The Boy in the Bubble

Album: Graceland (1986)
Charted: 26 86
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  • It was a slow day
    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, 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

    It's a turn-around jump shot
    It's everybody jump start
    It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
    Medicine is magical and magical is art
    Think 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 Writer/s: Forere Motlhoheloa, Paul Simon
    Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 3

  • Sekonyela Mapetja from LesothoThe core composer of the Boy in the Bubble has died, Forere Motloheloa. I hope his children will get some royalties from the proceeds accrued from the song.
  • Carole from LondonDays of miracles and wonder is a reference to the Bible quotes about the end of days. It is a warning. Pretty certain Paul Simon intended that meaning, hence ‘baby don’t cry’.
  • Philip from Akron, OhThe band YES formed when Jon Anderson met Chris Squire in a bar, discussing their mutual admiration of Simon and Garfunkel. The reverence was still apparent years later when Jon wrote the lyrics for "Quartet" off the first/last/only album by YES touring company number 2 (Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe): "'We are living in days of wonder,' Simon said."
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