The "Graceland" story is a very interesting story

In that it′s a very good example of how a collaboration works

Even when you're not aware of it occurringThe track is one of the early tracks

Because I only did five tracks in South Africa

On the sessions that I did with Forere

Who is the accordion player

Plays on "Boy in the Bubble"

We did a few other tracks

One of the tracks, I said

"You know, I like only the drums on this track

I don′t really want anything else

I don't want the accordion or bass

I just want the drums"

And the drums were...

Something like a kind of a traveling rhythm

In country music

I'm a big Sun Records fan

Early 50′s, mid-50′s Sun Records

You hear that drum beat a lot

Like a fast, Johnny Cash type of rhythm

And somewhere later in the week of recording

When I had, you know put together a rhythm section of Ray Phiri

And Bakithi Kumalo and Isaac Mtshali as the rhythm section

I said to Ray one day, "I like this drum pattern

Take a listen to it and see if it does anything for you

You know it sounds kind of like a country thing to me"

So he starts to play his version of American country, Ray

He was in the key of E, and then he was playing, you know

Of course he's playing electric

But he′d be up over here, you know, like

And then the drums are going

Oh, then he went

Which is a relative minor chord to that key

I said, "Hey, that's interesting that you played a minor chord"

Because all the music that I′d been recording with

In South Africa, with the exception of the Sotho music

It was all three-chord major chords

And there was never a minor chord

There were times when I'd ask Black Mambazo to sing a minor chord

They couldn′t sing a minor chord

They just didn't hear it

So he put in this minor chord, and I said

"That's interesting, why′d you do that?"

He said, "I was just imitating the way you write"

I said, "Well, play this lick over it"

In an overdub

And he did, and it was a really nice, really nice mix

And Bakithi was playing

The track has a beautiful emptiness to it

I think that′s part of what makes me think that it's

Something like Sun Records

You know, when it was just a few instruments and

Nothing really much except slap-back echo and a song

There′s also another connection, musically, that's in there, and that is

There′s a pedal steel guitar in there

Which is a, of course, a, you know, like a country instrument

But it's also a West African instrument, and the guy who played it, his name was Demola Adepoju

He played with King Sunny Ade′s band

You know, I wanted to hear what that lick sounded like

Seemed like it would be a very good pedal steel lick

And it was a great pedal steel lick, but it was also a great Ray Phiri performance

To me, what's interesting is that Ray reaches into his memory

For some kind of approximation of what he thinks of as American country

And Bakithi plays straight ahead to the African groove

And so, the two, you know, the two musics find a commonality

And the lyric expresses that

Don and Phil Everly came in and sang

I always heard that songs as a perfect Everly Brothers song

Poor boys and pilgrims with families

And we are going to Graceland

I was down in South Africa in, I think, February

Maybe early March, and I think I didn't go down to Memphis until maybe May

Brought it home, and I was trying to write to it

I would, you know, sing these lines about Graceland

Graceland, of course I wanted to get rid of the Graceland part because

I mean, what′s Graceland got to do with South Africa or anything like that

So that′s gotta go

It's just a question of what I′m going to replace it with

But then I couldn't replace it with anything

I was always singing that

And finally I said, "I don′t know, well maybe I'm supposed to go to Graceland"

I′ve never been, maybe I'm supposed to go on a trip and see what I'm writing about. So I did

And and then I began to describe the trip

The Mississippi Delta

′Cause I was driving up from Louisiana

Where I cut the Zydeco track on "Graceland"

I was driving from Highway 61

You know, I′m just writing about what the countryside looked like

The Mississippi Delta

Was shining like a national guitar

I am following the river

Down the highway

Through the cradle of the Civil War

I'm going to Graceland, Graceland

Memphis, Tennessee

I′m going to Graceland

And finally got there to, you know, to Graceland

And just, you know, made a tour through Graceland

But what's interesting about all of this is that

The part of me that had "Graceland" in my head

I think subconsciously was reacting to what I first heard in the drums

Which was a kind of Sun Records country-blues amalgam

And what Ray was doing was mixing up his aural recollections of

What American country was, and what kind of chord changes I played

And so the whole song really is just one sound evoking a response

And that eventually became a lyric that evoked instead of being specifically

About a South African subject or even a political subject

It became a traveling song, that had to do with the original sound

Which was the drums, and and and Sun Records and Graceland

That′s really the secret of world music, is people are able to listen to each other

And make associations, and play their own music

That sounds like it fits into, into another culture

And that's how, that′s how it worked, and that's how it worked then

The story of Graceland

Ooh, ooh, ooh

In Graceland, in Graceland, in Graceland

I'm going to Graceland