As the seasons change and the end of the year creeps near, we’ve asked our contributors to pick their favorite lyrics of 2016 — so far. First up, we have Dan Wilson of Semisonic.
— Brenna Ehrlich, Talkhouse Music Editor-in-Chief
“The riots started slowly with the homeless and the lowly/Then they spread into the heartland towns that never get a wristband/Kids that can't afford the cool brand whose anger is a short-hand/For you'll never get a wristband and if you don't have a wristband then you can't get through the door.”
— Paul Simon, “Wristband,” Stranger to Stranger
It’s funny and fun and Simon plays up his familiar small-man comic persona, thwarted once again by life’s many unmovable bouncers.
But, of course, this is a Paul Simon song, where even the small details are windows into universal mysteries. And so the singer’s missing wristband is merely the set-up for a breathtaking metaphor, a sucker punch we never saw coming. By the last verse we are in a very different landscape, that of an America where hardly anybody has a fucking wristband, and almost everyone is left standing outside the club — the club of the good old U.S.A.
Weren’t we the people supposed to be the performers at the vast gig in question? If enough of us can’t get into the club, will we burn it down instead? Simon leaves these and similar devastating implications floating, casually asked, never answered, in his deceptively gentle and conversational tone.
(Art credit: Dan Wilson)
