Paul Simon's 'Graceland'

Glad to have you among us JF!

There can never be too many articles about what a piece of shit Paul Simon is...
http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2012/07/17/viva-los-lobos-interview-with-steve-berlin-2/#sthash.Q9acF4rp.UyTOO1JH.dpbs

RCM: What did Waronker say?

SB: He said, “Stay a little longer. I know he’s a weird guy but just hang in there. He’s got some great ideas. It’ll get better – you just have to wait him out. He’s not an easy guy, I know.” So we stayed in there and it was just more of the same. We were booked for three days, but after the first day we said, “Okay, we’re done. There’s no way we’re coming back to this bullshit!”

And again, Lenny reached out to us and said, “Look, we really want you to do this – this is going to be a really important record for Paul.” And we’re like, “No fucking way! This guy’s a fucking idiot! He doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t know what the fuck he wants. The guy is crazy.” It was such an uncomfortable environment. And I remember Lenny saying, “Come on, it’s for the family. You got to do it for the family!”

RCM: What did he mean by “the family?”

SB: Y’know, the Warner Bros. family. So how fucking stupid were we, going back in for the second day for just more of the same bullshit. At that point it’s just a standoff. Paul has no fucking ideas, we hate him, and feel like we’re being forced to be there against our will. We’re just standing there thinking, “What in the world are we doing here?”

There’s this uncomfortable silence and then Dave starts playing what would become The Myth of Fingerprints, because it was a song we were preparing for our next record. We’d been waiting around for two days for Paul to come up with something, but he had nothing. So to have something to do, we just started playing what we thought was our song, when Paul suddenly says, “Hey, that’s cool. What is that?” And we said, “Oh, it’s a song we’ve been working on.” He goes, “Hey, can we do that?” and we just thought, “Yeah — if it will get us out of this fucking studio!” So we started playing it and captured a take of it and finally escaped and thought, “Thank god this is over with!”

RCM: But you were never credited on the album, right?

SB: It was six months later the record comes out and we said, “Oh, look at this: words and music by Paul Simon.” We thought, “Well, obviously that’s a mistake.” So we called up Lenny and the record company people that we had for Paul and asked them to fix the mistake.

RCM: What was their response?

SB: Silence, silence, silence. We’re asking and asking, then finally six months later we hear from Paul and he says, “Sue me. See what happens.” That’s a direct quote, so that gives you an indication of what kind of guy he is.

hmm.

At least he didn't make them suck his dick.

are they still on this shit?

What play is he referring to? The Caveman didn't flop until the late nineties. Does he mean One Trick Pony? Also, my tape copy of Graceland bought in the late eighties shows Simon giving songwriting credit to many of the African musicians. I'm not playing Capn Save a Simon but this story always comes up and people give Los Lobos the benefit of the doubt.

find it hard to believe that a band like Los Lobos can be bullied into kicking around a studio when they didn't want to.

https://theperfectipodcollection.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/los-lobos.jpg

i really hate this record, so i'm open to the idea that it was made by an insufferable jackass.

btw the year-long awkward silence after the dick-sucking joke at the start of this thread is priceless

From upthread, "Sting certainly never created a Graceland" - maybe Dream of the Blue Turtles approaches? The Stingster owes as much to Omar Hakim and B. Marsalis as Simon owes to Kumalo.

Oh and also to upthread - the rough drafts of the stuff from Rhythm of the Saints (I'm thinking of "The Coast" and "Spirit Voices") are alarmingly good. They were bonus tracks on some collection or other, and they include early versions of the words. Sure, I know he killed Nelson Mandela and made Los Lobos suck his dick, but the dude threw away better lyrics than a lot of people ever come up with.

And melodies, melodies, melodies.

the knots ppl twist them in in order to justify hating paul simon

1. thinking los lobos stories are convincing and good and not a massive self pwn
2. saying graceland is like cultural imperialism
3. thinking paul simons music is very bad and without merit
4. becoming very passionate about the idea of paul simon being a bad person

like its ok u can just dislike paul simon and then move on with yr life i dont think anyone demands you have a theory of why paul simon is bad and hated

I like Los Lobos and Paul Simon a lot, tend to believe there story there. nonetheless, they never wrote a lyric as great as the Myth of Fingerprints, and I don't really care how hard Simon is to work with/how much of an asshole he is.

Good for you Outic no longer caring about people you think are asses, I thought that was your big thing usually.

soyrev - if u don't like graceland you don't like southern african music, the musicianship is godly

los lobos contribution is the weakest on the album anyway it would've been better without that track and worth not much at all without Paul's lyrics and melody

And again, Lenny reached out to us and said, “Look, we really want you to do this – this is going to be a really important record for Paul.” And we’re like, “No fucking way! This guy’s a fucking idiot! He doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t know what the fuck he wants. The guy is crazy.” It was such an uncomfortable environment. And I remember Lenny saying, “Come on, it’s for the family. You got to do it for the family

lol remember when he made them play drums

Paul has no fucking ideas, we hate him, and feel like we’re being forced to be there against our will. We’re just standing there thinking, “What in the world are we doing here?”

it is is p funny that he gave everyone except los lobos writing credits

but anyway their stories abt the recording process do not have a high degree of verisimilitude

I ended up sympathizing with Simon behind the studio glass, avoiding them.

i mean maybe they did write the song but just their descriptions of human interactions to not sound like real life

maybe because they are "lobos" (wolves"

tru

its all good i support los lobos jihad against paul simon but i prefer if they wld include the story about the drummer who didnt want to play drums anymore every time

