Father and Daughter, Paul Simon

January 19, 2007

If you had to look for the poet of family life, you might do worse than Paul Simon. It would have been difficult to guess that the man who wrote "I am a Rock" in the 60s or "Have a Good Time" in the 70s would turn so strongly to songs about family and children.

One of my favorite songs from the album Rhythm of the Saints is "Born at the Right Time":

Too many people on the bus from the airport
Too many holes in the crust of the earth
The planet groans
Every time it registers another birth

But among the reeds and rushes
A baby girl was found
Her eyes as clear as centuries
Her silky hair was brown

Dire observations about the contemporary world give way to a lovely description of a single child found among the "reeds and rushes".. which inevitably calls to mind the discovery of baby Moses. Perhaps, like baby Moses, this child offers some form of hope to the world.

That image of a baby whose eyes are clear as centuries could well be the inspiration for the cover of the latest album from Paul Simon, Surprise. The loveliest song from this new album is "Father and Daughter". It is a song whose chorus I have been singing since the summer when I found out we would be having a child.. and the urge to sing it got stronger when it was confirmed that we would indeed be having a daughter. The chorus is quite simple:

As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you

Once you hear him sing those lines I bet you too will have a hard time getting them out of your head!

The song begins with the image of a father standing over the bed of a young child. The first stanza contains some advice for getting over a bad dream, and then the second stanza continues in a similar vein, this time making the position of the father clear:

I believe the light that shines on you
Will shine on you forever
And though I can't guarantee
There's nothing scary hiding under your bed
I’m gonna stand guard
Like a postcard of a Golden Retriever
And never leave till I leave you
With a sweet dream in your head

I think that image of a "postcard of a Golden Retriever" is particularly touching. It is a faithful dog made somehow even more faithful by being converted into a picture.

The father standing guard at the bed as a daughter falls off to sleep. It is an image I am beginning to relate to.. although I trust in the future there will be a little more falling off to sleep going on and a little less watching! The idea that a poem/song could be inspired by this common moment should not be surprising. The great example is perhaps Coleridge's poem "Frost at Midnight", which begins:

The frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry

Came loud-- and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

(Now if that is not a portrait of a blogger at work, I don't know what is!) Yeats wrote his "Prayer for My Son" that opens:

Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in his bed
Till his morning meal come round;

(Now for the first time I understand this.. I could paraphrase it as: "Keep my little son asleep until the morning so that I can write..") Even Dylan gets into the act with his song "Lord Protect My Child":

While the world is asleep
You can look at it and weep
Few things you find are worthwhile
And though I don't ask for much
No material things to touch
Lord, protect my child

So Paul Simon has chosen a situation which has been well picked over by poets and lyricists.

The final stanza of the song contains what seems like a father's advice to a daughter.. and it is advice that reflects what I would like to tell Aurora someday:

Trust your intuition
It's just like going fishing
You cast your line
And hope you'll get a bite
But you don't need to waste your time
Worrying about the market place
Try to help the human race
Struggling to survive its harshest night

The first four lines set out life as a matter of listening to one's intuition.. throw yourself out there and see what comes up. "Cast your bread upon the water". Then she is warned against "worrying about the marketplace".. which seems to generally reflect a distaste on Simon's part for the money chasing way of life that is so common. Forget about the stock market! instead he urges her to "try to help the human race". It is a human race which, like the depiction in "Born at the Right Time", is not doing too well. Surely he has in mind our wars, the threats of terrorism, the environmental destruction.. all those things that represent our harsh night. The highest hope of the father is that his daughter would spend her life doing something for others.

Having a child takes a certain amount of faith in the future. It is an act of hope.. like planting a tree on a property. It is an act of a person who believes in the future. Simon is clearly frightened by what he can make out of the future.. but he also can express some of the purest lines of hope that I have ever heard. A line from Rhythm of the Saints sticks in my head:

And I believe in the future
We shall suffer no more
Maybe not in my lifetime
But in yours I feel sure

Yes, my dear Aurora.. I do believe that in the future there will be peace..

more song interpretations:

Father and Daughter, Paul Simon

New Test Leper, REM