioned that Waddy Watchel was also in the neighborhood at the time.

i don't remember that about waddy. was he really from queens? i guess he had to come from somewhere. though part of me just thinks that he was born and raised in some dark dank recording studio somewhere in hollywood.