Paul Simon

We don't seem to have a general Paul Simon thread on ILM; we have threads on Hearts and Bones, and on Graceland, and polls polls polls but how about a general thread of Simon talk in addition.

I'm listening through his oeuvre today, and just listened to Live Rhymin', from 1974. I wanted to remark on the version of "America" that ends the album. Someone in the audience yells something like "say a few words!" Simon replies "Say a few words? Well, let's hope that we're...let's hope that we continue to live." He then plays a slow, quiet, and sad "America"; it's missing half its life, resigned, but resignation was in the air in 1974. It's a remarkable performance.

I grew up with Negotiations and Love Songs on cassette

I think he's classic as a songwriter
when his prose doesn't get too purple & ponderous

a lot of his recordings sound dated because of the production though

I'm with you on his lyrics; I listened through the whole Simon & Garfunkel oeuvre earlier today, and I cringe at some of his lyrics, especially on PSR&T. But from Bookends on I think he came to understand his own voice better. In short: he was wise to avoid trying to write like Dylan, because most songwriters end up sounding silly when they do that (cf. early Springsteen).

dunno how dated his records sound, or if they're dated it's not to their detriment -- I mean, sure, something like "Still Crazy" is pretty quintessentially 70s, but in the same way that say, Steely Dan is quintessentially 70s. Production on the whole is pretty sparkling and gorgeous to these ears.

btw Paul Simon was my first genuine rock concert. The 1990 (or 1989?) "Born At The Right Time" tour. I was 11 ... It was excellent.

halfway through One-Trick Pony now (my first listen to it!) and the production on all the records through 1980 sound fine. My brother, though, refuses to give Graceland a chance on account of its "dated" production, by which he means gated drums, mostly. While I think he's nuts for dismissing Graceland, I do see how gated drums sound of their time.

I really must buy me some Paul Simon. I own none of his records, but I know them reasonably well from my parents' record collection when I was younger. I mean this 5-disc Simon and Garfunkel set costs next to nothing.

The 1990 (or 1989?) "Born At The Right Time" tour. I was 11 ... It was excellent.

One of my first shows. I've told the story in one of the other Simon threads: it's still the only concert during which the performer played a Big Hit Single ('You Can Call Me Al'), then said, "Woo! That was great! Let's do it again!" and proceeded to play it again.

Is the song "The Dangling Conversation" meant to be ironic at all ?

I suspect not. His pre-Bookends lyrics leaned way into the "depressed teenager in a turtleneck" territory.

One of my first shows. I've told the story in one of the other Simon threads: it's still the only concert during which the performer played a Big Hit Single ('You Can Call Me Al'), then said, "Woo! That was great! Let's do it again!" and proceeded to play it again.

Man, that kinda bums me out. I saw Simon on the Graceland tour - I think that puts it around 87 or 88. I was twelve - it was my second concert (1st was Jimmy Buffett). Anyway, he did the exact same thing when I saw him. The crowd went so nuts after he played "You Can Call Me Al" that he (I thought) spontaneously said "We can do it again!", to which the crowd went nuts again. Makes me a little sad to know that was a rehearsed thing on his part.

On the other hand, there's something kind of wonderful about him being so premeditated about his set list. "...okay, and then at this point we play 'You Can Call Me Al' two times in a row..."

I mentioned it on the Unplugged thread, but the extra tracks on the 2005 (2004?) reissues are worth buying as individual songs. Hearts and Bones has a terrific acoustic-guitar-and-voice demo for "Train in the Distance."

I'm a stan, and bought Surprise for a few bucks at a Half Price Books -- so disappointing. Maybe there are better demos for those songs that will be released later.

I think it's much too twee & teen angsty, then

xxp

& I am wearing a turtleneck fwiw !

