Simon & Garfunkel & Dadaism

Introduction

There's a line in Simon & Garfunkel's song, The Only Living Boy in New York, that deserves a bit of analysis: "Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da and here I am." Today, I will try to connect that line to the art movement known as Dada or Dadaism.

I will also offer a few comments not related to Dada, and will end with a suggestion for Paul and Art concerning another great song of theirs, A Poem on the Underground Wall.

Da-da = Dada?

Paul Simon on occasion will add la-la's and other such fillers to his lyrics - The 59th Street Bridge Song (among others) come to mind. Even The Boxer came close - but only "close" since Paul wrote "lie, lie, lie, lie...") instead of la-la-la... Whew, glad he wrote it as he did, since"lie, lie..." was actually appropriate to the song and profoundly reinforced its theme.

I used to think the "Da-n-da..." line was similar filler - and perhaps it is. I don't know what Paul was thinking as he wrote this beautiful song (scroll down for complete lyrics and a link, with its letters in red font, to a YouTube performance). But I'll offer my interpretation since, as I once told a friend, "It doesn't matter what the artist intended for once he gives his art to the world, the beholder is entitled to his own interpretation."

This is from the song:

"Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da and here I am,
The only living boy in New York"

The purist in me would have preferred this:

"Da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am."

NOTE: Where "n" is used, that's shorthand for "and" - such as in "Rock-n-Roll."

In my rendering, the line would translate as:

"Dada and Dada and Dada and Dada and here I am," with "Dada" = "here I am" since that's what one would expect to hear after so many prior repetitions of "Dada." That's an existential statement of equality saying, "I am a personification of Dada - one who (as quoted below) "[prizes] nonsense, irrationality and intuition." Another possible meaning: Since Art had left NYC to act in the film Catch-22, Paul might have been saying Art (nice pun, eh, with a name like "Art" since Dada was born as an artistic movement) is Dada, like this:

"Art and Art and Art and Art and here I am."

Since Catch-22 was a profoundly anti-war film, any Dadaist would appreciate how Art's participation in this movie was the "negative reaction [to war]" quoted below, in the definition of Dada.

I put "Da-da" up front in my preferred rendering of this line - which to me puts emphasis on Dada, the art movement. If Paul Simon had in mind what I have in mind, he might have written as he did to disguise the reference to Dada by not opening with "Da-da." Sometimes artists don't like to be too direct with their audiences, allowing them to figure it out.

I'll break here to insert a Wikipedia link to Dada and a quote from that link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

QUOTE:

Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of artist and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words da, da, meaning yes, yes in the Romanian language.

:UNQUOTE.

My reaction to the immediately preceding quote:

Paul Simon refers to himself as the only living boy in New York, since Art Garfunkel, the only other living boy in New York (in Paul's estimation) had left in the middle of recording an album to act in the movie Catch-22. If we assume New York City to be the center of a big rat race where a lot of alpha males are trying to make a mark, I could see how the soul of an artist would rebel against that. Dada's  "negative reaction to the horrors of World War I" could translate to Paul Simon's negative reaction to the war zone that all-too-often can be New York City.

Calling himself a "boy" is a reaction to all the Type A's running around NYC who are always trying to prove what big men they are. It also harkens to the early part of his friendship with Art Garfunkel, starting when they were 12-years-old when they were both boys.

The quote says "Dada...[prized]...intuition," which is a quality closer to the soul of an artist than "reason and logic."

If Dada's meaning came from "...frequent use of the words da, da, meaning yes, yes in the Romanian language," that too would work in the line as follows:

"Yes, yes, and yes, yes, and yes, yes, and yes, yes and here I am."

All of those positives (repetitive use of yes) culminating in "here I am." Or, to put a finer point on it: "yes, yes = here I am." Suppose, instead, Dada doesn't mean "yes, yes." Then the line could be interpreted this way:

"Dada and Dada and Dada and Dada and here I am," with "here I am" = "Dada" or "I am the personification of the spirit of Dada.

All those "ahhhs"

I liked how Simon had "trouble" (I think "intentional trouble") singing the lowest note in the song, when he sang the word "York." That was a tip of his hat to how much Garfunkel's singing enhanced Paul's efforts. There's a lovely virtual choral part that repeats several times in this song, which this quote clarifies:

QUOTE [ http://www.allmusic.com/song/the-only-living-boy-in-new-york-mt0033991212 ]:

In an interview with Song Talk magazine, Simon commented, "I like that record, and I like the song, too. That was written about Artie's going off to make Catch 22 in Mexico," referenced in the song's first verse: "Tom, get your plane right on time/I know your part'll go fine/Fly down to Mexico."

