Saturday, June 26th, 2010
I don’t know if I say this often enough, but Paul Simon’s Graceland remains one of my favorite albums of all time. I know he jacked most of the songs from traditional South African folk songs, and I know that he ripped off Los Lobos with the song “All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints.” But all of that somehow hasn’t managed to spoil its position in my mind as the greatest driving music ever. The rhythms are both classically South African and classically American, but in both respects the songs are meant for the country-side.
Graceland is an album about, in many ways, South African culture. The vibes, the feelings, are everything I managed to feel when I was there. On the other hand, it is more closely a song about Americana, about America. The songs speak to South African themes, but they also speak to the classic idea of America, the idealized form of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.
Listen to the title track, look me straight in the face, and try to tell me you don’t want to go on an epic roadtrip in the bed of a pickup truck. Trust me, you can’t. The lyrics help – “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar/I am following the river down the highway/through the cradle of the civil war” – but to ignore the earnest, upbeat, strumming of classic South African rhythms would be criminal. Throw in some backup singers and some ever-moving percussion and you have everything you could ever want. It doesn’t matter when you take this roadtrip – there is music for a sunny afternoon and a breezy highway, and there is music for a still night with millions of stars lighting the way.
All of this was in my mind when I traveled to Lesotho this spring. I spent six straight hours in a minibus taxi listening to five different languages. I had the biggest smile on my face as we passed through the South African countryside, watching mothers doing their laundry while their barefoot kids ran after us waving and laughing. We passed through great mountains and great pastures. Through all of this, I was thinking of Graceland. How perfect an album it was for a drive such as this! I yearned to hear the incredible saxophone from “Gumboots,” the chants from “Homeless,” and the thundering drums of “Boy In The Bubble.” Alas, I didn’t have my iPod. I won’t make that mistake again.
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PS: I promise I’ll stop writing about South Africa eventually. Stay tuned for a nice little piece on Francis and the Lights.