Paul Simon - My Little Town

Artist: Paul Simon

Song:  My Little Town

Album: Still Crzy After All These Yrs (1975)

 

Paul Simon's third solo album unifies the varied threads running through its predecessors--confessional ballads, wily story songs, agnostic spirituals and snapshots of modern life, circa 1975, are extensions of the models on his self-titled debut and--There Goes Rhymin' Simon. Here, Simon and producer Phil Ramone establish a more cohesive, explicitly urban setting that burnishes the artist's acoustic folk accents to spotlight his sophistication as an inventive composer and, as always, deft wordsmith. Included is his last great collaboration with Art Garfunkel, the bittersweet "My Little Town," a pop gospel romp with Phoebe Snow on "Gone at Last," and the sly adulterer's solution of "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" (arguably the antithesis of Willie Dixon's classic "29 Ways"), along with the tender "I Do It for Your Love" and the woozy, dissolute "Have a Good Time." Best of all, of course, is the brilliant title song, shifting from anecdotal verse to soaring bridge and colored by keening strings and Phil Woods's knowing tenor-sax solo. Simon was crazy, like a fox. --Sam Sutherland

 

MY LITTLE TOWN has some of the hardest, most biting lyrics on the album which are unfortunately lost in a not particularly memorable melody. It is interesting, but leaves me colder than many of his other songs.

 

In my little town
I grew up believ--ing
God keeps His eye on us all
And He used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord I recall
My little town

Coming home after school
Flying my bike past the gates
Of the factories
My mom doing the laundry
Hanging our shirts
In the dirty breeze

And after it rains
There's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just imagin-ation they lack
Everything's the same
Back in my little town

Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town

In my little town
I never meant nothin'
I was just my fathers son
Saving my money
Dreaming of glory
Twitching like a finger
On the trigger of a gun
Leaving nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town 

Repeat and fade:
Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town