10 Songs That Will Reduce An Open Heart To Tears: #1

Graffiti on abandoned building in Saginaw, Michigan

I know, technically-speaking this is a “Simon and Garfunkel” tune, but I think except in the rarest of instances, the song belongs to the writer, so..

Despite the title, the song has nothing to do with patriotism or nationalism.

In fact, I think the opening line is possibly the most universal emotion there is:

“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together.”

I don’t know if it’s possible to write a better line than that. Who hasn’t felt that? Doesn’t feel that?

And it’s not simply the words.

As with all of Paul Simon’s art (and all the greatest songs), it’s the way the music and lyrics work together, literally forming a single, whole-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts entity.

Like the way the painting and the wall of The Sistine Ceiling become one.

He somehow manages to convey, in this little story ostensibly about a couple of young lovers on a Greyhound bus, the whole breadth of yearning, dissatisfaction, and hope (the magic combination that all of his greatest songs are characterized by), in a manner at once grandiose and mundane/small.

Graffiti in Saginaw, Michigan

In essence, the exact way human life feels at its most beautifully observed.

All the other hallmarks of a master music artist / songwriter are there too, of course – the dynamics, brilliant melodies, harmonies, arrangements, etc. etc.

But somehow it comes across as having nothing to do with anything so much as a person talking to you, at the level of your deepest truths.

And just to demonstrate that the magic really does reside in the songwriting, here’s some other artist playing the song.

I’d say it’s still every bit as chilling, wouldn’t you? (wink wink ;)

Ok, gonna go cry now.
 
 

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