Paul Simon never wanted to write ‘Graceland’: “I couldn’t get rid of it”
Some people believe that songs already exist inside the walls of instruments, long before any hit-making musician gets their hands on them. But when they do, it’s their job to draw the hits out of the instrument and pay faith to the musical fate that has been bestowed upon them.
While Paul Simon had experienced his fair share of hits come 1986, it seemed as though the acoustic guitar with which he would write Graceland was saving some of his most important.
That 1986 record became somewhat of a career resurgence for Simon. Despite some of the political controversies it stirred, the move to blend African and American sonic sensibilities proved to be refreshing for not only Simon himself, but modern music as a whole and ‘Graceland’ was perhaps the finest example of it.
It boasted a rhythm section clearly designed by American blues but performed in a slightly altered style, born from the nuanced differences of African music. While Simon explained that “The drums were kind of a travelling rhythm in country music – I’m a big Sun Records fan, and early-1950s, mid-1950s Sun Records, you hear that beat a lot, like a fast, Johnny Cash type of rhythm.”
He continued to outline that it was African guitarist Ray Phiri’s interpretation of that that brought the song to life. After playing the said style of drum beat for Phiri, the guitarist began playing a lick that he claimed was just an imitation of Simon’s guitar playing, as a means of appeasing his creative vision. The end result was this unexpected blend of American and African styles that felt transcendental and evocative of some sort of spiritual voyage.
So it was that very sense of musical transcendence, drawn out of Phiri’s guitar through no real control of his own, that led Simon to the hallowed turf of ‘Graceland’ and penning a song he otherwise had no intention of writing.
“I found myself writing a song called ‘Graceland’, and being resistant to it,” Simon explained. “I didn’t want to write a song called ‘Graceland’, but I couldn’t get rid of it, so it stayed with me, and then I thought, well, maybe I have to write it, maybe I’m going to write a song about Graceland.”
He added, “I really don’t know what I’m writing about, yet it probably makes sense to go there and see if, in fact, what I’m looking for is in Graceland. I was in Lafayette, Louisiana, and I drove up to northern Louisiana through the Mississippi Delta and through Mississippi and then up to Memphis, and that trip was the opening verse of the song.”
He later cited that Graceland was simply in his head because of the Sun Records drum parts, but when he finally got there and embarked on the famous Elvis tour. So in many ways, ‘Graceland’ became this once expansive sonic idea, inspired by travelling and a desire to embrace the idiosyncrasies of a new culture, but in doing so, it provoked a renewed sense of what home meant to Simon.
