I was in the kitchen doing things to some onions, and listening to my phone, this song came along, because I am old. It is a song that I have always loved.
And I was thinking about Marlowe and Shakespeare, and even our dear more recent Navyboys. I was thinking about how languages change, certain words were not unknown before, but they sort of surface and get used a lot, and then go under again.
And, because I am silly this way, I started to think how much sense would this song make to Archie, to Kit Marlowe, to Shakespeare. And how much do I miss in my reading of things of the past?
Jump in and tell me what you all think.
Simon And Garfunkel America Lyrics
"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together"
"I've got some real estate here in my bag"
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pie
And we walked off to look for Americ
"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburg
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Sagina
I've gone to look for Americ
Laughing on the bu
Playing games with the face
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a sp
I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera"
"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazin
And the moon rose over an open fiel
"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleepin
I'm empty and aching and I don't know wh
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpik
They've all gone to look for Americ
All gone to look for Americ
All gone to look for America
eglantine_br
Comments
I can post a link to lyrics if needed. Sorry about that. I am using sons laptop, and not very good. (Me, not the laptop.)
But maybe you guys know the song already?
I don't know if they'd know "cigarettes" because tobacco was usually smoked in pipes. I think they might assume Mrs. Wagner's pies were meat pies, just the way I assume they're fruit pies.
"Boarded a Greyhound" would confuse them unless they had a secondary source explaining about public transportation. I don't know if they'd be able to get "hitchhike".
I forget what vehicle "bus" indicated, but it wasn't the same. They might not be sure about what a bow tie looked like, and "camera" would DEFINITELY puzzle them.
Magazine didn't have its present meaning. It didn't acquire that until the 18th century. It meant a storage space.
"Cars" were also not the same, but I think they were carts. And turnpikes existed, but I'm not quite sure how far back "New Jersey" goes.
I really wonder what we're missing.
But that would not make sense to them at all in terms of the bow tie...
i imagine that Archie and Horatio and William B would picture 'boarding a greyhound' as swinging over with cutlasses in teeth. And magazine is obv. full of explosives...
Gabardine was a word Shakespeare knew. I am sure they could figure out 'raincoat' too.
Much of it would have made sense. The wistful mood, the moon rising, being aching and empty. Marrying fortunes together sounds like something WB had already said.
I wonder how much we miss-- I can feel myself struggling to reach the past, I am so glad to have found a place where that does not make me look foolish.
*g*
Edited at 2013-01-17 11:18 am (UTC)
I'd take them or Peter, Paul, and Mary over the current music any day of the week.