"Surprise" sucked imo, Eno's ambient shit added nothing to half baked song sketches

Another case for Paul Simon with just voice and guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd8ePfu7_pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1dlWmrRstc&feature=player_embedded

i think i've discussed this elsewhere, but his 1st "real" solo album (the one from 1972) is one of the great albums of its period.

and although i like much of the rest of his work (w/ and w/o garfunkel) it sort of towers above everything else.

his crappy lyrics pretty much go away after he broke w/ garfunkel. or at least the stratospherically crappy ones, anyway.

personally speaking, simon comes across like a bit of a dick, I think

If "dick" means "self-aware," sure. I can't accuse him of gratuitous cruelty to his lovers.

his 1st "real" solo album (the one from 1972) is one of the great albums of its period

I've been listening to this a lot recently. "Duncan" is a killer song.

Interesting to contrast "Duncan" with its demo version. "My wife and me took a home by the sea..."

Love this album. Sometimes I think Paul Simon's stuff from the S/T through "Graceland" (or sometimes if I'm feeling generous "Saints") is the best stuff ever. Once about every 5 years or so I go on a bender with it.

Then I get to feeling like an overstuffed couch and have to listen to some Misfits.

x-post Yep, Simon played the song twice at every stop. But who would complain, really? I last time I saw Joe Strummer, toward the end of the night, after he had already played "London Calling" and "White Man ...," he asked the crowd which of them they wanted to hear again. People voted "London Calling," and he played it again. Man of the people, that Strummer.

Funny this thread kicked in now, since I just took out my S&G albums to give them a listen for the first time. Them and Simon's solo albums are interesting to me, since scanning the back I know two or three songs per disc like the back of my hand, but few of the others - yet I know the song titles! Like "Dangling Conversation." I have no idea what that song sounds like, but I at least recognize the name. Weird.

I listened to One-Trick Pony last night for the first time, as I mentioned, and it was kind of a snoozer (granted, it was the 12th S&G/Simon record I played yesterday, haha). Any suggestions on what I should listen for next time?

Interesting to contrast "Duncan" with its demo version.

yeah, he tells a completely different story! weird, huh?

the s/t lp has some great singles and s&g-style BIG songs like duncan, mother&child reunion, me&julio, but i think the highlights are armistice day, peace like a river, and papa hobo. armistice day might be my favorite simon song, period.

my favorite Simon track just might be "Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes" from some deluxe version of Graceland, I think. It's totally stripped down, the only things on the track are Simon's vocals, Ladysmith Black Mambazo & bass

I meant to say "Diamonds On the Soles of Her Goes (Unreleased Version)"

Any suggestions on what I should listen for next time?

well "late in the evening" is so much better than the rest of the record that it doesn't need pointing out. but i like the title track too, and "long, long day." don't actually remember a lot else off the top of my head. i've never seen the movie, sort of curious about it.

I think She's The One is kinda underrated ... Maybe closest in tone/style to Hearts and Bones. Not Simon at his catchiest, maybe, but some good tunes/lyrics.

hmm, didn't he just do a bunch of reissues? http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/here-comes-rhymin-simon-on-a-different-label/?src=twt&twt=artsbeat

The current reissues sound amazing. I doubt there's much they could do to improve them, nor is there probably much in the vaults of note that didn't make the current batch.

This is like the Stones reissuing/remastering on a different label every few years.

i should get those reissues probably. all of my 70s-80s simon is on vinyl. bonus trax are good?

most of the bonus material I could take or leave, with the glaring exception of the alternate version of "Gone At Last" with the Jessy Dixon Singers from Still Crazy.

They run from really good to never going to play that again. But the sound on all the albums is pristine. He had the best of the best backing bands and they sound like the best - warm, clean 70s studio sound. I only have the three 70s records (I never warmed to the 80s work outside of a track here and there), but I understand the remasters are equally great if you care for the material.

xpost

I love the "Duncan" and "Take me to the Mardi Gras" demos.

