ANSWERS: 4
  • This was written for the movie The Graduate, starring Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, a middle age woman who seduces the much younger Dustin Hoffman. Although Bancroft has had a long and successful film career, she is still best known for her part in this movie. Regarding the famous line, "Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio?": Dimaggio was a star baseball player for the New York Yankees who was briefly married to Marilyn Monroe. Simon was using him to represent heroes of the past. Dimaggio was a little miffed when he heard this, since he was still very much alive even though he retired from baseball in 1951. When Dimaggio died in 1999, it was a very emotional event for many baseball fans who grew up watching him play. The part of this song that mentions him summed of the feelings of many people who felt there was no one left to look up to. Simon wrote an editorial about Dimaggio in The New York Times shortly after his death.
  • My interpretation of "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" is that it's a lament that there are no more heroes. According to Richard Ben Cramer's biography, Joe D. was annoyed that he didn't get royalties from the mention of his name in the song. But I must admit that iwnit's answer is more complete.
  • He was our knight in shining armor for awhile.
  • "These lines – "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Joltin' Joe has left and gone away." – are perhaps the most memorable. Paul Simon, a fan of Mickey Mantle, was asked on The Dick Cavett Show why Mantle wasn’t mentioned in the song instead of DiMaggio. Simon replied, "It's about syllables, Dick. It's about how many beats there are." For himself, DiMaggio initially complained that he had not gone anywhere, but soon dropped his complaints when he realized that he gained new fame with baby boomers because of the song. In a New York Times op-ed in March 1999, shortly after DiMaggio's death, Simon explained that the line was meant as a sincere tribute to DiMaggio's unpretentious heroic stature, in a time when popular culture magnifies and distorts how we perceive our heroes. He further reflected: "In these days of Presidential transgressions and apologies and prime-time interviews about private sexual matters, we grieve for Joe DiMaggio and mourn the loss of his grace and dignity, his fierce sense of privacy, his fidelity to the memory of his wife and the power of his silence." Simon subsequently performed "Mrs. Robinson" at Yankee Stadium in DiMaggio's honor in April of the same year." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Robinson

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