"soyrev - if u don't like graceland you don't like southern african music, the musicianship is godly"

i'm pretty sure it's precisely because i like southern african music that i don't like graceland. i first heard the album in the context of a class called Sub-Saharan African Music (taught by michael veal, a onetime touring bassist for fela and author of an incredible book on dub, without a doubt the single most music-comprehending mind i've ever met; irrelevant to topic at hand but i can never pass up an opportunity to prostrate myself in his honor, seriously get his dub book if you have any interest in the genre or good music writing), and it sounded like such banal shit in comparison to the source music. and yes, i'm seldom one to cry "cultural imperialism" when it comes to music, but that aspect of the album seemed written all over the face of these songs in a really gross, craven way. (w/e w/r/t musicianship, btw, that much is nearly a given when it comes to african music that actually made it to wax in its time.)

i'm impressed with lag8n's logic though, i never would have guessed paul simon had his own proto-directioners.

so uncomfortable playing drums

i'm impressed with lag8n's logic though, i never would have guessed paul simon had his own proto-directioners.

― soyrev, Friday, April 10, 2015 11:43 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oy a logic man i see, very good, very nice

thx for the Veal rec, hadn't heard of that book before

man, it is so good. i remember noticing a lot of the amazon reviews complained about how technical it is, but i don't think that's the case and kind of doubt someone else on ILM would find that a problem anyway.

Also, my tape copy of Graceland bought in the late eighties shows Simon giving songwriting credit to many of the African musicians.

iirc, this was retroactive. The initial pressing(s?) gave sole credit to Simon.

p sure ur just making that up

While I'm not a fan of this record, I don't think it's a pile of shit, nor does my view of Simon as a person affect my enjoyment of his work, generally speaking. But I do remember hearing at the time that Simon had to change the credits (and of course I can't find a link to anything supporting that).

But wrt Los Lobos/Steve Berlin, they only brought up the dustup when asked about it. It's not like they went out of their way to make sure everyone knew about Simon's thievery.

(and Simon's response is hilarious: "there was no mention of 'joint writing.'" "Hey, you guys never told me that I didn't write that song of yours, so I just assumed I wrote it.")

los lobos talk abt it like constantly

From 1986 to 2008, they didn't say anything publicly about it. Steve Berlin has since been interviewed two or three times since, and has been asked about it every time.

So, not exactly "constantly."

paul should give them a writing credit

on 'Cars Are Cars'

"we're jamming with Paul Simon on a song WE wrote" vs "we're jamming with Paul so he took the songwriting credit" is too thin for me to care about Los Lobos' complaints. It's a he-said/he-said scenario.

or rather "we're jamming with Paul AND he took the songwriting credit"

there's some really weird thought process going on in this thread. i have no way of verifying los lobos' side of the story and my stated interest in believing them was merely a joke (i hate this album either way), but it's pretty clear they never said "we jammed with Paul and he took all credit." it was, "we played a finished song of ours in front of him, he wanted to sing new words on it, he sang new words on it, and he took all credit."

Right – it's their word against his that they brought a finished song.

Loudest truth bomb of the last month:

When I become Emperor I will ban all songwriting credits from ever being published

― 龜, Sunday, April 5, 2015 11:05 AM

One more recommendation for Michael Veal's dub book (Amazon link); his Fela book (Amazon link) is really good, too.

I like the album, but I also think there could be some truth to the allegations. Also, Los Lobos weren't the only ones complaining re song credits on this:

The book "The Kingdom of Zydeco" has the story on Simon learning about zydeco, working with zydeco musicians, recording sessions with 3 zydeco bands and taping a Rocking Dopsie zydeco instrumental (that turned out to be based on an old Creole standard) and from that creating the credited just to Simon song "That was Your Mother"

The book discussion is in google books too

― curmudgeon, Monday, January 27, 2014 4:00 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so who should he have credited

― lag∞n, Monday, January 27, 2014 4:

When Rockin Dopsie complained that he should have gotten a credit, is when Simon's lawyer said Dopsie's song was taken from an old Creole standard and therefore if Dopsie tried to challenge Simon in court they would bring that up.

so who should he have credited

― lag∞n, Monday, January 27, 2014 4:

probably safe to just credit every American song ever written to "anonymous black guy"

When Rockin Dopsie complained that he should have gotten a credit, is when Simon's lawyer said Dopsie's song was taken from an old Creole standard and therefore if Dopsie tried to challenge Simon in court they would bring that up.

― curmudgeon, Friday, April 10, 2015 1:38 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the funniest part of the Steve Berlin interview:

I remember he played me the one he did by John Hart, and I know John Hart, the last song on the record. He goes, "Yeah, I did this in Louisiana with this zy decko guy." And he kept saying it over and over. And I remember having to tell him, "Paul, it's pronounced zydeco. It's not zy decko, it's zydeco." I mean that's how incredibly dilettante he was about this stuff. The guy was clueless.

Songwriters Paul Simon and Zy Decko

^^On that tip, I seem to recall an interview with Simon where he was pushed about the Los Lobos thing, and he kept mentioning how David HILLDEGGER had never confronted him about it.

I would be curious to read a Hidalgo compare/contrast re: working w Simon vs. working w Dylan

its cool how paul simons huge deficit in musical knowledge compared to los lobos doesnt prevent him from making far superior music, almost like this noise doesnt really matter

i mean obvs i have sympathy for it mattering to the ppl actually involved, ppl building a war crimes case against paul simon... lol at u