Tuesday’s Tune: René and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War

September 29, 2009 by Tim
Filed under: music

Olympia, a portrait of his wife Georgette by René Magritte, was stolen from a Brussels museum last Thursday. Magritte is my favourite surrealist and it reminded me of a favourite ballads by one of my favourite musical artists: René and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War, by Paul Simon.

Besides its pretentious-sounding title, it is an amusing, touching and joyous piece of surrealism itself. It portrays the couple as secret admirers of the doo wop groups of the 1950’s: The Penguins, The Moonglows, The Orioles and The Five Satins. I love this song.

A video made for this song by Joan Logue in 1984 is unavailable so I pieced together a string of images of Magritte paintings to accompany the song. I think Simon got the mood exactly right, as the resulting video shows.

This beautiful song is found on Simon’s 1983 album Hearts and Bones. Although it was not a commercial success, it is certainly one his best albums – the product of some of his most creative and high-quality song-writing. It even includes a musical guide to songwriting, Song About the Moon – and I have yet to find a better, more practical guide.