Thursday, October 8, 2009

He Was My Brother

This is one of Simon's few protest songs, in the commonly understood sense of a political statement in verse. It discusses a particular incident-- in this a case, a racist crime. Given the specificity of the information mentioned in the song, I thought I could find an article on the incident itself. The Freedom Rides were a recent, well-documented event, I reasoned, so if there was a death associated with them, I should be able to find something about it.

I was wrong. After a half-hour's research online, not only could I not find an article on or mention of a "23"-year-old "Freedom Rider" who was "shot... dead," I could find no mention of a death of any Freedom Rider whatsoever. This is not to minimize the brave sacrifices of the Freedom Riders or their pain, let alone their indelible contributions to the history of civil rights. It is simply to say that I could find no record of one of them having been killed. Again, I am glad that none of them died, if that is the case. But the fact of a Freedom Rider having being killed not being the case, the song takes on a different tinge.

I did find many mentions of a Corporal Roman Ducksworth, an African-American MP officer who, while on leave to visit his sick wife, was killed by a police officer. Yes, he was shot, but fully half of the articles I found on him indicated that he may have been "mistaken" by the officer for a Freedom Rider. Had he certainly been one, it is more likely that the cause's organizers would have claimed him, rightly, as a martyr in some definitive way. Further, he was not accosted by a "mob," but seems to have been killed by this particular officer, whose name is also known.

Another possibility is that Simon conflated the Freedom Rider idea with the martyrdom of another activist in some other aspect of the cause. This could be one of the three young men -- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner-- who were registering voters in Mississippi when they were killed by anti-rights racists. However, they were lynched, not "shot," and while they all were in their early 20s, none was "23."

It is the case that Goodman was a friend of Simon and Garfunkel's, and a classmate of Simon's at Queens College. There is even a record of the song being dedicated to him, even if the details of the case were changed for the sake of song itself.

The fact of Goodman and Schwerner being Jewish, like Simon, is immaterial, as he only speaks of one victim in the song... aside from the fact that Simon's consideration of this man as a "brother" must transcend all such designations, or the song itself must lose some moral power and import.

I would not focus so much on the issue of the source of the song's story were it not for three things: One, most other such songs-- from Dylan's "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," to Neil Young's "Ohio," to Springsteen's "41 Shots"-- are based in actual, historic incidents. Two, the number and specific nature of the details of our song seems to indicate an actual incident being discussed. Three, why would Simon discuss the death of a Freedom Rider if none had actually been killed, while so many other civil-rights workers-- both leaders and followers-- in other areas of the movement, had? Once the fictional nature of the incident was known to its contemporary listeners, surely it would let some of air out of the song's proverbial tires.

[A 2016 biography of Simon indicates that the song was written in 1963, a year before the Chaney/Goodman/Schwerner killing. If anyone reading this knows of the specific incident Simon did mean, please share what you know. Thank you. ]

All of that said, let us now treat the song as a work unto itself, and discuss the references of other elements of its story.

The song begins with the assertion of brotherhood on the part of the speaker with the subject. The song then explains that the reason we are talking about this person is that he died, and very young. This-- and the dramatic way the duo sings "... day he died"-- is to effectively "hook" the listener into wanting to find out what could have caused his early demise.

We learn the "brother" is a Freedom Rider. The Freedom Riders were righteous souls who braved violence to test the Supreme Court's then-new laws desegregating interstate transportation in the mid-1960s. Yes, readers, at one point in our great nation's recent past, simply riding a Greyhound bus was a provocative, political act that could-- and did-- get one beaten with sticks and pipes by one's fellow Americans, then jailed by the local police for having given these citizens the trouble of doing the beating.

Next, we learn that, as a Freedom Rider, he was not warmly received. The brother is cursed, then told two contradictory things: he can leave "this town," or he can remain... permanently. "Go home, outsider/This town's gonna be your buryin' place." The "gonna" and dropped "g" of "burying'" may to be an attempt to capture the dialect of the South, or perhaps imply the ignorance of the racists involved.

