Lyrical Genius

(Piano Piano!/Flickr.)

I've always been a lyric dissecter. I'm a lover of music too, but in many cases I'm more interested in what the artist is saying in any particular song.

When I was a camp counselor, at the end of the day each of us would run a little discussion in the cabin we called "Devotions," in which the campers would have a chance to share their thoughts in a safe environment. (Though I hear the boy campers mostly just talked about superheros, but whatever.) My favorite Devotions were the ones where I asked each of the girls to play their favorite song and talk about why it was important to them. Most of the time the conversation centered around lyrics that spoke to them. Sometimes the tears flowed. I was doing important work, I thought.

I always participated too, and my song choice varied. I have lots of favorite songs and favorite albums, as we all do. Paul Simon's Graceland is one of them. My family had the LP when I was little and I loved when it played. I knew nothing about African music in the mid-1980s (and actually I don't know a whole lot now), but I knew it sounded different than any other record we had, and I liked it. Especially "You Can Call Me Al." You can call me Al! Amazing coincidence.

It's still one of my favorites and the CD plays in my car pretty frequently. Recently, though, I heard the opening track, "The Boy in a Bubble" with new ears.

Graceland came out in 1986, but in a way, the lyrics to this song seem very current. The chorus could be a commentary on the way we communicate today.

"These are the days of miracle and wonder.

This is the long-distance call.

The way the camera follows us in slo-mo

They way we look to us all."

To me, these lines apply to the advent of both social media and reality television - the way we can almost miraculously keep tabs on the minute details of each others lives at a constant rate, despite being far away from some of our virtual friends. Additionally, as we've discussed, Facebook in particular is a sort of representation of ourselves. Is it our real self? When posting, do we think about "the way we look to us all?"

Regarding the third line, reality TV is a hugely popular genre today. Some of our biggest celebrities are simply the product of being followed by cameras, enjoying their "15 minutes." What makes us celebrate them for humiliating themselves on TV? How do they look to us?

Later in the song, the chorus changes:

"These are the days of lasers in the jungle,

Lasers in the jungle somewhere."

(Ok, this part doesn't really apply to what I'm talking about.)

"Staccato signals of constant information,

A loose affiliation with millionaires and billionaires and baby..."

Are Twitter and Facebook not essentially summed up by that third line? Social media also allows us to have loose affiliations with "millionaire and billionaire" celebrities or pretty much anyone we deem important. We're able to "like" them, tweet them, or even comment on their statuses.

Perhaps Paul Simon was psychic. I certainly never thought about any of this as an 1980s baby.

What song lyrics speak to you? Has your opinion of a song every changed over time?