Original subtitles

Hello.

She's a rich girl. She don't try hard.

Diamonds on the sofa.

Poor boy.

Empty as a pocket. Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose.

Sing ta-na-na.

She got diamonds on the soles of her shoes

Who were influenced by American music? American music was influenced by us.

It's like sharing information.

So it was a two-way traffic.

We used Paul as much as Paul used us.

There was no abuse.

He came at the right time. He was what we needed to break South African music

more into the mainstream market.

And if you have sold more than 14 million copies worldwide of Graceland,

That says quite a lot. Over 14 million people in the world know what South

African music is.

Graceland was a particularly benign record that I think

described South African culture in a way that

was very accurate. It was certainly not complete and

didn't touch on the anger that was pervasive.

But it did touch on the other part of the culture, you know, where people

laughed, you know, where there was dancing, where life was being

celebrated.

The global village is getting smaller and smaller and the vocabulary is

getting smaller and smaller because we are now speaking one language but at the

same time it's the search for oneself that you end up

finding yourself in somebody else's thing you know but it's something that's

in the air it's not controlled by any individual it's like when there is a

good songwriter somewhere you'll touch the rest of the world with just one

lousy word was a dry wind and it swept across the desert and it curled into the

circle of earth and the dead sand was falling on the children the mothers and

the fathers and the automatic bird these are the days of miracle and wonder this

is the long distance call the way the camera follows us in slow-mo The way

we look to a song, oh yeah.

The way we look to a distant constellation that's dying in a corner

of the sky.

These are the days we live for, little wonder. Don't cry, baby, don't cry,

don't cry.

Let's roll back.

I think we always knew.

that this would be the start of the album.

I mean it began so unusually and the sound of those drums at the top sounded

so African that it really was like an announcement that said, you

haven't heard this before.

It was a slow day, and the sun was beating on the soldiers by the side of

the road.

There was a bright light, a shatter in the shop windows. The bomb in the baby

carriage was wired to the radio.

These are the days of miracle and wonder.

This is the long-distance call.

The way the camera follows us in slow-mo. The way we look to us all.

up to a distant constellation that's dying in a corner of the sky these are

the days of mirror one mirror and don't cry baby don't cry don't cry

It was a dry wind, and it swept across the desert and curled into the circle of

earth.

And the dead sand, the falling of the children, the mothers and the fathers of

the automatic earth.

These are the days of miracle and wonder.

This is the long-distance call.

The way the camera follows us, the snowball, the way we look to us all. Oh,

yeah.

The way we look to a distant constellation That's dying in a corner

of the sky These are the days of miracle and wonder And don't cry, baby,

don't cry, don't cry

It's a turnaround jump shot. It's everybody jump start.

It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts.

Medicine is magical and magical is all I think of. The boy in the bubble and the

baby with the babbling heart. And I believe these are days.

Blazers in the jungle.

Blazers in the jungle somewhere.

My favorite track is The Boy in the Bubble because to me it represents that

whole feel and that whole experience. Very dark.

brooding quality about it. And to me, it most represents the whole

trip, the whole concept, and the whole feel of recording in that studio over

there.

These were originally jams.

Basically, they were jams for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, a half an hour.

Oh, that's good. Oh, that's good. Oh, that makes it, you know.

Lo and behold, maybe a song would come out of that.

The important thing for us to do there was to record these guys with good eye

contact, where they were close together, not Allah, everybody in their own little

room, behind their own little gobo.

Let's try to control the leakage the best we can so that the eye contact and

feel is in the room.

And at the same time, be able to record it in a way that when we get back to New

York, we can... delete that, delete this, put this in, edit these four bars,

put those four bars over here, put these three bars here, and be able to do that

without a mess.

What we added to the accordion to make the sound deeper was,

we added a synclavier, a synthesizer to deepen the sound.

It sounds like this pushed now in proportion.

Similarly with the drums, here's the sample drum added to the snare.

So I mean, this happens quite a bit throughout all of Graceland.

Sounds are added to the original sounds to make things sound deeper.

Over here,

Here's his bells.

They're tucked in the background just to give things a natural echo sound.

Here's me singing voices to fit in with the accordion.

Just making up sounds.

The way we look to a

distant constellation that's dying in a corner

of the sky.

