“The World’s Just Inside Out and Upside Down”: Carly Simon’s “Safe and Sound”

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Safe and Sound (Hotcakes album, 1974)
Words and Music by Carly Simon

Strange times in Portland, Maine,
Lobsters dancing on the docks,
Switzerland's been weird
Since they unplugged the clocks.

Man and a woman in Brooklyn Heights,
Each convinced the other’s in the wrong,
While last year the divorce rate
Tripled in Hong Kong.

If, through all the madness,
We can stick together,
We’re safe and sound,
The world's just inside out,
And upside down.

Flash from Mexico,
The toreadors
Have all turned gay,
Roman whores have quit to
Seek a better way.

Dope has undermined the morale
Of the Buckingham Palace guards,
Motorcycle gangs ride naked down
Hollywood Boulevard.

If through all the madness,
We can stick together,
We're safe and sound,
The whole world's just
Inside out and upside down.

My marahaj wants you
To lead a pilgrimage to Tibet,
New York women want me sounding off
Like a Suffragette.

I know that each of us
Is all alone in the end,
But the trip still feels less dangerous,
When you've got a friend.

If we stick together,
You and me forever,
We're safe and sound,
The world's just inside out
And upside down.

The world's just inside out,
And upside down.
 


 

Uploaded on May 17, 2011 by Bruce Kennewell.