Paul Simon's Graceland album is still the best I ever heard from him, and one of my all time favorite cds. "Graceland" & "Call Me Al" are the most famous tracks from it, but he's actually got much better ones on there, most notably "The Boy in the Bubble" - which is an awesome title because it gets right into the way we naturally cocoon ourselves away from trouble, turning away and concentrating on the shiniest aspects of life.
Paul Simon's song hits on several levels at once, all of them fairly deep. Its a remembrance of the forgotten. Its a recognition of the disparity in life experience between those drinking in the frequent announcements of amazing devices and discoveries of our civilization and those struggling to survive on its fringes. Its the echo of all the times we feel threatened/scared of the threats in the news, and the way the reporters lighten up the reports of impending WWIII, disease, city bombings, lost lives of our soldiers, natural disasters etc with beautiful pics from the Hubble telescope or some cool dancing robot from Japan or the latest medical breakthroughs. Its all that and more, and the fact that a lot of the song's musical complexity is inspired by African folk music just seems perfect somehow.
Its been a lot of years since this album came out, since this music video was made, and it just amazes me that both are every bit as relevant now as when they came out, maybe even more so.
Maybe you saw Graceland on someone's "100 albums you should hear before you die" list? Yes, it really IS that good. Just felt like sharing.
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