Another cold morning with snow, freezing rain, and more rain anticipated for today.  A somber day.  I awakened looking forward to writing this post.  The first snippet of news this morning gave content to my somber mood, the mood encapsulated by Paul Simon’s song, My Little Town.  The NPR news snippet mentioned that the government shutdown has lasted a month, and the SNAP program providing food assistance to the poor is in jeopardy.  The hostage theater rolls on, a finger pulling the trigger of a gun aimed at the lives of thousands.

A friend reminded me recently that the emergence of an imperial presidency is about much more than one man.   Multitudes of our fellow citizens have signed on to that way of thinking.  This is an ascendant movement.  Media has played a key role.  I remember the TV evangelists of my youth, selling Jesus on TV for a donation.  That deal failed as fundamentalist Christianity is unable to make sense of the world, — globalized, multi-racial, with a diversity of moral perspectives.

And then there is the labor-insecurity.  My parents were employed for their entire working lives by two of the major employers in my hometown:  The American Tobacco Company and the Liggett and Myers Tobacco company.  Factory work in general has evaporated due to the ease of off-shoring of work.  A worker in China, Vietnam, Mexico will do the work for a fraction of the wage of an American worker.  Thus in a globalized world Capitalism shows it’s ominous under belly.  Always maximize profits, nothing else matters.  People are human resources, — just one of many raw materials.

So I offer this song for your consideration, written in 1975 by Paul Simon.  I love the somber piano base note, dirge-like that introduces the melody.  The lyric, “I grew up believing…” reminds me that a child can only believe.  A child begins life within the framework supported by the family, friends, the adults that construct his or her world.  “God keeps and eye upon us all,” is the anchoring principle assumed to be a sufficient guarantee of well being.  That principle is wedded to the ritual of patriotism, pledging allegiance to the flag.  The lyricist compares pledging allegiance to the flag,  to pledging allegiance to a wall.

The line with the serrated edge are these innocuous seeming words following those of the watchful eye of God:

And He used to lean upon me

The language referencing the black rainbow is borrowed from a Ted Hugh’s poem.  The story-teller remembers his youth, the stifling expectation to be “just my father’s son.”  That stifling of the wildness of growth, a smothering of the imagination is remembered as feeling like a twitching finger on the trigger of a gun.

Is there not release in recognition, in seeing the truth of one’s journey?  Yes, there is.  I love the triumphant note of the chorus that is delivered with rising intensity.

Enjoy.  The lyrics are appended after the youtube video.

My Little Town

by Simon and Garfunkel

In my little town
I grew up believing
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 imagination 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 father’s 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

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

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To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
But flying

–Ted Hughes