Simon and his first wife Peggy arrived, meeting their host at the door, who evidently had no clue who they were. song: "You Can Call Me Al", try { The strongest image for me was the roly poly little bat-face girl, whom I saw as Yoko Ono. The second verse is really a recapitulation of the first: A man walks down the street he says… another thing. A man walks down the streetIt’s a street in a strange worldMaybe it’s the third worldMaybe it’s his first time aroundDoesn’t speak the languageHe holds no currencyHe is a foreign manHe is surrounded by the sound, the soundCattle in the marketplaceScatterings and orphanagesHe looks around, aroundHe sees angels in the architectureSpinning in infinityHe says, “Amen and Hallelujah!”If you’ll be my bodyguardI can be your long lost palI can call you BettyAnd Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al. Brother, can you spare a dime? The poetry has multitudes of interpretation (as well as more than a single point of inspiration) but don't forget that the poet cannot divorce HIMSELF from his WORK. The short little span of attention is a penis joke, I recall hearing an interview with paul yrs ago where he addressed this. artist: "Paul Simon", I did not hear the word "and," but maybe that's what made me imagine the "in'". I always have this image in my mind of a road that goes like this: [motions with hands to signify a road that starts narrow and gets wider as it opens out], so that the implication is that the directions are pointing outward. Their concentration is not even there. The lyrics shift from the ordinary language of the first verse to a third verse imbued with enriched imagery, ... “You Can Call Me Al,” Live in Hyde Park, London, UK. Vertaling van: Paul Simon - You can call me Al Een man loopt door de straat. ----- You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon ----- Written by: Paul Simon From: "Graceland" (1986) Tabbed by: maguri Tuning: Standard I use a capo on the 3rd fret for playability. "Al" (supposedly a white man) needs a "bodyguard", a "role model" in this land he's in. adunit_id: 100001411, as a reference to the bad jokes that always seemed to start with "a man walks into a bar . Whether the "role model" is actually a person, or just a metaphor for old habits or old values or cultural expectations, etc., etc., the gist of the second verse is that the narrator is throwing off corrupt influences. In the third verse he finds grounding again, in a new environment that he finds completely authentic. At the time Paul Simon wrote "You Can Call Me Al," South Africa had only two official languages: English and Afrikaans, the Dutch-derived language of the white Boer community. Then on a personal, noncommercial whim, he heads off to southern Africa (Third World at least for the Bantu population) and hooks up with this vibrant music scene that gets him going again. Is it possible that the chorus is a comical, nonsensical reference to Chevy Chase's Caddyshack dealings with Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield) and Danny Noonen, to whom Chevy says, "I like you Betty." _g1.classList.remove('lazyload'); Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? maybe, I don't know. Paul Simon. 2. var _g1; I dare you not to find their marriage as both a tonic and poison to him. The progression is backward, from the current, stagnant situation through the fear of facing life to the innocence of first coming to the world without many former lives and no experience. "Al" doesn't want to be seen as an alcoholic, that's why he enlists "Betty's" help, in the first place. As opposed to what you’re thinking. "Betty" may represent the Betty Ford Clinic, a well-known alcoholism clinic in the US made famous for its treatment of some well-known celebrities. Bakithi improvised the fast fretless break, which Roy sonically doctored in New York; he used the first half of the phrase, then reversed it for the second half, creating a musical palindrome. I feel like the end of the song gives it away, this song was on "graceland" which was greatly influenced by South America. What he realizes he really needs is a new "role model", now that his old life is gone. So I started to try and work with more feelings around with words because the sound of the record was so good, you could move feelings.“You Can Call Me Al” starts very ordinary, almost like a joke; like the structure of a joke cliche; “There’s a rabbi, a minister and a priest….” “Two Jews walk into a bar…” “A man walks down the street…”  That’s what I was doing there.Because how you begin a song is one of the hardest things. _g1.setAttribute('src', _g1.getAttribute('data-src') ); _g1 = document.getElementById('g1-logo-inverted-source'); _g1.classList.remove('lazyload'); Whereas in Graceland,  I tried to do it where you wouldn’t notice it, where you sort of passed the line and then it was over. To request one's aid or expertise. To ask one to come to a particular place. The album's hit track, "You Can Call Me Al" is a story of resilience and redemption. However, instead of doing the *right* thing, he instead "ducks back down the alley" of alcoholism, making the same mistakes again--even falling into hiring prostitiutes (referenced by the "roly-poly little bat-faced girl") to try to assuage his fears and doubts. _g1 = document.getElementById('g1-logo-mobile-inverted-img'); You don’t have to kill them; you don’t have to grab them by the throat with the first lineIn fact, you have to wait for the audience. Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime; Once I built a tower, now it's done. His savior, "Betty" (a black man), is that person. They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead, Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread? Call Me Lyrics: (Metro Boomin want some more, nigga) / They tell me, "Don't forget where you came from" / I regret what I came from / In my old hood moving like I got a vest on me / I'ma keep on The result is that in the second verse he is in transition, unnervingly ungrounded. } I'm here because I heard earlier today when I listened that Paul's vocal track drops out completely between amen and hallelujah, and I have a theory that it was originally "amen, fuckin' hallelujah" and he edited it out for airplay. Toggle navigation. Lyrics Depot is your source of lyrics to You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon. 1) When a person is attracted to another person but does not want to seem too eager, and so makes the other person ring them. Are you a songwriter? It’s like a Zen exercise, really. Ironically, this request does exactly what they don't want it to do. "Dogs in the moonlight...Get these mutts away from me". _g1.setAttribute('srcset', _g1.getAttribute('data-srcset')); The song ends with “…Angels in the Architecture, spinning in infinity / He says Amen and Hallelujah” From the end of Paradiso: “But already my desire and my will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars” The Divine Comedy as a whole can be seen to be an allegory on redemption, as Dante struggles with the knowledge of his sins and failings until he finds salvation at the end. How does "dogs in the moonlight" mean someone's problems and how the heck is anyone supposed to even remotely know what that is supposed to mean? In the first two books Dante is led through Hell and Purgatory by the Roman poet Virgil, who early on rescues him in the woods when he is attacked by various beasts including wolves and throws sand in Cerberus'(Hell's watchdog) face in order to gain entry to Hell. “A Train in the Distance” is in itself that kind of speech: “Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance; everybody thinks it’s true.” That is imagery, and that’s the title.So by the time I got to Graceland,  I was trying to let that kind of enriched language flow naturally in the course of it, so that you wouldn’t really notice it as much. The rest of my life is so hard I ne Become a member. Maybe it's his first time around. I think this interpretation can be added on top of some of the other insights, adding an additional layer of complexity and meaning to the song. /* TFP - lyricinterpretations */ Call Me by Blondie song meaning, lyric interpretation, video and chart position. Will you go call in the kids? That said: I was stunned just now, listening to "brother can you spare a dime". So give them easy words and easy thoughts and let it move along, and let the mind get into the groove of it. So now you have this guy who’s no longer thinking about the mundane thoughts, about whether he’s getting too fat, whether he needs a photo opportunity or whether he’s afraid of the dogs in the moonlight and the graveyard,  and he’s off in: “Listen to the sound, look what’s going on… there’s cattle and scatterlings…And these sounds are very fantastic. What you’re determined to say is filled with all your rationalizations and your defenses, and all of that what you want to say to the world. } Ik heb een herinnering in beeld nodig. I really want to tell someone who commented before thqt it wasnt Carrie whp was called Betty by somepne: it was Peggy. He has a very interesting take on the world he inhabits and an even more interesting way of taking those little fragments that happen to all of us, like the bungling of his name, and showing us that they're not really little fragments at all, they're what we are. Why am I soft in the middle? At least that is how I remember the story. " Because Virgil is not a Christian, he cannot lead Dante into Paradise. It was completed at the Hit Factory in New York with Roy Halee in April of 1986. Call me Al..... A man walks down the street, It's a street in a strange world. I remember everyone I knew thinking he must have been in drugs when he wrote this song because it just made no sense at all. As he was leaving he said goodnight to his hosts, calling Paul and his wife Al and Betty. It just basically just poured out of me when I was kind of feeling at my lowest point in my life, and so it kind of was a way to comfort myself. I can call you Betty And Betty, when you call me You can call me Al Call me Al 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 He doesn't speak the language He holds no currency He is a foreign man He is surrounded by the sound, the sound Cattle in the marketplace ...so Betty when you call me..."" Once I built a railroad; now it's done. It's certainly no common English language phrase that I've ever heard before. To let the words tumble this way and that way, and sometimes I’d increase the rhythm of the words so that they would come by you and then when a phrase was sort of different and came by you so quickly that all you could get was the feeling. I was trying to learn how to be able to write vernacular speech and then intersperse it with enriched language, and then go back to vernacular. He doesn't speak the language, He holds no currency. Produced and co-written by Italian musician Giorgio Moroder and released in the United States in early 1980 as a single, "Call Me" was No. Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an award-winning musician whose talents in composing, performing, and vocal harmony placed him at the forefront of the singer-songwriters on an international scale. Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell, Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum, Half a million boots went slogging through Hell, And I was the kid with the drum!