These are the days of miracle and wonder and don't cry, baby, don't cry, don't

cry, don't cry.

It was clear that Paul was really coming to the end of writing pop songs

the way he had written them before, up till then.

In fact, he said to me on a number of occasions that he wasn't interested in

writing hits.

He wasn't interested in it. So here was a man at a very crucial place in his

career, looking basically for something to do, looking for a larger canvas to

work on.

And I think it's important to look at it in the context of Paul's music at that

time in his life.

Well, it was a difficult time for me personally.

I started to work on an album that became Hearts and Bones.

When I did a reunion concert with Hardcore Funko, half a million people

showed up.

And then we decided to go out and do some concerts.

Just a classic mistake, you know?

The album came out, an album that had been announced as a Simon & Garfunkel

now came out as this solo album.

I was exhausted. I didn't do any work to promote it. I just put it out, and it

was a flop.

And in the midst of all of that touring,

got married and uh i married carrie fisher in

the middle in the middle of that tour you know i mean what

was i thinking you know i mean certainly not thinking about life you know that

you actually like have to like stop marriage is very it's a hard thing to to

uh to do you need to concentrate on that you can't do things in the middle of

Not everything can happen at once. Not everything is a media event. All kinds

of mistakes on top of mistakes on top of mistakes.

So now I had, you know, a personal blow in my life and

a career setback.

And the combination of the two put me into a tailspin.

It was around that time I was building a house in Montauk, Long Island.

And while I drove out, I would listen to this tape that a friend had given me.

And I began to realize that I really liked that tape. After a couple of weeks

of driving back and forth to the house and listening to the tape, I think, what

is this tape?

This is my favorite tape now.

I wonder who it is. I wonder who this band is.

And that's when things started to perk up.

And that led me to asking the people at Warner Brothers to trace them for me.

They traced it to South Africa.

And in early 1985, I set off with Roy Halle to begin this.

And in a very good mood, too.

I said, this is going to be a lot of fun.

Warner Brothers had never heard anything like this. They had never heard a

recording process like this. They thought, I'm sure, when we were doing

this, that Paul Simon and Roy Haller were out of their minds. They'd lost it.

They're crazy. You can't make a record like that. How can you make, there's no

songs. You can't, you gotta write a song, you go in the studio, and you make

a record. I mean, how can you go to Africa and you don't even have a song?

I'm sure, I know they thought we were both nuts.

I said, I have one big advantage going by being as cold as I am.

Nobody is paying any attention to me. I can do this all, you know, very

privately.

Nobody will be checking in to find out, how'd the tracks go? Can you send us a

copy? Can we come and hear it? None of that was going to happen.

I had finished with my disappointments and my sorrows.

My father was a musician.

I grew up around musicians. I'm very comfortable with musicians. I like to

hang out with musicians.

Recording studios are friendly environments to me.

There's no problem in a recording studio that you can't solve.

It's not the same as life, you know.

You're going to be able to figure it out one way or the other.

It's a happy work environment.

She said there's something about you that really reminds me of money.

She was the kind of girl who could say things that weren't that funny.

I said, what does that mean? I really remind you of money.

She said, who am I to blow against the wind?

I know what I know.

I've seen what I've said.

I was having a ball just recording it in that sense.

To record these guys, a guy like me, coming from my background, everything so

organized generally, and hearing the rawness of this, the earthiness of this,

I was in seventh heaven.

It was a concept of getting good grooves and coming back and then rewriting it.

There was nothing really written.

All of Paul's albums, anything I ever did with Paul or anybody, songs were

written, either in the studio.

Paul loved to write in the studio. He'd create great things in the studio. But

to be able to go into the studio with a guy like Paul and have him say, hey,

I've got this great thing for you guys to hear. Will you hear this? And you

hear Mrs. Robinson.

I mean, there it is.

Here we're going, there's nothing.

It's an idea, you know, a concept, but nothing on paper. So it was a gamble, I

guess.

We had cut another track with the Tau and Matzecha group.

I didn't like the track. The only thing I liked was the drums.

And I kept the drums, and we overdubbed on these drums.

To my ear, certain words or certain sounds that became words,

sometimes those words formed a phrase and the phrase was interesting.

Sometimes it was banal. Sometimes it didn't make any sense, like, I'm going

to Graceland.