This is like the Stones reissuing/remastering on a different label every few years

dunno what this means. abkco series came out 20+ years after the original cd releases. the reamaining ones came out about a year ago. it's not like Elvis Costello who's had about 4 This Years Models since 1987

xxxxpost

^^^Bowie is the other one who does this

and Zappa - all three of those guys got the "Rykodisc treatment", too, coincidentally

Stones issued Sticky Fingers on cd in 90, 94 & 09. Costello issued This Year's Model in 86, 93, 02 & 07. One more time - what a huge difference! Point is, these artists that control their catalog have huge incentive to switch labels and reissue stuff whenever they can.

Hell, I've bought the Soft Boys' Underwater Moonlight four times on cd. I'm an enabler.

i was actually thinking of the Stones' early ones, which only came out once before they were done perfectly in 2001 or whatever it was. had to take exception 'cuz there's a night and day difference between the two issues.
sorry for derailing on Paul Simon's watch

I wasn't clear to start - those abkco remaster are great. The Stones don't own those though so can't milk 'em.

A really talented guy who since the mid 80s has done the mistake of letting other people control a bit too much of his sound and songwriting style. "Hearts And Bones" is fantastic, and seems to be his peak. "Surprise" was an aptly titled Eno collaboration though, just need to relax the rhythm section even a good bit and find back to his good, old pre-"Graceland" style.

New album streaming on NPR. Sounds pretty good, glad to hear him dabbling in Afropop again, the rhythms overall are stronger than anything he's done in a long time (and I think rhythm is really key to his best songwriting).

He's touring the US and doing mid-sized halls and some club gigs (930 club and others).

this sounds good!

"dazzling blue" kinda dazzling!

Haven't kept up with his new output since Rhythm of the Saints (other than hearing the ghastly Capeman). This is nice, in a pleasantly unassuming sort of way. Nothing jumped out me after one listen but it was solid throughout.

you're the one is worth hearing.... surprise has its moments, but some of those moments are not so hot.

The coupla tracks I heard from the new one implies Simon learned a few lessons from Eno, even if that last record was a stiff.

Stuff I read about this: He samples Sonny Terry. "Amulet" was originally an instrumental he wrote for Brazilian singer Luciana Souza who added her own vocal melody overtop.

Here's part of the L. Souza with Simon duet at the Beacon in NYc awhile back doing "Amulet". The Simon album version is just an instrumental

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v517/paulfournier/Paul%20Simon%20Beacon%20NYC%202-13-09/?action=view¤t=Amulet2-13-09016.flv

He samples a bit of Reverend J.M. Gates' sermon "getting Ready for Christmas Day" in “Getting Ready For Christmas Day"

http://dust-digital.com/gates

http://www.avclub.com/articles/paul-simon,53706/

some interesting bits in this interview. He explains the "Jay-Z" lyrical reference and talks about Eno and his 18 year-old son playing James Blake for him

I listened to some of the Panda Bear (from Animal Collective) stream on NPR after this one on NPR and I think Simon, despite utilizing some of his same ol' techniques, is less monochromatic than Panda Bear who is stuck on his dreamy Brian Wilson thing. Not that either one is great, but this appears to be more listenable. Does this type of thinking mean I'm old?

the rhythms overall are stronger than anything he's done in a long time (and I think rhythm is really key to his best songwriting).

I swear I read somewhere that while Simon had done so on ocassion before Graceland, that starting with that cd he began emphasing the usage of interesting rhythms that he heard from others to get him out of a songwriting block. He uses influences from others to kickstart his writing. Now previously we have discussed how some of his collaborators (Los Lobos, Terrance Simien) have grumbled that they have not gotten any songwriting credit on songs(some defend Simon on this).

I hear the so-called "rhythmic" approach on his first solo album!

Sometimes over the years he added rhythm himself via guitar in the songwriting process and sometime in the studio via supporting musicians at various stages of the songwriting process. With some albums he notes in that AV Club interview that he started with drums first.

at the end of the day, will any bed of exotica rhythms or chance operations overcome the preciousness inherent to simon's songwriting though?

Will any message board put an end to rhetorical questions?

But, to answer it, the preciousness is his most charming feature, cuz it's so precise.

