On Monday night I headed uptown to the Beacon Theater to try and catch one of my musical idols, Elvis Costello. He was playing with New Orleans legend, Allen Toussaint and the Crescent City Horns so I knew that the show would be strong to quite strong at the very least. What I was treated to was two and half hours and 33 songs worth of goodness. The majority of their new album The River in Reverse was played and it sounded great. Also, Mr. Toussaint did several new arrangements on older Elvis songs such as "I Don't Want to Go To Chelsea" and "High Fidelity" that had the audience dancing in the aisles. One of the high points of the evening was when they did a version of Paul Simon's "An American Tune" that made me choke up. Elvis said that it should be our new national anthem. I was recalling the show to my friend Jeff who wasn't familiar with the song, although he thought I was talking about the similarly titled Simon and Garfunkel classic "America" and he mentioned that he never understood some of the lyrics in that song, particularly "I'm minty and naked and I don't know why." It was then when I lost my shit. Here are the real lyrics: "Cathy I'm lost I said though I knew she was sleeping. I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."
Paul Simon- American Tune
Simon and Garfunkel- America
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