I mean, that phrase sang very well against what was happening in the track.

It was very comfortable to sing that, so I sang it.

thinking all along, of course I'm going to replace this. Of course I'll replace

this.

Until I'd been into it for several months and realized, I'm not going to

replace it. I can't get this out of my head. It's always going to be that way

in my head.

I'm going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee, and I'm going to

Graceland.

I was really concerned that that lyric, with all those words, it was very wordy.

Rhythmically, they didn't fit. They did not fit.

He would alter the way he would sing. He would alter the way he would phrase. He

kept phrasing it thousands of different ways to make it work rhythmically,

because it would always feel uncomfortable.

There were times there where I'm sure we both thought, it's just not going to get

this. But Paul Simon, with his competitive spirit, uh-uh, I'm going to

get this. At first I thought, now I've got a problem.

Of course, soon after that I began to think, no, now I have an adventure.

And instead of resisting what's going on, I'll go with it.

And I'll be carried along.

And I'll find out where we're going instead of assuming that I'm the captain

of the ship. I'm not. I'm just a passenger.

The Mississippi Delta was shining like the national tar.

I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the Civil

War.

I'm going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee, and I'm going to

Graceland.

Poor boys and pilgrims of families, and we are going Graceland.

My traveling companion is nine years old. He's the child of my first

marriage.

But I reason to believe we both will be received in Graceland.

She comes back to tell me she's gone.

I always think of this shape.

You know, meaning that you begin and the possibilities are going to go out this

way, which means that you have a good story to tell, as opposed to this shape,

which means somewhere in the second verse or something you've finished.

So you want to begin in some way that leaves a lot of possibility.

Sometimes you play something, you don't know what it is.

And later on, if the person that you're working with, has got more information

than you have, then you end up knowing exactly what you are playing.

What I heard him playing was great, but still it lacked something.

Hence I ended up saying to him that, why don't you put a minor there, because

what I could hear him playing was like a straight...

But then I thought that maybe if I would go to the minor instead of the

major and go...

This is what I played against Ray's when Ray played electric guitar on Graceland

when he played it up here, you know I Played it over here

Except

that played it with a light pick

Well, Graceland is my favorite record.

Favorite record, my favorite song that I ever wrote. This is it. This is the

best I ever did.

It's all perfect.

It begins so relaxed. There's no lyrics.

It's taking its time.

Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar.

It's a good opening line.

I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the Civil

War.

I'm on Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.

I'm singing the major, but if I want to go.

I can make it either major or minor.

I like that. I don't know why I like that line. Probably a lot of people have

first marriages.

Now the lick is under the lyrics.

She comes back to tell me she's gone.

Right under there.

As if I didn't know that. As if I didn't know my own bed.

Now it sits, it's not in. As if I'd never know. There's the lick again. The

way she brushed her head from her forehead.

And she said losing love is like a window in your heart.

I found that line touching when I wrote it. Everybody sees you're blown apart.

Everybody sees the wind blow.

I'm going to Graceland.

Memphis, Tennessee, I'm going to Graceland. I didn't sing Graceland twice

this time. The first time I sang it, I'm going to Graceland, Graceland.

This time I only sing it once.

Each time I vary it.

And my traveling companions are ghosts in empty sockets. I'm looking at ghosts

in empty sockets. The only line I'd rewrite.

But I have a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.

We've got the Everly Brothers on there.

See what the Everlys sound like.

Poor boys and pilgrims with families and we are going to Graceland.

Too many words for them.

This was a very in-depth compositional effort.

It wasn't just a question of taking a few rhythms and taking a few drummers

and putting them together. This was a real composition.

that was made on the basis of that material.

So he elevated this kind of research that turned into this record.

He elevated that enterprise into something that I don't think anyone has

really done since.

It's actually been recomposed and processed by the way that Paul worked on

it.

No Memphis, Tennessee.

I'm not talking about Memphis, Tennessee now.

Memphis, Tennessee is only in the beginning. Now we're in another place.

When

I

was there, When I first went there, Nelson Mandela was in prison.

And although I always thought that there would be a peaceful resolution

to the politics of South Africa, I never thought that it would be this fast.

So I think the younger generation was ready and very hungry for the outside

world, tired of being ostracized, ready to celebrate their own culture.

