Graceland

The skeleton key to this song, and the whole album, is Paul Simon's song "Late in the Evening," which, I think, first appeared on the "One Trick Pony" soundtrack.

The key is the line "it was late in the evening, and the music pulled me through..."

The whole Graceland album braids three strands, Simon's own personal story of loss and love, the recurring power of African and African-American music to refresh the musical world, and the related power of that music to heal loss and love.

So the "Graceland album," to me, is a "Canterbury Tales" pilgrimage back to the "roots of rhythm," in Africa, in Memphis, where black music jumped the barrier into white culture through Elvis' music, in New Orleans, where Zydeco continued the dialogue.

And the song itself is about Simon healing his own pain by going back to his musical roots.

IMHO

Actually, Simon has said the song really has nothing to do with Elvis, which is why he was hesitant about naming the album (and even the song) Graceland.

It's a pilgrimage of sorts...his wife has just left him, and he's taking a bus/train to Graceland with his son. And the journey has something to do with redemption, at least he hopes. The people travelling with him ("ghosts and empty sockets") also look like they need to be redeemed.

So it's about turmoil, and how it leads us to flee and seek something to make it better. That's what it is to me.

I've always thought that line "Through the cradle of the civil war" was a lovely play on words. He seems to be talking about both geography and the civil war he's in with his marriage ending.

Okay, let's clear up the whole Graceland issue...

Maybe it was just a word he read in a newspaper, or an offhand decision of that nature. I'd like to believe that it wasn't, because that really cheapens the whole thing doesn't it?

Elvis Presley is the embodiment of rock/popular music, so the persona's pilgrimage to Graceland mirrors Simon's musical journey to South Africa. Plus the whole idea of Graceland was a fantasy destination - a place that represented the flashy artifice of American culture in a particular period of history.

my favorite line is, "she comes back to tell me she is gone, as if i didn't know that, as if i didn't know my own bed, as if i never noticed, how she brushed her hair from her forehead." paul nails how if feels when you break up with someone. First and foremost, he is mad and makes fun of her, as most people make fun of their ex, But then the next line he softens his voice and basically says he still loves her. He nails the feeling of loving her and hating her at the same time.

I don't see how "graceland" could be just a placeholder word. It is integral to the basic story of the song, which is about a father and and son driving through the Mississippi Delta to see Graceland, which is a popular tourist attraction in Memphis, TN (at the top of the Delta). If it were another word like "wasteland", it wouldn't make sense to the story. As far as any deeper meaning, that's open for interpretation.

I watched Carrie Fisher's one woman show a few weeks ago, and she talked about breaking up with him by flying to the other-side of the country to wherever they were working on her movie, so maybe that's where the "there's a girl in New York City" comes from Also, I always assumed 'who calls herself a human trampoline' was a bipolar reference, or maybe their on/of relationship given the context of the earlier part of that sentence.

So, there's two ways to look at this song - literal and metaphorical, just like any song really...

The literal meaning of this song has been confirmed to be about a road trip Paul Simon took with his young son from his first marriage after parting ways with Carrie Fisher. As I'd assume is the case with many famous couples, their relationship was fairly turbulent and they dated on/off both before AND after their marriage...I believe the split is what provided the catalyst for doing the album.

Of course, the metaphor within this song is much deeper and what makes it tangible to us as listeners beyond just Simon's personal experience. Don't we all try to get away after a bad break-up just to have it follow us in our heads and play back the many conversations or keys to why it failed? As he remembers something his lover said, he quotes her: "Losing love is like a window to your heart - everybody sees your blown apart, everybody sees the wind blow." Things that you gloss over at the time or try to ignore can end up coming back to you again and again, much like he remembers the line and hears it just a little differently each time he repeats it.

Ultimately, as he approaches his destination (literally and metaphorically) he is confident that he'll be able to move past the end of something that he cannot understand or explain and just be received as he is.

This song has such beautiful lyrics. I've always loved Paul Simon but this song I had mostly heard on the radio and just thought was a fun, light song about Graceland. It wasn't until I sat down and listened to it that I realized it was really about his divorce and being a single dad. "Losing love is like a window in your heart. Everybody sees you're blown apart." Love that line. It's a very mature and sophisticated song. He paints such a beautiful picture of travelling with his son and his introspection after his marriage. The song to me is about him finally being able to let go. Graceland is a metaphor for his salvation, and the portrait he paints of all the wandering pilgrims with their broken families travelling is just beautiful. We are all like him, lost and wandering and looking for salvation.

It sounds like Simon's effort to exorcise his memory of Carrie Fisher through a USA road trip but it's not really working.