The seven years between The Rhythm of the Saints and Paul Simon’s next studio album felt like an eternity. Following the one-two punch of Graceland and Rhythm, I was primed for whatever he would come up with next and had to just wait and wait and wait.
In the days before the ubiquity of the Internet — before Twitter and official artist websites — it was hard to know what a musician was up to. It turns out that Simon spent much of that seven-year span researching and writing a Broadway musical called The Capeman about a Puerto Rican gang-banger in New York who turned his life around in prison.
The play follows Salvador Agron during his days as a soldier in a gang called The Vampires. He murders two teenagers and is sent to prison, where he begins his path to redemption. Ultimately he is released, a changed man.
The musical was a costly bomb, surviving only 3 months on Broadway.
Simon released an album titled Songs From The Capeman ahead of the musical’s debut. It featured numbers from the show mostly sung by Simon himself but with a few guest appearances by actors Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades and others. It was an odd hybrid of a cast recording and a Simon solo release.
Needless to say, this wasn’t the follow-up to Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints I was expecting. While the album has its moments, it doesn’t work completely as either a cohesive record or a soundtrack to the stage show.
In a career of peaks and valleys, Capeman is interesting for representing Simon’s trip from his highest high to his lowest low.
I was born in Puerto Rico
Came here when I was a child
Before I reached the age of sixteen
I was running with a gang and we were wild
I see myself those summer evenings
Hanging out with boys from Lexington and Park
Red beans and rice from kitchen windows
It’s suppertime and the Barrio is dark
No one knows you like I do
Nobody can know your heart the way I do
No one can testify to all that you’ve been through
But I will
SAL AND THE VAMPIRES
I was born in Puerto Rico
And my blood is taino
Spanish Caribbean in my soul
SALVADOR
We came here wearing summer clothes in winter
Hearts of sunshine in the cold
Your family rented this apartment
You’d watch the streetlamps from your perch
In the sacramental hour your stepfather in black
Preached the fire of the Pentecostal Church
No one knows you like I do
Nobody can know your heart the way I do
No one can testify to all that you’ve been through
But this will
SAL AND THE VAMPIRES
I was born in Puerto Rico
Came here when I was a child
SALVADOR
Small change and sunlight, then I left these streets for good
My days as short as they were wild
CARLOS APACHE
I’m Carlos Apache
ANGEL SOTO
Angel Soto
FRENCHY CORDERO
Frenchy Cordero
BABU CHARLIE CRUZ
Babu Charlie Cruz
TONY HERNANDEZ
Tony Hernandez
SAL AND SALVADOR
Salvador Agrón
SALVADOR
Your faces blurred in every grainy photo
And fading headline of the Daily News
One year Wiltwych School for Criminal Children
Three years Auburn, One year Brooklyn House of D.
Eight years Dannemora, one year Sing-Sing, one year Attica
Five years Greenhaven
Twenty years inside, today we’re free
You cannot even read your story
The pages piling up in shame
Before the words released you, the guard would kill the light
The night you took the Capeman for your name
CHORUS AND SALVADOR
I was born in Puerto Rico
I was born in Puerto Rico
THE VAMPIRES
I was born in Puerto Rico
I was born in Ruerto Rico
Meet Me In Montauk 
Well, I would not call this his lowest low….that honor still goes to “Cars are Cars.”
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for this record. There are some songs that work better than others, and some that probably worked, if at all, within the context of the musical.
If nothing else, this album retains iconic status for “The Vampires” with what may be Paul Simon’s most memorable profane lyric…Come on, sing it with me now!….
“Fucking Puerto Rican dope-dealing punk, get your shit-brown ass out of here”
Ah, it doesn’t get much better than that….:)