And so did black South Africans feel that way.

Because when I was there to record, when I went to the shabins, they were

listening to American music. They weren't listening to township.

They weren't listening to their own music that was already passe.

South African music was really oppressed, just as the people was

oppressed. But there was a lot of apathy to the music.

Because I remember it was called gaffel music, you know, bantu music.

But we listen to a lot of American music, though, and rock and roll, you

know, the Beatles, Paul Simon.

It's not unusual that cultures misjudge the value of their own history, that

they're willing to discard it. Look, I mean, American culture does, it's doing

that.

What emerged from Graceland as an album and as a tour

was that for the most part it made a very powerful point

gently.

It wasn't an album that said there's terrible evil here. It

said there's incredible beauty here.

That was a very powerful point.

And in conjunction with the anger that the world directed towards South Africa,

you know, the attack on the fortress of apartheid, the walls eventually cracked.

And I think that Graceland was a factor in that.

People could think, who hadn't thought this before, how can people

be treated so inhumanely?

when they have so much to give the world.

Sing. Homeless.

Homeless. Moonlight slave you wanna make night lake.

Homeless.

Homeless. Moonlight slave you wanna make night lake.

I don't think I'm a very good angry writer.

I could be an angry person and even articulate my anger in speech, but

I'm not a good angry songwriter.

And I think that's the reason that Graceland came out, feeling the way that

it did.

Black Mambazo is also a group that is not an angry group and has done an

enormous amount for South Africa and for people.

After we met with Paul Simon in 1985, and we promised each other that we're

going to do something together, and he composed the song alone, play the organ.

Homeless,

homeless, moonlight sleeping, chain, chain, chain.

Homeless, homeless, moonlight sleeping on a midnight lane.

First I listened to their records a lot.

And then I tried to write a melody that would be something like a Black Mambazo

kind of melody.

And we listen and we read the letter from him, Joseph.

Here's the song.

So I was going to sing this phrase over and over again to give them a chance to

rehearse it and practice it.

I don't know how many voices I put down here, maybe six.

It's all me.

And then when we listened to the lyrics, it was beautiful.

The time comes, we went to join Paul Simon in London.

That's the first little rehearsal in London.

I don't know what happens when we get into the studio. We feel like, where

to begin? Where to start?

Started to work.

This language is a little bit hard.

Talking to him, and he's a polite man. I told the guys, don't work, guys. He's

very good. He's a polite man.

And now Joseph, how do you think about this song? I said, I think the song is

very good.

Do you have something? Yes, we have something.

And then we sing that part a little bit, and we come to homeless.

And it's a little bit difficult to blend.

The voice is an American voice, African voice.

The first day it was tough.

We're just touching there and there. Many people were trying to help us and

that was confusing me.

I said, okay.

Even the producer, our producer was there trying to teach us. That was his

first time to teach us. We don't know him. We used to work together alone and

come with something that's solid and put it inside.

And he was trying to help us. Joseph, Paul, Simon, he's trying to say this.

And Paul discovered that no, there's something wrong.

And said, Joseph, let us tape this.

And then we taped it a little bit and said, right, just go and relax.

We'll see each other tomorrow, okay?

Yeah, at the beginning it felt a little strained, a little strange.

A little strained, like they weren't sure, you know, everybody was kind of

feeling everybody out. And it was hard because they don't produce a lot of

sound.

So they're tricky to record. Those bass voices are very, very soft.

And it warmed up the second day, that's true.

But that's the way they sang it.

But I think I did it... I think I didn't use a major chord. I think I used a two

minor. I think I did... Yeah.

But they wouldn't use... They wouldn't sing that. They would sing...

But

I was playing...

I remember when we go back to the hotel and I just called my guys and we pray

first.

And I said, guys, I was confused, but now let us try to do what we know.

Just give them what we know.

And we practice a little bit and then we promise each other we're going to give

them what we know first and then they will give us what they know.

When we get into the studio, we just said, Paul, we have something.

And Paul said, yes.

And Paul just, I remember when he said, everybody in the studio must go outside.

We begin it.

We sing those parts.

And Paul said, yes, that's

beautiful. And then Joseph, I was listening to your record too. There's

another part in your record.

And I was confused.

What is that for?

