30 for 30 Project, 1986: “You Can Call Me Al” – Paul Simon

Here is my beef with music made for kids: it is usually unnecessary.

We’ve established I was obsessed with “Thriller” at three and tumbling 4 ya at four. And, as the article about me in the new issue of Jump Philly points out, I was jamming out to Jem in the back seat at five – but Jem wasn’t exactly The Wiggles, if you catch my drift. It was more like Katy Perry, sans the self-hatred and misogyny.

Case and point: “You Can Call Me Al,” from Paul Simon’s seminal Graceland. As I child I was obsessed with it, as well as with “Me & Julio” from his debut.

The song is a little silly and repetitive. It has lyrics like “roly-poly little bat-faced girl” that delighted me as a child. It also told a story, with its setting painted in vibrant swaths of words … some of them big words, like “redemption,” “allegations,” and “architecture.”

I say, who needs Kidz Bop when you have Paul Simon?

(I was in a real crisis on my 1986 pick, as both my alternates were pretty difficult tunes that I’d rather track against a click (and thus remain top secret). Luckily, I realized “Al” saw its original release from Graceland in ’86, even though it primarily charted in 1987. Ass = saved.)