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 shattering of 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 slo-mo
The way we look to us all
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 was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
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 turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Think of the boy in the bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart
And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
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, don't cry
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of 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 slo-mo
The way we look to us all
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 was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
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 turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Think of the boy in the bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart
And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
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, don't cry
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"The way we look to a distant constellation that's dying in the corner of the sky." -- ever wished upon a star? or looked at the heavens and prayed, or wondered if there's a god out there, if suffering has meaning, or the reason for your pain in the world? I think that's what's meant, but we're out praying on a star that long ago died out, even though we don't know it yet...
"the way the camera follows us in slo-mo, the way we look to us all" -- for some reason this reminds me of those save the children ads, showing children with bloated bellies running, turning slowly. i think it means there's a certain humanity to be recognized if we really look at any other person.
There's definitely a juxtaposition in this song between the developed, civilized world and those that still have to deal with rampant poverty, wars, /drought/disease, and so forth.... perhaps while many of us still sit in relative comfort and luxury, only giving the passing thought to the problems of the world, a passing prayer, but not realizing how our lives and lifestyles are intertwined with their suffering... I feel I see those that are horribly affected by these tragedies are out there praying as well, but perhaps in the song it mostly focuses on the passing thoughts of privileged western peoples... I can't help seeing it from the POV of those who experienced these things though.
Sorry if this is piecemeal, but to me this song is still vignettes. This is what I see so far in this song.
I take the lyrics pretty straightforwardly within the context of the recording of the album. Simon was recording with artists in apartheid era South Africa.
The opening verse is highly reminiscent of the political violence that was pervasive in 1980s South Africa. The South African (ie, white) military machine couldn't be confronted directly by the liberation fighters but the ANC set about to make the country ungovernable, and embarked on a campaign of sabotage and bombings - hence "the soldiers on the side of the road" and "the bomb in the baby carriage."
I also think "the lasers in the jungle" and the "loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires" must be viewed through the lens of the struggle against apartheid. The conflict in SA spilled over to Namibia and Angola and involved fierce and brutal violence throughout Southern Africa - not to mention the civil wars in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
South Africa was, and is, a nation defined by resource extraction. Gold, diamonds, platinum. There were millionaires and billionaires there fueling untold misery for the sake of holding onto their economic privilege on the continent.
Paul Simon had his reasons for being oblique with his political commentary regarding apartheid South Africa on this record - but I think it'd be a mistake to think it was absent from a song like this one.
So, war in general, though I agree a good bit of it comes out of South Africa.
The baby with the baboon heart refers to a case in 1984 when a baby (Fae) who was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, which is a lethal underdevelopment of the left side of the heart. In an effort to save her life, surgeons transplanted a heart from a baboon into her. It initially looked like it had worked, but baby Fae ultimately died.
I'd say these are invoked in the song as instances where technological advances keep alive people who would have died at birth without modern medicine - hence "These are the days of miracle and wonder".
The "Boy in the Bubble" was David Vetter. The bone marrow transplant was a new, experimental procedure they had just come up with to resuscitate his immune system. (The hospital's experiment with David was basically over, and it was looking for ways to divest itself of him.) It might have worked, but a virus crept into the transplant material which caused rampant cancerous tumors in little David. The cruel irony is that the donor was his older sister. As an older sibling (and parent of small children) myself, I've often thought about the mental anguish she must have gone through, that in her attempt to free him she effectively killed him--and I wish I could tell her that She Did The Right Thing. For what little consolation that would be.
Simon's references to David are to him as he was portrayed in the press--as a little boy bravely facing his affliction. In reality he became psychologically unstable due to lack of human contact, the seeming hopelessness of his situation, and the looming (to his mind) threat of disease all around him / his bubble. Similarly, the images on the song's video aren't an accurate portrayal of what he or his bubble environment looked like. Then again, what's known about him now wasn't widely available in 1984 when the video was released.
While the song is beautiful, I don't find it very uplifting. I find it kind of cynical.
Maybe due to the nuclear tests in Nevada or even due to the core melt in Chernobyl (April 1986; Graceland album was released in August 1986; recorded till June).
It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
it curled into the circle of birth: damage of DNA caused by nuclear radiation
And the DEAD SAND FALLING on the children the mothers and the fathers: nuclear fallout
And the automatic earth: the damage of electronic devices caused by the Electromagnetic Pulse of a nuclear explosion