Something in your record.

Oh, I said no. He said yes.

Somebody cry, why, why, why.

Somebody sing.

Somebody sing, hello, hello, hello.

Somebody sing.

Somebody cry, why, why, why.

Somebody sing.

Thank you.

Somebody say.

Somebody sing hello, hello, hello.

Somebody say.

Somebody cry why, why, why.

Somebody say.

Somebody sing hello, hello, hello.

Somebody say.

Somebody cry why, why, why.

This type of music originated from Zulu songs and dances.

We grew up on the farm, rural areas.

Now people there, each and every one was singing and dancing.

When we were at home, it was beautiful because there were Men, women,

young, old, grandmother, grandfather, when there's something, they come

together and share the sound, the music.

But the sound started to be lonely while people left their loved ones and went to

town to work.

Now they started to try to...

find the place where they can get together and sing.

The music, it's always political because the truth, it's political.

That's why when we started to sing, our people were very happy and we

just make them have power.

The melody, the harmony has the sentiment of the people. You make the

people position themselves.

Feel like, yes, I have something. My gift is this one. But now I'm oppressed.

What's going on? What can I do?

The music itself, it makes people alive.

I would say that most African nations, music plays a very important

role in their life.

Whenever a baby is born,

celebration, singing, songs.

And even when the baby's crying, there are songs, lullabies for babies to go to

sleep. And when someone is passed away, there's death in the family, there are

songs for that. So we've always been this particular nation that believes

very much in expressing itself through music.

Then I think, if I'm not mistaken, most of all our great news was Miriam Akeba,

Skylark. When they were still young, they were into really bebop, swing, you

know. It was a very slick, educated type of blues.

And I think from that time on, our communities were

based on urban and rural and minors.

And the only way that they could enjoy the kind of music that they wanted to

enjoy was to develop a certain kind of sound which they could identify with.

So they started moving down as migrants who were working for the

mining companies.

And so they started playing this kind of music, but then they were influenced

also by the surroundings of...

their newfound countries, which happened to be Southern Africa, because their

music was very much based on a rhythm pattern, like, let's say...

So that in itself, there's about three patterns, and the first pattern is not

the same like the second.

So I guess that was their way of expressing themselves, that this is the

verse, or this is the bridge, and this is the chorus.

And usually when you get to the chorus, it's a case of...

And then a new generation, which happened to be my generation, late 60s,

started fusing the elements of our fathers with the South African element.

Hence the song like Crazy Love on Graceland, which happens to be the song

that goes this.

That's the rhythm part, but now when you come to the lead part because

Fat Charlie the Archangel sloped into the room.

He said, I have no opinion about this.

And I have no opinion about that.

It was high time that South African artists and international artists should

highlight the importance of exposing the evils of the past eras of South Africa,

like the apartheid era.

Culture is something that can't be owned by an individual.

It can be shared by us all.

There were a lot of people who were saying negative things like, here comes

this white man, he's used our black brothers' music and so forth. But then

you ask yourself, where were they?

I didn't feel...

that I was going to South Africa to come back and then express

a South African outrage.

I'll tell the world how you guys are feeling.

I really didn't feel comfortable with that.

My feeling was I'm playing with musicians that I have the highest

respect for.

And the way I can show my respect completely

is to write the best possible song from my heart that I can write.

Not to say I'll write the best possible song from your heart. I felt that was

presumptuous.

The most unfortunate thing about the beast in us is that we always find wrong

when it is right, and we find right when it is wrong.

Something so beautiful can be turned into an ugly thing.

just for the sake of scoring political points.

I guess if Paul came and recorded the album, he would have ended up

in the blacklist.

But then he went a step further because he didn't politicize the album by simply

writing about what was happening.

He went a step further and said, no, who am I to talk about people's situations?

Why don't I get those people to come on?

And let us share these beautiful rhythms with the rest of the world.

Joseph's face was black as night The

pale yellow moon shone in his sight

His path was marked by the stars in the southern hemisphere,

and he walked his days under African skies.

This is the way of how we begin to remember.

This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein.

I think one of the things about really good art is that it shouldn't be there

to instruct, it should be there to evoke.

