DEF: Paul Simon “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”
Paul Simon‘s song “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” is not from the 1980s. The song was featured on Simon’s self-titled 1972 album, and that year it rose to number 22 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart. However, in conjunction with his greatest hits compilation album Negotiations and Love Songs, Simon recorded a video for the song that was filmed where he grew up and that featured, among others, sports celebrities Mickey Mantle and John Madden. In one set of lines in the song, Simon sings, “And when the radical priest come to get me released, we was all on the cover of Newsweek.” Here, “the radical priest” refers to Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, who passed away on April 30 at the age of 94. In memory of Berrigan, with a nod to the song’s 1988 video, Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” is today’s Daily Eighties Flashback.