You won't find an answer to your question here bb, we've got diamonds on the soles of our shoes.

or: xp

i knew he was talking about that jay-z billboard, it was close to my house.

Interview is interesting. Funny how to him this is less of a 'drum' record, but to me it seems more rhythmically alive than the last few. I like this, because it makes sense of some things I've long thought about him, that people miss a lot of what makes him great by focusing so much on his lyrics:

I like working with sound—sound and rhythm. I like the abstract more than “What does that mean?” Nobody ever says to you, “Why did you use a harmonium?” Or “What is that ringing sound that occurs here?” The questions are always “What does that song mean?” or “What were you trying to say here?” The abstract is just more interesting because it doesn’t really have anything to say, but if it is good, it creates thoughts and feelings, and I enjoy that. For me, once the music creates those thoughts and feelings, I begin to write a song about it. But if I just left it at the instrumental track, I think people would listen to it and think up their own songs and thoughts. That would be fun, too.

Surprise isn't bad at all, I just never listen to it.

btw there's some docfilm on the way about the making of Bridge over Troubled Water

yeahhh, i think it's included w/ the new reish of that album.
preciousness, eh? i mean, maybe at times, but to me it's more clarity of intent. or something.

it's interesting to me how the real "serious" sorta folk songwriting giants of the 60s - Dylan, Neil Young, Paul Simon - who could all be comfortably resting on their laurels by now, are still cranking out records. and genuinely interesting records at that. whereas all the more rock guys are burned out and worthless (lol Rolling Stones)

probably something to do with being a band vs. a solo artist? all of the dudes you mentioned (dylan, young, simon) have been able to swtich things up in terms of collaborators and sounds over the years, whereas the stones are kinda locked in one thing.

hmm yeah that makes sense.

otoh Lou Reed, not so vital a songwriter anymore eh

yeah not really. i sort of expect lou to have one more good to great album, but maybe that is expecting too much. does he even really write songs anymore?

A Bigger Bang was better than Surprise.

harsh

A- vs B record.

playing Glastonbury if the hints are owt to go by
http://www.nme.com/news/glastonbury/55932

how come no one told me paul simon did a solo acoustic tour in 1984? just found a recording, sounds amazing. great set list, cool reworkings of the songs.

Christgau loves it – his first A for a Simon record since Graceland.

A Bigger Bang was better than Surprise.

OTM. "A Bigger Bag" is pretty good! "Surprise" was super dull, especially considering the Eno imprimatur and compared to the underrated "You're the One."

BTW, I don't know if there's a thread for this, but what's up with Jewish songwriters like Simon, Leonard Cohen and Dylan (even pre-Christianity) invoking lots of Christian imagery?

you know all the best Christmas songs? written by Jews

I read one reviewer here compare the new album to "Heart and Bones". This is obviously not at all true though, because what made "Hearts and Bones" so special was all the ballads, and the new album doesn't have ballads at all.

It is not at all bad, but it is now about time Paul Simon put away all that annoying percussion forever and go back to all those Rhodes-tinged ballads he was so great at until and including "Hearts and Bones". Those are the ones that represents Simon at his best and most musically sophisticated.

sb

annoying percussion forever

still hongro after all these years

There's a ballad called "Dazzling Blue" which evokes "Hearts and Bones," but Geir, I guess, missed it because the tabla confused him into thinking he was listening to a George Harrison or Kula Shaker recod.

kinda mostly loving everything abt this rec

'questions for the angels' is on some dreamy vdparks song cycle ish

First Paul Simon album since Rhythm of the Saints that I like after one listen - and I've found that none of those records I initially disliked have grown on me at all. I wonder if it's the production, which in many ways seems to hearken back to his mid-70s heyday (some of my first musical memories are of lying in the back section of the station wagon watching the telephone poles tick by and listening to "My Little Town" and the rest of Still Crazy on the 8-track) but with a nice, understated update-sheen (unlike Surprise which sounded to me like "LOOKY HOW MODERN I CAN DO")

good album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI0enx_Jnqc

impressed they sounded so good live with just 2 vox and a single acoustic guitar

The title track (nice electro blues stomp) and "Dazzling Blue" are the keepers.

can we talk about how good so beautiful or so what is? it is really good!

