Paul Simon See America Changes Its Tune

The great musician and composer Paul Simon back on track and about to launch their new Album SURPRISE in the coming 8th of May. I was in Chicago the day before his You’re The One concert was held during Thanksgiving 2000 but too bad I missed the concert cause I couldn’t rescheduled my flight back to Jakarta. Paul is as always, a peace loving singer. Now is the lowest point in American history. The great America that used to be the champion of democracy, the fore front in promoting basic human rights, a country that respect civil rights has changed and moving to fascism. Legalizing torture in its detention centres, keeping terrorist suspects in Guantanamo concentration camp , spying their citizens, and American living in false paranoia . I bet that drives Paul Simon to write War Time Prayers in the upcoming album :

All that is changed now
Gone like a memory from the day before fires
people hungry for the voice of God
hear lunatics and liars,
Wartime prayers in every language spoken
for every family scattered and broken

This is certainly a softer allusions to Bush and his scumbag administration, compared to Green Day's American Idiot. Paul Simon has always been sensitive to social injustice. In 1997 he launched CAPEMAN ,a kind of protest to racial prejudice against Hispanic immigrants. Listen to what he said in Trailway Bus :

The border patrol outside Tucson boarded the bus
Any aliens here, you’d better check with us
How about you son
You look like you got spanish blood
Do you habla ingles, am I understood

Yes, I am an alien from mars
I came here from outer space
And if I traveled my whole life
You guys would still be on my case
You guys would still be on my case

Three decades ago in 1973 Paul Simon sang American Tune , another social commentary. without knowing that someday ,today, America changes its tune :

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
and sing an American tune
Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

Simon never fade away, his first debut Sound Of Silence was in 1966, 20 years later in 1986 he made another debut Graceland that won Grammy Award and another 20 years later , now in 2006 he is still brilliant with SURPRISE. He is 64 going 65 years old today. He must be doing something in 20 years from now when he is 85 years old. I hope he doesn’t live to see the American empire turn to dust.