So far, the song is an accurate depiction of the events the Freedom Riders encountered. Next are two more factual elements. There is the image of the brother "singing on his knees." Certainly, the Freedom Riders prayed, both for the fulfillment of their cause and for their personal safety. But although that is the metaphor presented, that is not only what is likely meant. The Freedom Riders used Gandhi's methods of passive resistance, singing protest songs while sitting, forcing their opponents to be the sole violent participants in their altercations. In one incident I just read about, some Riders were tossed out of jail because the guards could not stand their constant singing!

"An angry mob trailed along" does not logically follow... how does one "trail" someone "on his knees," who is not moving? Rather, this must refer to the racist mobs who followed the Freedom Rider's buses wherever they went, meeting them at each bus depot with fresh rounds of violence. In at least one case, a bus's tires were slashed, then the entire bus burned.

The next line-- "They shot my brother dead"-- is, as discussed above, the place where the song may break down, with regard to recording a factual incident. [Again, if anyone knows of any Freedom Rider having been killed for his activism, I would appreciate knowing and will certainly revise this essay based on that information.]

But it is the next line where Simon, for all his sometime lyrical floridity, shows how excellent a writer he is. This thought calls for economy of phrase and word choice, and Simon adapts his style and delivers a line of gunshot directness: "...he hated what was wrong." Racial hatred is wrong, and whether it is important enough to kill over, it is certainly important enough to die over.

The song closes with two more thoughts. One is that "tears won't bring [his brother] back." The implication is that mourning is not useful-- what is needed now is action, something that will assure that such tragedies don't happen again. The undercurrent urges the listener into activism. (Decades later, Simon will reconsider somewhat, opining, in "Cool Cool River": "Sometime, even music/Is no substitute for tears.")

This song, an elegy (poetic eulogy), ends with an epitaph, again delivered with forceful clarity: "He died so his brothers could be free." He was a martyr for civil and human rights.

Yes, he died for your freedom, too, listener! If it hasn't been obvious thus far, Simon now makes it plain. Whether or not this fallen man was the speaker's-- or audience's-- biological brother is irrelevant. The point is that all men are brothers in spirit. The victim's "brothers" are not the speaker and his other siblings, but all Americans and indeed all humans, all of whom deserve freedom.

Were any Freedom Riders killed in the cause of civil rights? Perhaps not. But from civil rights generals from Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and Medgar Evers, to footsoldiers like Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, many did indeed "die... so their brothers could be free." And that is a truth, everyone laments, which did certainly occur.

Note: In the 1980s, Simon would travel to South Africa to use music to combat more racism, the oppressive system known as "apartheid." One of his collaborators there on the resulting 1986 album, the landmark Graceland, was Joseph Shabalala. In 1960, Mr. Shabalala founded the vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which the album would help bring to international acclaim. One of the ensemble's original founding members was Joseph's brother, Headman Shabalala, who gave the group some of its famous particular vocalizations. In 1991, Headman was returning from a family event when his car was pulled over by an off-duty security guard, who shot him in the head and killed him.

He, too, was our brother.

Next song: Wednesday Morning 3 AM



15 comments:

  1. Hi. I just discovered your blog today and enjoy your analyses. Paul Simon is talking about Andrew Goodman in this song. Incidentally, the movie "Mississipi Burning" was based on the 1964 murders of Goodman and two other freedom riders. Thanks for the great blog.

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  2. Thanks for the compliment, Matt, and please feel free to follow the blog. In response to your suggestion (I did see the movie you mentioned and thought it very well done) I wrote, as part of my post: Another possibility is that Simon conflated the Freedom Rider idea with the martyrdom of another activist in some other aspect of the cause. This could be... Andrew Goodman... However, [he was ] lynched, not "shot," and while they all were in their early 20s, none was "23." So yes, it could have been Goodman, with some of the details changed with poetic license.

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  3. Sorry for the late comment, but just discovered this terrific blog. "He Was My Brother" was definitely inspired by the murder of Andrew Goodman, as Simon himself has acknowledged. The two knew each other and were classmates (although Goodman was more than a year younger) at Queens College.

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    1. No it isn't he wrote it a year before the murders

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    2. Unknown-- Please read the post entirely, and all the comments. Thank you.

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  4. Anonymous-- Thanks for confirming Matt's observation, and adding an even more personal element to the song's backstory. It is even more harrowing, now.