It's really surprisingly good live, too.

I like it, although there's too many angels, Christmas mornings, and too much love.

you monster.

Saw him this past Monday at the smaller local venue. Boy, is his band good. Also occurred to me what a natural fit the African stuff remains for Simon, making songs like "50 Ways" and "Kodachrome" sound even more square than ever. The night's deep cut: "Cool, Cool River."

yurgh would love to see him in one of these clubs he's been playing.

yeah, The Vic show was great. one of the best shows I've ever seen in my life. and I'm not even the hugest Paul Simon fan! but damn that band was amazing. Super tight, but also loose enough to pull off a few Grateful Dead "->" style transitions ("Vietnam" -> "Mother and Child Reunion", "Hearts and Bones" -> "Mystery Train", "Kodachrome"-> "Gone at Last")

His new songs all sound great, they blended right in with the older stuff.

I was actually worried for a minute at the start. He looked so old, and the sound was kind of eh, but it perked up quick! Perfectly paced, too. Almost like he's some sort of a pro or something. ;) Didn't know you'd be there, Rob, otherwise I would have made my way through all the rich/pretty/old people to wherever you were.

(Crossposting, the Cars last night also started sort of eh but stayed that way).

gonna see him in exactly a month in a 1500-capacity venue in Dublin. Can't wait.

That video of him on Sesame Street posted by Scott way upthread is great!

This is a pretty great story:
http://coverlaydown.com/2011/05/great-moments-in-coverage-paul-simon-picks-random-fan-out-of-the-crowd-to-cover-duncan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoverLayDown+%28Cover+Lay+Down%29

He did that in Washington DC too! This is starting to look fishy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/paul-simon-at-dar/2011/05/26/AGvtsFCH_story.html

Maybe he's just doing that everywhere on this tour

well even if it's a "thing" the woman's facial expressions in the duncan clip are pretty priceless.

aw

i remember reading abt that on roger eberts blog

its awesome!

omg that is killing me

i'm dead

also
http://stereogum.com/722022/david-byrne-paul-simon-you-can-call-me-al-road-to-nowhere-live-in-nyc/video/

30 years later, the cartoon brought to life:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_W8pwMnZMNuQ/TINIzcGfauI/AAAAAAAADoA/wrlli9MgQcs/s400/slfig1.jpg

Hold on!
This album is bloody great!
I only got it this weekend. Already I'm liking this more than Rhythm Of The Saints, which I love.

the rhythms overall are stronger than anything he's done in a long time (and I think rhythm is really key to his best songwriting).

It's sparser, here, sonically, but keeps this loose sense of time that is absent on records by ____ and ____ and other bands who are influenced by ____.
Great kora on "Rewrite". Great lyrics! This is totally awesome!

yessssssss

such a good, good rec. amazed

i thought he and garfunkel were both so likable in the 'bridge over troubled water' documentary.

Giving this my first attentive listen now and really enjoying it - the sound is really great, really feels like he's in the same room with the galloping chug of the percussion but with lots of space for his voice in there. Need to give it a few more spins, see if the songs themselves really sink in, but it's a nice listen on a purely sonic level.

I saw Shampoo last night for the first time in a while. Don't think I ever noticed before that Simon got the music credit. The stuff by other people is fine ("Manic Depression" at the party is really good); don't know how much the selection was his and how much was Hal Ashby's. The recurring bit of background music written just for the film didn't sound anything like something Simon would write, though.

can we talk about how good so beautiful or so what is? it is really good!

yeah its really p rad

Didn't want to muck up the poll thread, but hey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FLuu1Brk7U

^^ Comedy special w/ Charles Grodin et al

lol @ Art Garfunkel getting 4th billing

can't remember if this came up in the poll thread but, y'know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1DJDnddsbU

Paul Simon & Sting: On Stage Together
Thu, Mar 13
Verizon Center
On Sale: Mon, 11/18 10am

Hmmmmm, not sure I like the sound of this

it's the King of Pain championship

for a nice Jewish boy, it's always seemed odd to me that Simon invested so much of his work with Xtian imagery and references. has he ever talked about this?

