| "The Obvious Child" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single byPaul Simon | ||||
| from the albumThe Rhythm of the Saints | ||||
| Released | September 1990 (1990-09) | |||
| Recorded | Various
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| Genre | ||||
| Length | 4:10 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Songwriter | Paul Simon | |||
| Producer | Paul Simon | |||
| Paul Simon singles chronology | ||||
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"The Obvious Child" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriterPaul Simon. It was thelead single from his eighth studio album,The Rhythm of the Saints (1990), released byWarner Bros. Records. Written by Simon, its lyrics explore mortality and aging. The song is accompanied by a performance from Brazilian drumming collectiveOlodum in a live recording.
The single, released in September 1990, was commercially successful, performing well on charts worldwide. In the United States, it was mainly successful on theAlbum Rock Tracks chart, where it peaked at number 21. Outside the US, "The Obvious Child" was a top 15 hit in theUnited Kingdom andthe Netherlands. The song received highly positive reviews upon its release. Simon promoted the song alongside Olodum in a performance onSaturday Night Live. The song also influencedpopular culture; it is the namesake of the 2014 filmObvious Child.
The rhythm tracks are performed byGrupo Cultural Olodum, a drumming collective ("bloco afro") directed by "Neguinho do Samba" (Alves de Souza) and also signed toWarner Bros. It, like many songs onThe Rhythm of the Saints, was recorded live in the streets ofPelourinho Square ofSalvador,Brazil in February 1988.[1] Simon recalled that his encounter with Grupo Cultural Olodum was "almost accidental". He learned that the ensemble would be rehearsing within the city and traveled with some of his friends to hear them play. Upon hearing them, Simon recalled that he was "blown away by the sound" of the ensemble.[2]
A few days after his initial encounter with Grupo Cultural Olodum, Simon brought an eight-track machine fromRio de Janeiro to the streets of Salvador to record the ensemble. He decided to record them in the streets as he felt that it would have been unfeasible to fit all ten members of Grupo Cultural Olodum in a conventional recording studio.[2] Microphones were hung from windows or on telephone poles to capture the performances. According to Simon, "Hundreds of people gathered. It was an amazing day — an amazing recording experience."[3] The vocal track was recorded atthe Hit Factory inNew York City.[4]
The song's drum introduction is indebted to "Madagascar", a song by Olodum from their 1987 LPEgito Madagáscar. Writer Steve Sullivan writes that the figure is a "standard device" for the group, who also employ abbreviated versions of it elsewhere on the album: "Salvador Nao Inerte" and "Vinheta Cuba-Brasil".[4] Following this, the song breaks into an instrumental fragment that, according to Stephen Holden ofThe New York Times, echoesthe Silhouettes' 1957doo-wop hit, "Get a Job". Holden also compared the song's conclusion to another doo-wop song,The Charts' "Desirie" (1957).[5]
The song's lyrics thematically relate to a fear of aging and leaving behind the "boldness of youth," according to Sullivan.[4] Holden considered it a story of an everyman pondering the uncertainty of life whilst navigating his high school yearbook.[5]Rolling Stone's John Mcalley too found it an everyman battling the fact that his "days have become defined by their limitations and dogged ordinariness."[6] ForThe Rhythm of the Saints, Simon was inspired by poetDerek Walcott, and would base first-draft lyrics on his poems. Simon attempted to match the rhythmic quality of the composition with his lyrics, whether that meant a lyric was meaningless or not. A lyric relating to "the cross is in the ballpark," for example, has no meaning; Simon said, "I found [it] to be a satisfying rhythmic phrase against the drums."[3]
In the United States, "The Obvious Child" reached a peak of number 92 on theBillboard Hot 100 on January 5, 1991; it spent five weeks on the chart as a whole.[7] It performed better on the magazine'sMainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it placed at number 21 on November 10, 1990,[8] and on theModern Rock Tracks chart, where it reached a peak of number 24 a week earlier on November 3. It had more longevity on the former chart, where it spent ten weeks total.[9] InCanada, the song debuted on theRPM 100 on October 20, 1990 at position 98.[10] It peaked at number 28 during the week of December 8, 1990,[11] and remained at that peak for two weeks.[12]
Internationally, the single performed better. In theUnited Kingdom, the song premiered on theUK Singles Chart on September 30, 1990 at number 61,[13] and rose over the following weeks to a peak of number fifteen on November 4, 1990.[14] It charted best inthe Netherlands'Nationale Top 100, where it reached a peak of number 12.[15] OnBelgium'sUltratop 50, it hit number 29.[16] InAustralasian territories, it charted right outside the top 40: inAustralia, the song reached number 42,[17] and inNew Zealand, it peaked at number 46.[18]
Upon its release, "The Obvious Child" received positive reviews from music critics of the time. Stephen Holden ofThe New York Times was perhaps the most effusive:
The song "The Obvious Child" [...] sounds like nothing else in contemporary pop. With its juxtaposition of earlyrock-and-roll andSouth American percussion that echoes the martial drumbeats on Mr. Simon's 1975 hit, "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover", it telescopes pop fragments that span more than three decades and three continents into an allusive musical reverie that is beyond generic designation. Even more than on his 1986 masterpiece, the albumGraceland, Mr. Simon has melded, reshaped and refined the roots music of divergent cultures into a studio art song of layered textures and wistful, mysterious poetry.[5]
Greg Sandow ofEntertainment Weekly praised the song's "confident drums that resound with special exuberant zing."[19] The pan-European magazineMusic & Media thought that the drumming on "The Obvious Child" gave the "fragile song a solid body".[20] A reviewer forPeople felt that "the more exotic musical elements are subsumed by Simon's pretty pop structures [...] You never get the impression that Paul has truly gone native or even considered it. He's more like a kid camping under the stars in his own backyard."[21]Billboard described the song as an "ingenious mixture of African tribal percussion and rockabilly melodies".[22]
Reviews have remained very positive over time. Writer Steve Sullivan, in his bookEncyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volume 1 (2013), calls the song "an extraordinary work that surpasses any individual song Paul Simon had ever produced as a solo artist."[4] Cameron Scheetz, in a 2014 article forThe A.V. Club, examined the song; he called it "the perfect confluence of the wild, frenetic drumming and Simon's folksy melodies."[23]
Simon performed the song, accompanied by Olodum and Neguinho do Samba, onSaturday Night Live on November 17, 1990.[1]
The song is the namesake for the 2014 filmObvious Child; it appears in a scene in which two characters drunkenly dance together.[23] DirectorGillian Robespierre titled the film with hope that its meaning would be ambiguous.[24]
All songs written byPaul Simon, except where noted.
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