These Songs are True, These Days are Ours, These Tears are Free

It rains every afternoon here, no matter how sunny and promising the mornings are. Once I got over my initial distress that Puebla wasn't like a sauna all the time, I began to love walking home in that dim rain with the sky all muddled gray swallowing blue and people everywhere ducking for cover. There's some kind of sweetness in that, I don't know. There are certain songs I always listen to when I'm walking in the rain--one of them in Paul Simon's The Obvious Child. I love how the Brazilian drums seem to catch the beat of the raindrops falling.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJdAAozwq5Y

Here is a video of Paul Simon singing this song live--it's almost too good.
The recorded version sounds pretty different but it also amazing. And here are the lyrics:

Well I'm accustomed to a smooth ride
Or maybe I'm a dog who's lost its bite
I don't expect to be treated like a fool no more
I don't expect to sleep through the night
Some people say a lie is just a lie
But I say why
Why deny the obvious child?
Why deny the obvious child?

And in remembering a road sign
I am remembering a girl when I was young
And we said These songs are true
These days are ours
These tears are free
And hey
The cross is in the ballpark
The cross is in the ballpark

We had a lot of fun
We had a lot of money
We had a little son and we thought we'd call him Sonny
Sonny gets married and moves away
Sonny has a baby and bills to pay
Sonny gets sunnier
Day by day by day by day

I've been waking up at sunrise
I've been following the light across my room
I watch the night receive the room of my day
Some people say the sky is just the sky
But I say
Why deny the obvious child?
Why deny the obvious child?

Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself
How it's strange that some rooms are like cages
Sonny's yearbook from high school
Is down from the shelf
And he idly thumbs through the pages
Some have died
Some have fled from themselves
Or struggled from here to get there
Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls
Runs his hand through his thinning brown hair

Well I'm accustomed to a smooth ride
Maybe I'm a dog that's lost his bite
I don't expect to be treated like a fool no more
I don't expect to sleep the night
Some people say a lie is just a lie
But I say the cross is in the ballpark
Why deny the obvious child?

Other than the sweet drum solo and poignant lyrics, this song is also special to me because it's one of my father's favorites--the one he says he wants played at his funeral. (I have a feeling my mother is going to try to thwart this particular desire--she thinks Paul is "too cynical--" but I'm here for you Dad! I'll make sure it happens!) Dit and I used to dance around to it when my father put on his records on Monday nights, back in the early 80's when we were also Mungo Jerry and Rumple Teaser. When I re-discovered the song, I was old enough to understand.

My father told me his favorite verse is the one where Sonny is looking at his high school yearbook and marveling at the passage of time; how quickly years spiral away. The people Sonny went to school with are not children any longer; life became very hard and painful them...they grew up. In the end even the remembrance of their struggles is crumbling away as they age and their own children take the stage. I can see why this song is so intriguing to my father, because I've spoken with him in some of his Sonny-like states--telling me about a person he knew well who has passed away, describing moments in his life that are still so sharp and clear to him that it's staggering to realize they happened so long ago.

It's very bittersweet to me because I (and I think relatively I still count as "young," except maybe in Provo years, where my age is roughly 53) also have those tearing thoughts about my childhood and other glory days when it really seemed like everything I touched was golden, before real suffering came. Other times nostalgia makes me stagger not because those other times really were superior to now--just that they are gone! Sometimes it seems so hurtful that you can never crawl back into a moment when you were happy. I see in this song a lifespan--the inevitability of fading youth--"the night receives the room of my day"--everyone has their day in the sunlight, when the world and all the songs in it "belong" to them. Time passes on and those days in the sun turn into memories. Life is a struggle and wrings everyone into some sort of weariness eventually--the dog that's lost its bite.

...I also used to listen to it on the way to Dr. Seipel's class (my last one at BYU) and think to myself, "It's strange how some rooms are like cages." :)Oh, and one more funny story about this song: one night after dinner last summer we were discussing names for Garrett and Aya's future children. Aya told me that she and Dit liked the name Mae because it worked in English and in Japanese. In an effort to be culturally sensitive, I suggested "Yamaha," "Toshibi," and "Sony" as possible considerations. While we were giggling, my father cleared his the throat from the end of the table--he was smirking the way he always does before he makes a joke--and sang, "We had a little son, thought we'd call him Sony...Sony gets married and moves away, Sony has a baby and bills to pay..." Mary and I began to cackle and I remember everyone else at the table was bewildered, and my Dad was pretty pleased with himself. It was SO funny. I remembered that today and started laughing in the street. :)...I love my Father.