Paul Simon - One Trick Pony, C or D

See how he dances
See how he loops from side to side
See how he prances
The way his hooves just seem to glide
He’s just a one trick pony (that’s all he is)
But he turns that trick with pride

He makes it look so easy
He looks so clean
He moves like god’s
Immaculate machine
He makes me think about
All of these extra movements I make
And all of this herky-jerky motion
And the bag of tricks it takes
To get me through my working day
One-trick pony

He’s a one trick pony
He either fails or he succeeds
He gives his testimony
Then he relaxes in the weeds
He’s got one trick to last a lifetime
But that’s all a pony needs
(that’s all he needs)
He looks so easy
He looks so clean
He moves like god’s
Immaculate machine
He makes me think about
All of these extra movements I make
And all of this herky-jerky motion
And the bag of tricks it takes
To get me through my working day

One-trick pony, one trick pony
One-trick pony, one trick pony
One-trick pony (take me for a ride)
One trick pony

"Late in the Evening" is totally great, the title track's not bad, I think there's a few other songs I like but I honestly don't remember.

hahaha yeah the fact that my dad played this when we were around undoubtedly had an effect on my willingness...

Seems to me that there's so much of value on his other albums (especially Hearts and Bones and Rhythm of the Saints) that I'm not sure why anyone would want to spend a lot of time rescuing One Trick Pony from being a footnote.

For some reason, I've never understood or much liked "Kodachrome." For an early solo-Simon song that I think is underplayed and underrated, I'd nominate "American Tune."

*Rip Torn's performance
*Soft Parachutes
*Simon kicking away the reels at the end, which I thought was so rock n roll.

they just got the DVD of this at my local spot... always been curious but skeptical that Simon could actually write a decent film...

i always liked the idea that Simon is concerned with making a ballsy record and Lou Reed plays the producer who assures him that he, too, wants to make a ballsy record and then somehow Simon perceives Reed's adding of strings to his material as being the reason his music lacks these balls when there's nothing in the material to suggest it was ever ballsy and the Jonah Levin character was never a rocker to begin with. Soft Parachutes was a lovely tune, tho.

Like the movie, but it's by no means a great one. To damn it with faint praise, I liked it better than Perfect, which I enjoyed in a perverse kind of way many years ago. Might not feel that way now.

^^^hilarious - is the whole movie this good?

fuck yes

"I like a joke. If its funny."

I forget, does Paul, er, I mean Jonah, bang Rip Torn's wife later? Probably. What was so weird to me about this movie is that Paul Simon had to be one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s. wtf does he know about being a struggling songwriter in late 70s NYC?

is this movie before or after Carrie Fisher ditched him

cuz I imagine getting dumped by Princess Leia would really fuck a brother up

i feel like this is pre-Princess Leia, but I could have my Simon chronology all wrong here. i feel like Lou Reed and Paul Simon should've done some kind of gritty cop drama at this point in their career. Directed by William Friedkin. "Waiting For The One Trick Pony."

^^^lolz would watch

"What was so weird to me about this movie is that Paul Simon had to be one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s. wtf does he know about being a struggling songwriter in late 70s NYC?"

does knowing about being a struggling songwriter in the late 50's/early 60's not count?

oh he didn't struggle that much. i guess it's just that One Trick Pony seems really bitter about an industry that Paul Simon had, at that point, been incredibly successful in for a decade and a half.

that's why they call it acting. Simon playing against type! Just more genius at work.

haha, maybe.

is he wearing a rug in this movie or what?

http://www.thedreamerofmusic.com/Video_Disco/video/homevideo/homenews/home_archivos/himage018.jpg

^^dude looks pretty bald

he's acting against type there. bald dude playing a non-bald dude.

oh he didn't struggle that much. i guess it's just that One Trick Pony seems really bitter about an industry that Paul Simon had, at that point, been incredibly successful in for a decade and a half.

this is true to some extent, but dude seems fairly bitter in general - and it doesn't seem like he was all that much in control of his career early on (see orchestral/band overdubbing anecdote about the Sounds of Silence)

true, but that overdubbing is what made his whole career possible, more or less! Record company intervention = good. (Not really, but in that case, Simon totally owes his meddling A&R rep, or whatever. I guess it was Tom Wilson.)

hmmn, maybe Lou Reed IS the Tom Wilson character. Didn't the same Tom Wilson also sabotage those first two Velvet Underground albums? The backing choir on "Sister Ray"? The strings on "The Gift"? The insistence on using a click track for "Heroin"? Reed probably relished the chance for payback.

Simon was probably more bitter because once he had a hit, he had to go back and sing with that Garfunkel dude.

The insistence on using a click track for "Heroin"?
lolz

a quick read of the paul simon wikipedia article indicates a good 7 years or so of small time singing/songwriting, topping the charts at 97 with some other guy fronting the band, etc etc. before finally breaking with sounds of silence (which tanked the first time around) surely that counts as a bit of a record industry struggle/dues-paying?

ok, ok, Paul Simon STRUGGLED.

yes, his guitar once got wet. it was awful.

dude walked through the snow ten miles with no shoes just to play a song for rip torn

You guys are more goddamn jaded than the movie, you know that, right?

you guys can make light but i'll bet it took a lot of hard work and heartache to get to be in a woody allen movie!

oh i'm just kidding around -- i love paul. it's just that clip shakey posted above is kinda hilarious.

"I know what a hook is"

haha. in general i just have a fascination with writer/director/stars who cast themselves in the role of the totally righteous person, while everyone else in the film is a complete idiot. except for the foxy blonde chick who sees your inner soulfulness. and knows who albert schweitzer is.

cocaine's a helluva drug

http://thedreamerofmusic.com/PICTURE/04%20Paul%20Simon%201980%20-%201985/1982%20with%20Carrie%20Fisher.jpg

Edie Brickell = second-rate Carrie Fisher knockoff

ouch!

hey, may we all be married to second-rate Princess Leia knockoffs.

amen

perhaps that is what will be written on Paul's tombstone ...

This was really great! Thanks cheapie MGM DVD reissue series. I knew this would be good when he got blown off the stage by the B-52s within the first 10 minutes. Also, Steve Gadd drum faces.

also Tiny Tim and his comic book-panel jacket!! This was kinda worth watching just for the cameos alone. Also lolz about his anti-war song not being included on the soundtrack

since there's no general Paul Simon thread I'll just put this here...

this dude sure has a lot of songs about Jesus/salvation for a Jewish guy

why is this not on netflix?

vastly unpopular?

I mean come on there's tons of stuff that isn't on netflix

this has hit streaming services so I watched it again and lol Simon is such a vacuum as an actor, even when he's got good dialogue to work with he delivers it like a (very short) inexpressive statue. also lol that he wrote THREE sex scenes with three different actresses for himself.

The best stuff about this movie is in the margins, all the cameos and tossed off jokes and incidental musical performances. The rest of it is just kinda saggy.

been keeping this album in rotation lately... all the super smooth, melancholy late-70s Sad Singer Songwriter stuff really works imho, both musically and lyrically. some tracks try to raise the energy level, with wildly mixed results - Late in the Evening is a monster; Ace in the Hole feels forced and cheesy, despite feeling more of a piece with the rest in terms of players/arrangement. as in the ballot poll thread, I must hopelessly rep for "Oh Marion," "That's Why God Made the Movies," and "God Bless the Absentee," all basically forgotten, lovely songs.

'How the Heart Approaches What it Yearns" also belongs in that category but i can't shake my syntactical discomfort with the title.

listening to this album for the first time & i find it so lush & beautiful, and just v warm-sounding. “soft parachutes” is incredible.

never seen the movie, may seek it out