Day 01 ~ Your favourite song ~ Graceland - Paul Simon

Is Graceland the best album ever made? Is the title track one of the best songs ever sung? They must be contenders...

The song reminds me of so many things, but above all my sister, travelling through the US and emailing home to my father and I :

The Mississippi delta...  is shining like a national guitar. I am following the river, down the highway, through the cradle of the Civil War -  I'm going to Graceland. Graceland! Memphis, Tennessee.

and she was. Mind you she always writes home lyrically.

I once saw a documentary where Paul Simon played the album and talked about how he had come to write it, and the meaning of the songs. His favourite lyric in this song? "My travelling companion is nine years old. He's the child of my first marriage".  "I like that", he said, "a lot of people have a child from their first marriage"

The song ends

Maybe I've a reason to believe
We all will be received 
In Graceland

"Not Memphis, Tennessee, now", Simon remarked as he played it. "Oh no we're not in Memphis anymore".

For me: it's a song that lifts the soul, raises the spirits and taps the toes. An all-time favourite.