And Paul called me and asked me if I had an image for him. He was writing and he

wanted to...

something for me on the song he was writing that we were going to sing

together. And he said, what did I remember early from my childhood in

Arizona? And of course the thing that I love the most in Arizona is the Mission

San Javier, which is meant to be the most beautiful of the missions in North

America. And so I told him about that, and that's why he has the little line

about in early memory, mission bells are ringing around my nursery door.

So I think that everybody has their own little...

scenario that can unfold under an African sky, it's an idea of

possibility. It's a storytelling kind of thing, like in the African tradition

whereby you find that musicians are more like storytellers.

They're custodians of history.

They've got to document every little happening.

His lyrics end up complementing the rhythm, or the rhythm complementing

the... the lyric and also at the same time he's got the subject matter that

says it's you it's me

Give her the wings to fly through harmony.

She won't bother you no more.

This is a story if I begin to remember.

This is a powerful pulsing of love in the maze.

After the dream of falling and calling your name out.

These are the rules.

And see, it's interesting because it's not quite... Our American pop music is

influenced greatly, of course, because of the slave trade by West African

music, which is a little bit different. It's the five beat, you know, which

is... The best way to describe it is Bo Diddley...

That rhythm is what they call the clave or the five-beat or the cinquillo.

And that's one kind of African music. But this is a completely different area

and a completely different tribe and completely different traditions.

But they also had been grafted onto European musical culture.

South Africans almost looked down upon the music that came from South Africa.

I guess because of the political situation, we were made to sort of feel

embarrassed about the music.

Growing up in South Africa, you know, you had to grow up, if you were white,

you had to grow up with blinkers on.

But if you took them off, you could see what was going on.

I heard this penny whistle music on every street corner.

Kid was playing a penny whistle along with a guitar player.

When I was a teenager, I used to go to the townships, and it was a hole in the

fence, and we'd spend hours there.

Of course, this was the way I absorbed a lot of the music from there.

It was only when Paul Simon came out with the Graceland album, then people

said, wow, we've got all this gold here.

I think somebody used that phrase once.

And then people started realizing that there's such a great

fountain of music that comes from South Africa.

It took me a long time before I could even begin to write. I love the track so

much. For a long time I thought, well, you should just put the tracks out

because you can't do any better than this.

Anything I put on here now is just going to make it worse.

So it took a while before I even had the courage to begin to write over these

tracks.

That's something I particularly wanted to solo.

But a lot of voices, a lot of voices singing instruments

to create a smoother rhythm sound.

Here comes the bass.

Well, that's the background sample.

Lady Smith, Black Mambaza.

The bass part, I'll solo it here.

That bass solo break was my birthday. It was May 10th.

So Anna said to Paul, I don't know what you're going to do to this part, but I

have an idea. I would like to play something, and it's my birthday today.

Paul was like, wow, OK.

So then I came up with this bass line.

Oh,

see there's an overdub on the bass.

Two basses happening.

It sounded conventional.

So what we did was we took the first bar of the solo,

spliced it,

flipped it around and made the second half of the solo the backwards tape of

the first half of the solo.

Backwards.

Okay.

Most of the time I listen to the bass guitar.

And if I feel the bass guitar is going somewhere else, I listen to

the lead guitar.

In fact, in this music, you must listen to a lead guitar and a bass guitar.

And so it was necessary for me to cover some of the

last beats of the... Because the bass is doing...

So

I felt great if I do the...

the accent on the last bit of the piece.

Oh, here's another backwards.

If you could go out the door whistling a tune or tapping your foot, that's the

single. That's what they listen for.

You can call me out and it had the hook and it had the group that What a

great book period that's a great book They

said you well you just have to make a video

It was

bad it was really bad and I said

Can't put this out. This is... You just can't put this out.

And then Lorne Michaels, who was the producer of Saturday Night Live, said,

you should do one with Chevy. Chevy knows all the words.

Let him sing it.

So we organized it quickly and we did that.

A man walks down the street, he says, why am I soft in the middle now? Why am

I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard. I need a photo

opportunity. I want a shot of redemption.

Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.

Bone digger, bone digger, dogs in the moonlight.

Far away in my well-lit door.

Mr. Beer Valley, Beer Valley, get these mutts away from me, you know. I don't

find this stuff amusing anymore.

And if you would be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal.

I can call you Betty. And Betty, when you call me, you can call me out.

