John Lennon isn't the only singer-songwriter who's composed songs about mothers. On last weeks entry, I wrote about three songs John recorded about his mother. Other artists have as well. One of these is Paul Simon, who had his first solo hit with a song called "Mother and Child Reunion." It's a terrific song, although it's really not about his mother. One of the more interesting interpretations about the song is that it is about a chicken and egg dish called mother and child reunion. Amusing, but far-fetched. Unlike Weird Al, Paul Simon doesn't sing about food. I actually prefer Simon's voice over Garfunkel's if you can believe it. Garfunkel has a nicer voice and Simon and Garfunkel's hits probably wouldn't sound as good if they were sung by Paul. Simon has a more interesting voice though.
Pink Floyd has a pretty good song called "Mother" on their album "The Wall." "The Wall" is an amazing concept album that has become an absolute classic for good reason. Supposedly, the idea for the album came to Roger Waters as a result of spitting on a fan during a concert. It also became a movie of the same title. "Mother" is a song about an over protective mother. In the song, Roger Waters sings the son's part while David Gilmore sing's the mother's part. They sound the same to me though. But what do I know. To my untrained ear, the legendary Bon Scott and Brian Johnson of AC/DC sound the same.
Madonna has a song out called "Mother and Father," from the "American Life" album. Madonna lost her mother to breast cancer when she was six years old.
There are more songs about mothers out there that I haven't really heard. If you're interested, check out Allan Raible's blog about mothers.
For all the mothers out there, Have a Happy Mother's Day.
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No, not farfetched. "Mother And Child Reunion" did come from Paul Simon seeing the dish on a restaurant menu and then using the phrase in a song about an imagined daughter.... decades before he actually had a daughter. He mentioned it in an interview in Rolling Stone shortly after the album came out.
ReplyDeleteWeird Al managed to combine writing about a mother AND about food in his sprawling tour de force, "Albuquerque":
Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block down the street from Jerry's Bait shop
You know the place
well anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just peachy
Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that every single morning
My mother would make me a big ol' bowl of sauerkraut for breakfast
Awww - Big bowl of sauerkraut
Every single mornin'
It was driving me crazy
I said to my mom
I said "Hey, mom, what's up with all the sauerkraut?"
And my dear, sweet mother
She just looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train,
And she leaned right down next to me
And she said,
"IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!!!"
And then she tied me to the wall and stuck a funnel in my mouth
And force fed me nothing but sauerkraut until I was twenty six and a half years old~OE
Hey, you're correct about Paul Simon getting mother and child reunion from a food dish. A Chinese food dish to be exact. I checked it out on snopes at http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/mother.asp
ReplyDeleteAbout Weird Al, it didn't seem that Weird Al and "sprawling tour de force could be used in the same sentence, but it being over eleven minutes long, you may be right again.
Good comments, thanks.