The 50(ish) Greatest Albums of All Time
Springing Into Graceland
Album #13 : Paul Simon — Graceland
Spring has definitely sprung where I am. The mornings are brighter and the evenings are lighter, the weather has turned a corner (although, I live in Glasgow, so it is probably doing a three-point turn) and nature is showing signs of new life.
I was driving on the weekend and saw hundreds of daffodils sprouting up beneath the still leafless, wintery trees. It reminded me that, whilst hope is here now, the evidence of the harsh winter that has come before is still there for all to see. Appropriately, this week also mark’s exactly 1 year since the UK was plunged into lockdown and there is a real sense of hope about moving out of it. In many ways, it is hard to believe it has been a full 12 months, but also hard to believe is has only been a year.
To complete our triumvirate of new beginnings, this week’s album was something of a revival for its creator. Paul Simon was in a rut before Graceland; his relationship with Art Garfunkel had completely broken down, as had his marriage to Carrie Fisher, and his most recent album was a commercial failure. The story goes that he became obsessed with a tape of mbaqanga music, and travelled to South Africa to record. That result of that pilgrimage was Graceland which is widely regarded, including by me, as one of the best albums of all time.
It also has one of the most jarring opening bars of all time, but if you can get passed the bizarre accordion intro to The Boy in The Bubble (which is not a Covid reference), Graceland has so much to offer. Musically, it is fascinating but as always with Paul Simon it is glorious lyrically as well.
In case it isn’t obvious, I have listened to this record a lot. There isn’t much that I discovered for the first time this week. However, as we (hopefully) start to move out of pandemic life and back into the real world, I have been doing some mental spring cleaning. Here are some lessons I have learnt over the last year, which conveniently match up with some of the themes covered in Graceland…
“I was having this discussion in a taxi heading downtown, rearranging my position on this friend of mine who had a little bit of a breakdown…”
Mental health is so important. But it means more than diagnosing yourself with S.A.D. and living miserably. I am not saying anything new, but I have found over the last year it has been good to check in with myself as well as others. And to answer honestly when people ask you how you are, they are probably feeling the same way.
“There is a girl in New York City, who calls herself the human trampoline, and sometimes when I’m falling, flying or tumbling in turmoil I say, woah, so this is what she means.”
One thing that I have really enjoyed over the last 12 months is properly taking time to relax, maybe even too much, and not go rushing from pillar to post every weekend. I have done too much falling, flying and tumbling over the last few years — as we move out of lockdowns I need to try and remember not to fill every available minute with activities.
“If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your long-lost pal.”
Friendship. Above all else, friendship. A note on this song: I think You Can Call Me Al is my favourite song of all time. Not the best song, but my favourite. It is objectively naff but fills me with such joy as it reminds me so much of nights with friends and being absolutely, relentlessly silly. It reminds me of singing the name of ex-Wigan Athletic defender Emmerson Boyce over the brass riff after Wigan won the FA cup. We are not even Wigan fans.
It also has one of the greatest music videos of all time, which reminds me of my dad explaining who the people were when I first saw it.
“There was no doubt about it, it was the myth of fingerprints, I’ve seem them all and man they’re all the same.”
Conspiracy theories. Don’t. (I wrote about this quite a lot here).
There are plenty of other things I have picked up over the last twelve months — like, I can’t get away with baking my own brownies and expecting to stay thin — but these are some of the main ones.
Here’s hoping I don’t have to do another list in 12 months’ time. It is raining again now, but I’m not giving up hope — it’s good for the flowers.
