The 20th of February 1972
Official U.K. Singles Chart results from Sunday the 20th to Saturday the 26th of February 1972
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 19th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 20th,
announced on Tuesday the 22nd,
and broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 1 on Sunday the 27th of February 1972.
Paul Simon
Mother And Child Reunion
At No.17, on the the U.K. Top 50 Singles Chart the day I am born, is Paul Simon with “Mother And Child Reunion”.
Paul’s solo effort…
…after the extraordinary “Bridge over Troubled Water” project, which brought to a close his hugely successful career partnership with Art Garfunkel, finds him on week 2 of his journey through the UK Singles Chart in 1972.
This wasn’t Paul’s first release as a solo artist.
6 1/2 years previously, back in the summer of 1965, he’d released “I Am a Rock” over in England, A place where he’d decided to live, and could tour the folk clubs which had been denied to him back in New York.
As Paul told interviewer Lorraine Alterman from Rolling Stone magazine back in May 1970…
“I had a lot of friends there and a girlfriend. I could play music there. There was no place to play in New York City. They wouldn’t have me.”
Although not a hit, it would become more widely known when he rerecorded it later on that year with Art when he moved back to the States.
In the last couple of years…
…since the duo had parted, Paul had initially decided to take a break from recording altogether and so decided to teach students at New York University about songwriting.
Going back to that same Rolling Stone interview, Paul added…
“You can teach somebody about writing songs. You can’t teach someone how to write a song … I’d go to a course if the Beatles would talk about how they made records because I’m sure I could learn something.”
And it was while Paul was teaching, that he began writing songs again for himself, and started experimenting again with world rhythms. A new avenue which he’d begun to take an interest in a few years before, such as with the Peruvian feel of “El Condor Pasa”.
In the case of this latest single, he wanted to perfect a reggae feel. Something he’d first had a stab at on another ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ album track “Why Don’t You Write Me”, but at that time felt he couldn’t do the style justice.
Paul was determined he could get a more authentic sound…
…for his next effort.
He was a big aficionado of the style, and admired the work of artists such as Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker and Byron Lee amongst others. So, he decided to jet off to ‘Dynamic Sounds Studios’ in Kingston, Jamaica where, first of all, he became a student himself again. Being taught the fundamentals and differences between reggae, ska and bluebeat by the fellow musicians at the studio, most notably Jimmy Cliff’s backing band.
Another reason Paul especially wanted to record in this studio, was because this had been where Jimmy had recorded “Vietnam”, one of Paul’s favourite anti-war songs.
In spite feeling more than a little intimidated,..
…recording in this different environment, with musicians he’d never recorded with before, and who knew what he wanted better than he himself had managed to play it before, the sessions proved to be a great success.
The initial sound was laid down onto tape before any lyrics were written. As Paul explained in 2011 when he spoke to music journalist Tom Moon for the magazine ‘American Songwriter’…
“The music always precedes the words. The words often come from the sound of the music and eventually evolve into coherent thoughts. Or incoherent thoughts. Rhythm plays a crucial part in the lyric-making as well. It’s like a puzzle to find the right words to express what the music is saying.”
As for the words,..
…well the lyrics are in contrast with the upbeat sound, as they reflect the feelings of Paul’s first real experience with death, after he’d witnessed his pet dog being run over and killed.
He began to explore his inward emotions and attempted to imagine how he would feel if instead it was his wife who had been involved in the accident.
For such an introspective lyric, you wouldn’t think a bowl of Japanese soup would have been the inspiration for the title. However, upon seeing a dish of Oyakodon on a Chinese restaurant menu, and discovering its meaning being “parent-and-child donburi”, he applied it to this song.
So, why is the dish called this?
Well, a Donburi is a rice bowl dish for which you prepare fish, meat or vegetables, and simmer together, before serving over rice. Oyakodon means it’s simply due to the fact that it has both chicken and egg over the rice as the main ingredients. Chicken being the mother, egg being the child, and therein lies the mother and child reunion.
Later, once back in New York,..
…Paul would over dub the lyrics and piano onto the tape.
For the piano, Paul brought back one-time Wrecking Crew session member and now a member of ‘Bread’ (who I met a few places further back in the chart), Larry Knechtel.
Larry had previously played the piano for Simon and Garfunkel’s track “Bridge Over Troubled Water”.
One of the backing vocalists incidentally was acclaimed vocalist and former ‘Sweet Inspiration’ Cissy Houston, who had recently stepped down from Elvis Presley’s backing singing group, as both her children, Michael and Whitney, were growing up, and so she could spend more time on her own recording career and session work.
Now, with Paul’s solo career starting in earnest,..
…and his first solo single of the 1970’s climbing higher up the U.K. Chart, Paul would now embark on his new journey of musical self discovery for this fledgling decade.
Next week, he will jump an impressive 10 places, breaking into the Top 10 to land at No.7, where this single will sit for 2 weeks, before rising a further two places to claim its highest position of No.5 on the 12th of March.
The song will stay in the Top 10 for the rest of that month, before it gradually descends back down during April.
He will eventually complete 12 weeks before finally bowing out after the 6th of May.
The “A” Side
The “B” Side
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