A man walks down the street. He says, why am I short of attention? Got a short

little span of attention.

And, whoa, my nights are so long. Where's my wife and family? What if I

die here?

Who'll be my role model now that my role model is gone, gone?

He ducked back down the alley with some roly-poly little bat-faced girl.

All along, along, there were incidents and accidents. There were hints and

allegations.

But if you would be my bodyguard, I can be your long-lost pal.

I can call you Daddy, and Daddy, when you call me, you can call me.

I do think this about the Chevy Chase video, that because it was funny and

very, very light, that you tend to think of the song as funny, which it is,

but with something much more important to say.

So in a certain sense, it undercut the power of what that song meant.

You can call me out.

I mean, lyrically, if I can remember, a man walks down the street.

It's a version of a guy walks into a bar.

That's what it's apparently. There was a rabbi, a minister, and a priest.

It's an old setup. A man walks down the street.

He says,

why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard. It's a joke.

Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.

Well, that was me.

I mean, I was writing about myself.

I guess I was saying, well, like any artist, I don't want to be an

irrelevancy. Hope I'm not irrelevant.

And then from there, it was associative thinking.

Cartoon in a cartoon graveyard, bone diggers.

Graveyard, bones.

Bone diggers.

Bone diggers, dogs.

Dogs in the moonlight.

Moonlight's in a lot of songs.

Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.

Bone digger, bone digger. Dogs in the moonlight.

Far away, my well-lit door.

It was scary, in my mind. There's a graveyard out there, and I can hear dogs

howling at night, but it's cozy in the house, and there's lots of lights. It's

not scary here.

Beer belly, beer belly, you know, get these mutts away from me. I don't find

this stuff amusing anymore, which is like, you know, enough of this garbage

thinking. I'm afraid, uh-oh, death is coming, uh-oh.

Like, okay.

The second verse is a variation on the first.

A man walks down the street, he says, why am I short of attention? Got a short

little span of attention.

Short little span of attention.

That was a penis joke.

Short little span of attention.

But all my nights are so long. Now, where's my wife and family?

Which at the time, I didn't actually have.

Where's my wife and family?

What if I die here? Oh, I have a lot of fears, you know. Who will be my role

model?

Just fears, guys with fears, you know. Now he's piling up all these fears.

And from my perspective as the songwriter, in a certain sense, I didn't

have any sympathy for the guy by the second verse. Too many complaints.

Too many complaints.

And then, by then, I think I had, you know, if you'll be my bodyguard.

I'll be your long-lost pal. Well, if I can make an alliance with you, then

maybe I wouldn't be in so much trouble.

I'll look out for you, you look out for me. I could call you Betty, you could

call me Al.

We'll make a deal. That'll be our deal against all of these modern things that

we have to fear.

By the third verse, now it's time to say, Well, what is this song about?

So a man walks down the street, a street in a strange world.

Maybe it's the third world. Well, you know, I mean, this is pretty obvious

stuff. Now I'm talking about Africa.

A man walks down the street. It's a street in a strange world.

Maybe it's the third world.

Maybe it's his first time around.

Doesn't speak the language.

It's me.

He holds no currency.

He's a foreign man.

Surrounded by the sound.

I was in an amazing place.

Cattle in the marketplace.

Just a far away place.

You can imagine cattle in the streets and in the marketplace.

He looks around, he sees angels in the architecture.

It has become a spiritual journey now.

Spiritual adventure.

So that's what that song was about.

And that was a pretty accurate description of my journey.

Man walks down the street. It's a street in a strange world.

Maybe it's the third world.

Maybe it's his first time around. Doesn't speak the language.

He holds no currency. He is a foreign man.

He is surrounded by the sound. The sound is the marketplaces.

Scatterlings and orphanages.

He looks around, around.

He sees angels in the architecture. They're spinning in infinity. He says,

amen, hallelujah. If you'll be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal.

I can call you Betty. And Betty, when you call me, you can call me out. The

whole process of this writing came from a deep analysis of what was going on in

the tracks.

Because the African musicians were playing what they normally play in a way

that was different from the way American musicians that I was familiar with were

playing.

I was coming out of folk rock that was pretty symmetrical.

It didn't change from verse to verse.

Their patterns altered in some subtle way.

