Born out of a midlife crisis involving a painful divorce, "Graceland" reignited Simon's career and reinvented his sound for a new generation. Simon has called the title track, which fuses the sounds of 1950s country with the sounds of South Africa, his favorite of all the songs he's written. The song begins with the idea of pilgrimage to seminal influences from Simon's childhood (Graceland is the name of Elvis Presley's home, and Simon was a Sun Records fan growing up). Over the course of the song, however, "Graceland" becomes a metaphor for the hope of a better future, both in this life and the next.