Paul Simon's 'Graceland'

I know this is a "musical" so maybe I should forgive some of the "speaking in character" stuff he lapses into (rolling his r's, etc. although it is kinda funny to hear him spit out "motherfuckers")

should I be blaming Walcott...? There are definitely some decidedly un-subtle, non-Simonish lyrical things going on here.

I haven't gotten into the rest of the album (other than the closer "Trailways Bus" kinda), but I love love how "Adios Hermanos" starts out with those super-long lines like "Gumboots" has, except in character and in a specific time and place, and how it builds into the super-long drawn-out single syllables by the end, and how it's all a cappella.

It's pretty much on par with "Nebraska" as far as songs in which the singer ends up strapped into an electric chair.

this is a totally ugly album (sounds really pretty tho) no wonder his audience didn't bite

sample chorus: "fucking puerto rican dope-dealing punk / get your shit-brown ass outta here"

sounds like it was co-written with this guy
http://www.paul-simon.info/PHP/pictures/thumb2/1062290526_paul-reed(lou%20reed).jpg

It's pretty much on par with "Nebraska" as far as songs in which the singer ends up strapped into an electric chair.

just behind 'ride the lightning' though

lolz great pic of him and Lou

talkin about puerto rican doo wop, i'm sure

("puerto rican doo wop" being the name of a sweet strain of cocaine in the late 70s)

okay, cheeseball me got a little choked up randomly hearing this "Father and Daughter" song off of "Surprise" while swimming with my daughter

It's a good song!

His singing especially: it's self-mocking yet totally sincere.

I had never heard it before but yeah struck me as pretty vintage Simon right off the bat

liked this song except for the cartoony backing vocals ...

This fucking album wow.

otm

rulez

first cd ever owned and I think I want it to be last thing I listen to before I die

It was my soundtrack to this last summer. I kept putting on the song "Graceland" just to hear it alone, and then listening to the whole album anyway. And then I'd listen again.

it has been the soundtrack to so many of my summers

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

I remember seeing the Graceland concert film this comes from in Music class back in Kindergarten onward whenever it was time to study "World Music." IIRC we never got to sing any of the songs.

My soundtrack to family car journeys in England. So many good memories.

x post.

growing up, it was such a part of my family holidays in the car. I now have a copy just to repeat the experience with my family.

its a best of Paul Simon CD but 40% of it is Gracelend so I don't feel I'm missing out.

growing up, it was such a part of my family holidays in the car.

Same for me. It always gives me flashbacks to the smell of hire cars and the South of France.

growing up, it was such a part of my family holidays in the car. I now have a copy just to repeat the experience with my family.

ha, me too! I had no idea this was a universal

I didn't grow up with it, but it was the last "family record" we had, coming out just as we stopped being able to do things as a unit. So it's nostalgic, but in a bittersweet sort of way.

Since it was the first CD my family owned (and I think the ONLY pop/rock CD for some time) it was a family experience for me as well - I was still young enough that I would listen to the music my parents liked, and it was an album the whole family seemed to really like.

def universally approved of in my family too

it was the first CD my family owned

Yup! Same here.

lol i think it's the only pop cd my mum owns

haha i didn't really hear this album growing up but when i went on vacation w/ my wife's family in June i must've heard this in the car like 8 times

I have still never heard more than four songs from this album. For some reason, this one totally passed my family by even though I think it would have been right up their alley.

we listened to it on vinyl, made me the indie fukk i am today

After listening to it again and again all summer, and getting kinda weirdly curious about what it would feel like to lose love and have a window to my heart, and then remembering that I'm happily married, I'm not sure what to think of this being a really popular family album, besides that the words must not be listened to very clearly.

what families cant appreciate having windows in their hearts plz

lolz yeah the lyrics on this album are a total downer! par for the course with Simon

Well that was your mother,
And that was your father,
Before you was born dude,
When life was great,
You are the burden, of my generation,
I sure do love you,
But let's get that straight,

what a horrible thing to say to your child

haha, yeah, the narrator of that song is an incredible asshole

yeah its sorta Steely Dan-ish the way it contrasts a really slick, joyful sounding tune with total asshole lyrics

ive always felt guilty for thinking the banter on i know what i know is smooth

Also heard this a lot on family car rides through America's heartland.

OTMFM!

ive always felt guilty for thinking the banter on i know what i know is smooth

Hmmm, I might try "don't I know you from the cinematographer's party?" on the next nice girl I meet and see what reaction it gets.

yeah who would she be to blow against the wind etc

haha cant believe how universal this record is for so many ppl ... i had no idea

for so many ppl's families, i mean ... it was for mine as well

yeah, me too. I remember driving around in the vanagon circa 1987 listening to this tape constantly. It wasn't my fam's first CD -- I think Rhythm of the Saints was!

Seriously, the playing on this is so good! I'm going to make a very embarrassing old man one day, earnestly beseeching some twelve-year-olds and their friends to 'just listen to that fretless bass'.

Mid-80's, this record was guaranteed to show up in two places: (1) right before the first speaker at a rally at my college to protest anything, they'd play it on the PA, and (2) the record collection of every adult lefty in my parents' circle of friends, along with the soundtrack to the Commitments.