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  5. The song is not about Goodman. According to Peter Ames Carlin in his bio of Simon, Simon wrote the song in 1963, a year before Goodman's death.

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  6. Anon-- Thank you for the clarification. As I explain in the post, some details fit that incident, but many do not.
    So we know what incident is not the subject of the song, but still not what the subject is.

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    1. You're welcome. According to Ames, it is an imagined story, inspired by the Freedom Riders but not based on any particular incident. When the song was released in 1964, Simon dedicated it to Goodman, whom he knew from Queens College. But Goodman was not a Freedom Rider. The Freedom Rides took place in 1961. Goodman had gone to Mississippi in 1964 to register blacks to vote.

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  7. Anon-- Just got the Ames book; I suppose I will have to amend many of my posts as I read it... I was clear that Goodman was not a Freedom Rider, which is one of the reasons I thought the song was not about him.
    However, the idea that Simon dedicated a song to Goodman, whom he knew, that presaged his death, and over his Civil Rights work at that... I am getting chills just writing that.

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  8. Thank you for this interesting analysis. The song and story are close to my heart. I’m 16 years younger than Paul Simon, but Queens, NY is my home and Queens College is my alma mater. The bell tower of the library at QC is named for Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney. I met Andrew’s mom, Carolyn, years ago when she spoke at a QC graduation ceremony. Although I know that the song was not written for or about Andrew originally, I still get chills thinking about how closely it matches what happened a year later. Two quick points:

    (1)Although they were not Freedom Riders, they were working in the summer of 1964 as part of what was called the “Freedom Summer” project. Incidentally, they were recruited by John Lewis for that project.
    (2) They were arrested, supposedly for speeding, and they were booked and released. As they were trying to leave Mississippi, they were stopped by the sheriff (who was a Klan member). They were taken to a deserted area, beaten and shot (not lynched) and then the bodies buried in the “Mississippi mud,” as Phil Ochs put it in the song he wrote about them.

    Thanks again for an interesting conversation.

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  9. M Shapiro-- Thanks for the additional historical info and context. I think you said it well, that the song was not so much descriptive but somewhat prophetic.

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  10. Andrew Goodman was my brother’s classmate at Queens College. Michael Schwerner was Assistant Dean of Students at QC when I was undergrad in early 1970s. Paul Simon livens in Forest Hills as did the Schwerner family.

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  11. Andrew Goodman was college classmate of my brother who preceded me at Queen College as did Paul Simon. Michael Schwerner’s surviving brother Steven was Dean of Students at QC when I was undergrad there in early 1970s. Schwerner family and Simon family both lived in predominantly Jewish community of Forest Hills. Goodman grew up on Upper East Side of Manhattan. Simon has been mistakenly thought by some to be protest singer, which he was not as you suggest. He was simply expressing civil rights movement sympathies shared by other liberal Jews in New York City which was home to 5 of 6 major civil rights organizations, NAACP, CORE, SNCC, Urban League and Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. All enjoyed Jewish financial and volunteer support. While Simon song often thought to be lament about Mickey Schwerner from surviving brother (and Simon neighbor) Steven’s perspective, it was actually written before what came to be known as Freedom Summer Lynchings of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney. Though lynchings are commonly associated with hanging, any mob rule, vigilante, extrajudicial execution may be characterized as such. Thus, shooting of the three civil rights workers has been correctly defined, labeled, and characterized as a lynching. Queens College clock tower is named in honor of the three slain civil rights workers.

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  12. Stonewaller-- Thank you for your personal information about historical events and for clarifying some of the relationships involved.
    I apologize if I characterized Simon as a protest singer in general, but I think it's pretty clear that this is a protest song in any case (plenty of non-political singers have a protest song or two in their repertoires. For example I wouldn't call Stevie Wonder a "protest singer" but it's also hard to deny the social commentary of some of his work).
    I did note in the original post that, as you agree, the song was written before the killing of the three activists.
    Lastly, I was born in 1970, so I will have to take your word as the the more expansive definition of "lynching." I know it is used figuratively ("he was lynched by the headlines"), but I did not know it referred to more than one-- or just any-- sort of mob-based murder.
    Again, thank you for your very helpful and knowledgeable comments.

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