Graceland

Driving from Baton Rouge to Chicago, listening to Paul Simon's Graceland album.

The album is, of course, a masterpiece, but the song "Graceland" is perfection. If Simon had done nothing at all in his life except write that song, he could have died knowing he had done great good in the world.

That evocative opening lyric:
The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar

That brutal rendition of a love gone bad:
She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead.

That wonderful description of life's craziness:
There's a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Oh, so this is what she means.

That account of heartbreak and loss:
Losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow.

And, most of all, that breathtaking affirmation of redemption:
I've a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland.

And all that's left to say is, amen.