Outrageous Lyrics
Outrageous the crime some human beings must endure.
It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain.
It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain.
I'm painting my hair the colour of mud, mud, okay?
I'm tired, tired
Anybody care what I say? No!
I'm painting my hair the colour of mud.
Tell me, who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Aw, who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Outrageous, the way they talk to you like you're some kind of clinical fool
It's a blessing to rest my head in the circle of your love.
It's outrageous I can't stop thinking about the things I'm thinking of.
I'm painting my hair the colour of mud, mud, okay?
I'm tired, tired, anybody care what I say? No!
Painting my hair the colour of mud.
Tell me, who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Tell me, who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Like he waters the flowers on your window sill.
Take me, I'm an ordinary player in the key of C,
And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity
God will,
Like he waters the flowers on your window sill.
One of the greatest Simon songs, in my opinion. Simon loves word play, but with this album it is almost cryptic.
Interesting observations about this song:
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The first two syllables in the song are sung before any music is heard. ("It's out-") and music enters on the third syllable ("rage") cleverly emphasizing his rage in the outrageousness.
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"Painting my hair the color of mud" - cheap hair dye, effort to appear younger.
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"Whose gonna love you when your looks are gone?" God? Nope, don't count on it. This is Simon word play at its best. He tells us that "God will like he waters the flowers on your window sill". When was the last time it rained indoors? A window sill is on the inside of the house. Therefore, God doesn't water those flowers, you have to.
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Simon is fascinated with water throughout this album. In this song alone there are four refrences to water using: "wash", "rain" and "water".
Heard this song on Sirius radio last night for the fist time...LOVE IT!!
I like your idea about the window, but I think you are reading too deep into it. A windowsill is what sits benath the window -- this does not necessarily mean indoors. Furthermore, people usually keep house plants on the inside of windows for sunlight, not flowers. Flowers are typically outside a window, planted in a horizontal (trough-like) pot. Imagine looking at a window from the outside with shudders, and then flowers below the window. That's not to say that people can't or don't have flowers inside near a window; I'm merely saying that you probably can't deduce that meaning from that particular lyric.
"3. "Whose gonna love you when your looks are gone?" God? Nope, don't count on it. This is Simon word play at its best. He tells us that "God will like he waters the flowers on your window sill". When was the last time it rained indoors? A window sill is on the inside of the house. Therefore, God doesn't water those flowers, you have to."
This is a logical fallacy in and of itself. Paul Simon does not use cryptic wordplay to preach a message of destitution and dismay, but rather a message of hope. And me, I'm simply an ordinary sinner being changed by God's grace, day by day.
If you want to get entirely logical about it, notice that searching for the phrase "flowers on a windowsill" on Google Image Search returns equal numbers of indoor and outdoor flowers (before they had glass, flowers on a windowsill would have been simultaneously indoors and outdoors. He is saying that God will love you no matter what, regardless of looks. You can't possibly deduce that he is saying God -won't- love you when your looks are gone because he says windowsill, a word that has multiple meanings.