“Graceland” by Paul Simon

"Graceland" is the title track of Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland, and it's a road-trip song with a broken heart riding along: a man driving toward Graceland with his failed marriage on his mind. Carrie Fisher, Simon's ex-wife, said it was partly about the two of them. Simon produced it himself with Roy Halee engineering, and the players from his South African sessions give it its easy, rolling lilt: Ray Phiri's guitar, Bakithi Kumalo's bubbling bass, Vusi Khumalo's drums and Makhaya Mahlangu's percussion, with Demola Adepoju's pedal steel sighing along and the Everly Brothers lending their voices.

It won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1988, and Rolling Stone later placed it at 485 on its 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.