The Boy In The Plastic Bubble

A few things you remember with perfect recall. I first heard this song on the radio in Provo, Utah while riding in the passenger seat of a Toyota Celica. I was going with my friend Dave W. to the gym. It could've been this morning. The year was 1986, the sun was about to dawn, and the dashboard clock read 5:56 AM. The opening music was unlike anything I'd ever heard, and the first verse of song hadn't passed before the author's gifts of art and prophecy stood revealed, a masterpiece, reminding me of the Old Testament scripture that starts off "Absalom, Absalom." I cut a 10AM class to go to the mall and buy the album. Art anticipates physics, physics anticipate politics. And to this day, I'm convinced a little old lady, a reclusive, 93 year-old poet laureate lives somewhere in Brooklyn, who wrote Paul Simon's lyrics for him.

It was a slow day, and the sun was beating
on the soldiers by the side of the road.
There was a bright light, a shattering of shop windows;
the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio.

These are the days of miracle and wonder!
This is the Long Distance Call:
the way the camera follows us in slow-mo,
the way we look to us All.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that's dying in a corner of the sky...
these are the days of miracle and wonder,
and don't cry baby, don't cry,
don't cry.

It was a dry wind, and it swept across the desert,
and it curled into the circle of the room.
The dead sand was falling on the children,
the mothers, and the fathers, and the automatic earth.

These are the days of miracle and wonder!
This is the Long Distance Call:
the way the camera follows us in slow-mo,
the way we look to us All.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that's dying in a corner of the sky...
these are the days of miracle and wonder,
and don't cry baby, don't cry,
don't cry.

It's a turn-around jump shot, it's "Everybody jump-start,"
it's "Every generation throws a Hero up the pop charts."
Medicine is magical and magical is art, and think of
The Boy in the Bubble, and the baby with the baboon heart.

And I believe these are the days of lasers in the jungle,
lasers in the jungle somewhere;
staccato signals of constant information,
a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires, and baby...

These are the days of miracle and wonder
this is the Long Distance Call:
the way the camera follows us in slow-mo,
the way we look to us All.
The way we look to a distant constellation
that's dying in a corner of the sky...
these are the days of miracle and wonder,
and don't cry baby, don't cry,
don't cry, don't cry.