Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Come on, sorrow, take your own advice/ Poor boys and pilgrims with families, we are going to Graceland

You can be anywhere, watching any bird take flight, and "Magpie to the Morning" is what it sounds like. The song arrives and departs with a glide, always soaring, because it can.

Come on sorrow, take your own advice/ Hide under the bed, turn out the lights


Neko Case's voice is gorgeous. After the first instrumental interlude, the recording engineer picks up her voice saying Here I go and then Neko belts out the lyrics. I'm glad they kept this in the mix. It fires me up.

Mockingbird sings, in the middle of the night/ All his songs are stolen, so he hides

Neko Case "Magpie to the Morning"

"Graceland" opens with one of the English language's greatest similes.

The Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar

Yet somehow, this makes perfect sense to me. "Graceland" is a song about heartache (She comes back to tell me she's gone/ As if I didn't know that, as if I didn't know my own bed) that also manages to uplift (I have reason to believe we all will be received).


It is a traveling song with the versatility to make it apropos to most pilgrimages. And the album track has the Everly Brothers singing back-up.

Paul Simon "Graceland"

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