In the same interview, Simon goes on to comment on the arrangement: "I liked the 'aaahhhs,' the voices singing 'aaah.' ... It was quite a lot of voices we put on, maybe 12 or 15 voices. We sang it in the echo-chamber...." ...[Garfunkel said], "It's [me and Paul] around eight times screaming, and we mixed it down very softly...I started getting into open-mouth harmony, in a very loud, strident way. We were screaming at the top of our lungs and inside an echo chamber...."

:UNQUOTE.

So the contrast between Paul's badly sung low note and the chorus of angels singing "ahhh" is quite striking - especially since that "chorus" consists of Paul and Art singing in a number of different voices using about eight combined tracks. That chorus was neither Paul nor Art but was a fusion of their voices, each voice representing a different facet of each singer. It might even be thought of as non-sensical to repeatedly sing "ah." But since Dada embraces the non-sensical as part of art, I think it fits. But for those who like a bit a meaning, I offer this: Maybe "ahh...ahh...here I am," could be interpreted to mean "ah [with all of those ah's using the meaning of "ah" as in "relax" - as opposed to the meanings implied in "ah ha" and "ah, I get it"] here I am." In other words, "relax, here I am."

The lyrics themselves and some comments

QUOTE: [ http://www.paulsimon.com/us/song/only-living-boy-new-york ], [After this quote, I will explain why I highlighted some of these lyrics in color.]:

Tom, get your plane right on time
I know your part’ll go fine
Fly down to Mexico
Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da and here I am,
The only living boy in New York

I get the news I need on the weather report
Oh, I can gather all the news I need on the weather report
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile
Da-n-do-da-n-do-da-n-do here I am
The only living boy in New York

Half of the time we’re gone but we don’t know where
And we don’t know where
Here I am
Half of the time we’re gone, but we don’t know where
And we don’t know where

Tom, get your plane right on time
I know that you’ve been eager to fly now
Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine now
[da-n-da-da...]
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in New York
The only living boy in New York

:UNQUOTE.

RE: The lines highlighted above

The two lines in yellow are different, which I think must be a mistake (in the case of the 2nd line). Mistake? That might be hard to believe, since this particular site (check it out) seems to be an "official" Paul Simon website. If so, I doubt Paul exercised much control (if any) over content, since the parts I highlighted in green (which are part of the actual song) do not appear in these lyrics as quoted on this website. Listening to the song itself, it's hard to say exactly what Paul is singing in the lines where "da" appears. Perhaps that's just another case of an artist trying to blur his meanings.

RE: "Half of the time..."

A friend of mine saw a recent Paul Simon concert in a relatively intimate venue. He said, "Paul has a wicked sense of humor." This song has one good example of that - where he repeats verbatim the line that starts out with "Half of the time." Some critics might claim that repetition is often the mark of a poor lyricist, one who couldn't think of a better second line. I like to think there are two possibilities, since I respect Paul Simon too much to think he'd ever simply be too lazy or uninspired to come up with a different line:

• After singing "Half of the time..." once, it's repeated since the singers not only didn't "know where [they had gone]," but had forgotten about being gone the first time. Hence, my reference to Paul's sense of humor.

• After singing "Half of the time..." once, the line is repeated in reference to the second half of the time we're are "gone," but "we don't know where." In other words, these lines could be written, "All of the time we're gone..."

A YouTube performance

This link will take you to the track from their album on which Paul and Art sing this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IwYQ1Vqf_4

Re-releasing "A Poem..."

Simon and Garfunkel should consider adding these two tracks (one immediately following the other) to a future album, in this order:

• "A Poem on the Underground Wall, exactly as it appears on their album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme.

• This same version slowed down to 16 rpms so that anyone playing the album at regular speed (33⅓ rpms) would hear it as a slowed-down version.

Same song, of course. But when played "slowly," it sounds like a completely different song with, I think, a greater sense of presence and darkness.

When I was 14-years-old (in 1965), I slowed this song down by using a record player with 4 speeds: 78 rpm, 45, 33⅓, and 16. In the old days (before CD players), you had to adjust your music machine to play at 45 rpm if you had a (gasp!) vinyl record with only one song on each side. If you had an album, you cranked it down (literally, by using a gear-shift kind of manual crank) to 33⅓ rpm. Certain vintage LPs played at 78.

I never understood what the 16 rpm setting was for, hence my experiment: I played Poem on the Underground Wall, literally, in slow-motion. Just for the hell of it; you know how kids are. Talk about a happy accident! Given the fact that S&G sing so highly and sweetly, notching them down an octave made them sound like (well) regular guys singing.

Even though that was over 40 years ago, I'll never forget how overwhelmed I was by being immersed in the echoes of a subway station late at night as they opened with:

"The last train is nearly due, the underground is closing soon, and in the dark deserted station, restless in anticipation, a man waits in the shadows."

After the last footstepping notes sounded, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Steven Searle, former candidate for US President (in 2008 and 2012)
Founder of The Independent Contractors' Party

"Thanks for all the memories, Paul and Artie" - Steve.

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com