The most-read Song of the Day in the history of Meet Me in Montauk is (drum roll, please) Paul Simon’s ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.’ Top two spots go to Mr. Simon! Must be some meaning behind that.
Even factoring out the Bob Dylan tracks, this post is far and away the winner. It has been viewed 3,690 times, second only to the Hancock post, and more impressive as all of these views have come the old-fashioned way.
In the three and a half years since I posted it, it has never received more than 211 views in a single month. But it’s good for about four page views per day, every single day.
In this case, I believe the post’s success is due to Google searches for the “meaning of sign of a teaspoon sign of a wave” or variations thereof. If you search for that phrase, my blog is currently the fifth Google return — woohoo!
Several people each day are sufficiently puzzled by that lyric to seek out thoughts on its meaning, and often they land on my doorstep, where my readers have been gracious enough to offer up their interpretations.
Perhaps people curious about the phrase “the automatic earth” will find their way to this post on ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ and the cycle will continue.
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 slo-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 birth
And the dead sand
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 slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in the 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 turnaround jump shot
It’s everybody jumpstart
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Thinking 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 slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah
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
Meet Me In Montauk 
Very impressive! I wonder why Hancock gets so many hits.
Meanwhile, I have to confess that I always thought he was singing “automatic birth.” I’m not sure that made any more sense to me than “automatic earth.”
If today’s post does start generating hits, my vote is that it will come from searches for “baboon heart” or “turnaround jumpshot.” It will help if someone like Lebron James gets a baboon heart transplant.😄
Wow, that’s amazing; congratulations on all the views! I’m so impressed and happy that it was on one of my favorites 🙂
So funny because Laura had pulled up an app on lyric interpretation and that was the only thing I still wanted to know. Both the Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes and the Sign of theTeaspoon, etc. The insight provided was laughable. It covered several possible interpretations and was as slippery as quick sand. Your blog followers provided much more insight!
Ummm… how come nobody has asked the obvious question: Why has your review of Hancock received so many views? Does it have to do with Dana’s Monday observation regarding sexual search terms? What’s up with so many people seeking out that review?
Meanwhile, I agree with Andrea. I always find your posts – and the comments that follow – a far more lucid exploration of a particularly confounding lyric than I ever find elsewhere on the web! 🙂
I mentioned in last Monday’s post that the Hancock post was linked up on a spoiler website, which led to those thousands of page views over a few days.
Oh, sorry. I guess I missed that one. Did you share the post on that spoiler site? Or did someone find it? Still cool. Reading that review made me want to go back and watch the film again 🙂
Somebody found it on their own. I didn’t notice until I checked the stats one day and saw this huge spike. What’s weird is that even with all those views, nobody really commented.