I just caught part of the Paul Simon song titled, I think, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, on the radio today and it got me thinking. The song is kind of a story about them doing something illegal and then the “radical priest came to get me relief and we were all on the cover of Newsweek…”.
Does anybody know the story behind the song?
Possibly statutory rape?
“Goodbye to Rosie the queen of Corona
See you, me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard”
He and Julio were fooling around with Rosie, and then:
“The mama pajama rolled out of bed
And she ran to the police station
When the papa found out he began to shout
And he started the investigation”
“What the mama saw
It was against the law”
Oh, and by the way, it’s “when the radical priest come to get me released we was all on the cover of Newsweek”.
Can we chalk that up to a typo? :rolleyes:
Please?
See here and here where it’s suggested that the “radical priest” was the Berrigan Brothers and that the song was based on a real incident.
Fenris
I could say “Oooh-ooh-ooh-oooh-oooh-oooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-oooh” and I think everbody here would know exactly what the song’s talking about.
Or, in other words, everybody loves the sound of a half-appropriate interpretation, everybody thinks it’s true.
Not a problem, Powers106! 
And I would tend to agree that there is probably no one answer, it is the privilege of the songwriter to leave it vague so that you can read more than one thing into it.
You could just as easily say that they were smoking weed together, the only reason I lean towards the sexual is the fond way that he refers to her – “goodbye Rosie, queen of Corona”.
I always thought they were engaged in some kind of homosexual loveplay. That’s why the radical priest was on their side. It would have to be something that society is more evenly divided on. If it were statutory rape, I doubt that any priest, radical or otherwise, would help them out.
Yeah, I always thought it was about smoking and dealing a little…and the part about the girl wasn’t really connected to what they we doing at the school. <shrugs>
That’s the way I always read it, too. And this:
is IMHO a reference to masturbation. (Rosie being a common reference to one’s own palm, as in, “I have a date with ‘Rosie’ tonight,” and “corona” being an anatomical reference – look it up.)
So in other words, the singer is saying, “Goodbye to masturbation, I found something better to do with Julio.”
Again, IMHO.
Paul Simon has said many times that there was no particular incident in mind. Like “American Pie,” it all works better if it’s nonspecific, so people who can’t handle ambiguity can drive themselves crazy.
Songs are not news reports.
I always thought it was two boys discovering how much fun playing doctor was, too. Of course, I tend to see gay themes in an awful lot of otherwise unlikely places…
“It doesn’t mean anything,” is a common retreat for songwriters who (rightfully) don’t like deconstructing their own poetry.
If it was two boys, (or masturbation), why would he say “you, me and Julio”? And the terms for statutory rape vary widely, I can easily see a priest defending a couple of 18-year olds who had gotten it on with a 16-year old girl (assuming it was consensual).
Anyway, I think it can be interpreted however you like. (Where’s the shrugging smilie when you need it?)
just relistened to the song again and I hear " see Me and Julio down by the school yard", not "you, Me and Julio…
Re: the “Rosie” reference to masturbation–where do you get this? I’m not challenging you, I just never heard it, nor does it make sense to me, although Jackson Browne seems to support it too. In one song, he writes about being rejected by a woman he had designs on (or his narrator does, anyway) and the chorus goes, “Looks like it’s me and you again tonight, Rosie.”
It’s an old joke- what are you doing on Friday? I have a hot date with Rosie Palm and her five sisters.
That’s the point. Deconstructing is a laughable exercise that only shows the interests and the prejudices of the person doing the analysis. It has absolutely nothing to to with the work, and all to do with the critic’s ego.
Insisting that a work has a literal meaning is a silly waste of time.
I’ve also heard it as “see” me and Julio, not “you”, me and Julio.
I always thought mama and papa were somebody else’s parents, maybe Rosie’s or even Julio’s.
I think “corona” is in reference to a place, because…
(nitpick #1) Would a guy refer to his own hand as a “Queen”?
(nitpick #2) Doesn’t masturbation include other parts of the penis, besides the corona?
The chorus says “see you, me and Julio”. And then on the last line of the chorus says just “me and Julio”. You don’t have to take my word for it, check out www.paulsimon.com
But I agree that mama and papa are most likely Rosie’s parents, which is why mama “spit on the ground every time my name gets mentioned”.
I doubt it. Corona is a neighborhood in Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City, and quite close to where Paul Simon (and I, not that that matters for this discussion) grew up.