Paul Simon : Night Game

Let's end the week on a quieter note. "Night Game" is an ethereal song from Paul Simon, a ghost tale of sorts, about a pitcher who dies in the middle of a ball game. Or maybe it's about war. I think there's an allegory in there somewhere, since the body count goes from two to three, but I can't exactly figure out what it is. So, like any good poetry, apply where needed.

It's a beautiful song, frail, with a quietly lilting melody that plays threes against twos for some nice syncopation. It's instrumented primarily with Paul's wonderful voice, nearly whispering, and accented by acoustic guitar, jazz bass and a nice harmonica solo by the great Toots Thielemans.

There's not much else to say about the song except that I can't figure out why there's not more buzz about it on the Interwebs, because I do really like it. It comes from Paul's 1975 release, Still Crazy After All These Years, which has some fantastic songs on it, including his biggest solo hit ever, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". By the way, they recently remaster Paul's back catalog, so if you're out shopping, make sure you pick up the remastered version.

[You can listen to Paul Simon's "Night Game" by navigating to the post "Song055" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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