And I was either playing in the studio when it happened or in the control room

and wasn't aware of what the pattern was at all.

Didn't realize that there had been a variation in the pattern, either

intentional or unintentional, until many months later when I was writing.

I'd work on songs and then I'd say, well, everything is going, everything is

good. The first verse is good. The second verse, I don't know, it's not so

good. Third verse, that's good. Well, things are good. Things are good, except

why doesn't the second verse work?

You know what I mean?

Okay, now I'm really going to listen to the second verse.

Now I'm putting aside my assumption that it's exactly the same and so it should

work, which I stayed with for...

stubbornly for a long time, well, it should work, so that's it. I'm not going

to change because it's supposed to work.

Then I would begin to listen and I'd say, oh, sure enough, there's a

variation in here.

There's a variation that I'm not taking into account.

And that degree of listening was my education.

That's where that's that's what I learned.

I learned to listen on a level that I had never experienced before He pulled

it off. He did it. He did do it. He slaved over it. He sweated blood over it

I blew my gums bled over it Unbelievable, it's just unbelievable

People say she's crazy she got diamonds on the

soles of her shoes

Well, that's one way to lose these walking blues Diamonds on the soles of

her shoes Diamonds on the soles of her shoes was a phrase that I had written

down but hadn't used anymore.

And Diamonds on the soles of her shoes was the last song that we recorded and

was never intended to be on the album.

The album was originally supposed to come out in June of 1986.

We were going to play Saturday Night Live.

So everybody was here. The whole band was here.

We were all going to do the show. And then Warner Brothers said we would

prefer to release this in the fall.

So Roy and I said, why don't we try another song?

It was more of a jam thing than a song.

And then the following day, we were at the Heat Factory.

And after...

Two takes it was in.

Because we're having so much fun already, we've developed a working

relationship that said something.

Hence, you find that even Bagithi's lick... It

is in reply to...

Now he is answering back.

That's how, that's what makes me very excited.

It's just a conversation.

The singing is very relaxed too.

It just feels like everybody was very comfortable.

I tried to write a part over here in words.

Couldn't think of anything.

So we left it as a horn solo.

Not even a horn solo.

Probably wrote this part as a background.

Nothing here. Just letting it go, I guess.

Letting the band play, really.

Domesticity.

Aftershave is a word from another era.

And I love that he compensated for his ordinary shoes.

Finishing the record and going and playing it back for the exact Warner

Brothers and having them look at each other and wonder what this was all

about.

It was a lot of fun.

And then to see the success, man, was woo.

What if it hadn't worked? I thought of that sometimes, sitting on the first

night in an opera and thinking, well...

What if they laugh? What if it doesn't work?

And you've put all this into it.

And you have to have that, the confidence in the work, to carry it

right through to the end.

Even though, in point of fact, you don't really know.

I think that was particularly true for Graceland. In retrospect, it seemed

like, as I say, it was an instant classic in a way. So what was the big

deal? What was to worry about? But we didn't know that, and I don't think Paul

knew that.

She's physically forgotten That she slipped into my pocket with my car key

She said, you've taken me for granted because I've missed you.

Where in the sky was I?

And I could say, oh, oh, oh, oh.

As if everybody knows what I'm talking about.

As if everybody here knows exactly what I was talking about.

Talk about times I'm so confused.

She makes a sign of a teaspoon, makes a sign of a wave.

The poor boy changes clothes and puts on a half to show.

Compensate for his ordinary shoes.

She said, honey, take me dancing. But they ended up sleeping in a doorway.

By the bodegas and the lights on Upper Broadway.

Wearing diamonds on the soles of their shoes.

And I can say, everybody

here would know what I was talking about.

I mean, everybody here know exactly what I was talking about.

Talking about diamonds, diamonds on the shoulders of us.

People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes, yeah.

Well, that's one way to lose these walking grooves.

Diamonds on the soles of your shoes.

Graceland was, you know, going to college for me, rhythmically.

But also just in a sense of playing the world, the

larger world.

The ability to interweave the cultures, to me it's obvious to interweave them

musically anyway, because we're just taking...

songs and having a musical discussion across a language barrier without

any problem in understanding each other.

And that was like Graceland. That's what that album had.

An unusual degree of understanding amongst people who had

just met.