Who is Al from Paul Simon’s classic song ‘You Can Call Me Al’?
Paul Simon has always been generous with his lyrics, allowing us entry into his mind and understanding life from his perspective.
His lyrics are undoubtedly clever and considered, but not often overly abstract and alienating the listener as they clutched at a song’s understanding. There is honesty in his storytelling, which may touch upon the breakdown of a friendship – likely with Art Garfunkel – or maybe the father-son voyage he took to Graceland. His hits have all of his experiences laid bare for us to learn from.
But then there is ‘You Can Call Me Al’, which, for as long as I can remember, has puzzled music fans for its storytelling unpredictability. On the surface, it feels as personal and specific as any great Simon hit, until you begin to digest the lyrics and start asking questions about who these people involved actually are.
“If you’ll be my bodyguard / I can be your long lost pal / I can call you Betty / And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al” Simon sings on the chorus, leaving fans exactly what on earth he is talking about. Well, it turns out, Simon himself doesn’t seem to know either – largely the song was an exercise in creative playfulness.
“What is he talking about?” Simon himself asked, referring to the singer as a third person.
“You don’t know what I’m talking about. But I don’t think it’s bothersome. You don’t know what I’m talking about but neither do I. At that point.”
An abstract precedent had been set by Simon’s narrative that allowed the rest of the song to follow his stream of consciousness. He explained, “By the time you get to the third verse, and people have been into the song long enough, now you can start to throw abstract images. Because there’s a structure, and those abstract images, they will come down and fall into one of the slots that the mind has already made up about the structure of the song.”
But surely, knowing Simon’s eye for narrative detail, the names Betty and Al can’t have just been pulled out of thin air. They had to come from somewhere, right?
So, who exactly is Al?
The story goes that Simon conjured up the names from a party he hosted with his wife, Peggy Harper. The composer Stanley Silverman attended that evening and invited fellow composer Pierre Boulez along with him. In a bizarre case of mistaken identity, Pierre thanked Simon by calling him ‘Al’ upon exit, a moment which understandably left Simon with his eyebrows raised.
It later transpired that Boulez’s French background mistook the names Paul for Al and Peggy for Betty, which humorously inspired the protagonists of Simon’s hit song. So ultimately, the harmless irreverence of the entire track makes complete sense in relation to the experience Simon had at his own party, when it was clear his own name didn’t even matter. Just like everything that takes place on the track thereafter, which is seemingly meaningless to the wider world.