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/?p=10056

Review and setlist.

Paul Simon and Sting set list at the United Center

Simon and Sting:

1 Brand New Day

2 Boy in the Bubble

3 Fields of Gold

Sting:

4 Every Little Thing She Does is Magic

5 Englishman in New York

6 I Hung My Head

7 Driven To Tears

8 Walking on the Moon

Simon and Sting:

9 Mother and Child Reunion

Simon:

10 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

11 Dazzling Blue

12 Graceland

13 Still Crazy After All These Years

14 Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard

Simon and Sting:

15 Fragile

Sting:

16 America (Paul Simon cover)

17 Message in a Bottle

18 The Hounds of Winter

19 They Dance Alone

20 Roxanne

21 Desert Rose

Simon and Sting:

22 The Boxer

Simon:

23 That Was Your Mother

24 Hearts and Bones/Mystery Train (Junior Parker cover)/Wheels (Chet Atkins cover)

25 The Obvious Child

26 Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes

27 You Can Call Me Al

Encore – Simon and Sting:

28 Bridge Over Troubled Water

29 Every Breath You Take

30 Late in the Evening

lol

http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/ows_139322104428881.jpg

http://www.moviehole.net/img/alandale.jpg http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070809233743/muppet/images/2/2d/Robinfloor.jpg

do they swap that toupe on alternate nights?

Ha.

I see Kot liked the Chicago show (with many thanks to those "exotic" rhythms)

their mutual affinity for exotic rhythms unified the sprawling 2 1/2-hour show. Whenever Sting indulged in lethargic ballads (“The Hounds of Winter”) and Simon became wrapped up in wordy introspection (“Hearts and Bones”), those Third World grooves righted the course.

Simon’s band brought rubbery bass lines, washboard and spoons, percolating hand percussion and sinewy guitar chatter via Africa, Jamaica and Louisiana.

Wow, that setlist really emphasises how massively Simon overshadows Sting as a songwriter.

tellingly, Simon doesn't do a Sting cover

for a nice Jewish boy, it's always seemed odd to me that Simon invested so much of his work with Xtian imagery and references. has he ever talked about this?

― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, December 17, 2013 9:23 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean i think this is squarely grounded in some annie hallish WASPphilic NY thing. we come on a ship they call the Mayflower.

seems like it could just as easily be white boomer standard fetishization of African American gospel/black spirituality

Based on the photo above, it would be funny if Sting played the Chevy Chase role during "You Can Call Me Al."

Interesting how if this tour had happened in 1987, the world-music crossover would've been so clear and central to the two. Neither have left it behind in their newer albums, but it's not what they're known for, either.

yeah except there is this definite puritan seam that predates the explicit references to various black musics that he obviously borrows from later on, arch and stately. private invocations, angels in the architecture, a turning canticle and a melody from bach.

xp

oh I think some of the earlier Xtian-references are pretty clearly tied to the civil rights movement as much as they are to more "arch and stately" protestantism. and then later on there's stuff like Gone at Last and Duncan etc.

yeah i mean its the rich tapestry of AMERICA but this seems like the wellspring with "american tune" as the rosetta

http://www.ncadvertiser.com/32396/paul-simon-edie-brickell-charged-with-domestic-violence/

I'm kind of shocked by this

that's not good

Other reports have said it was disorderly conduct.

That's what this report says as well.

: (

maybe edie and paul were just partying too hard?

she hummed "What I Am" around the condo once too often

so is that headline just deliberately misleading then? a charge of "disorderly conduct" in no way equates to "domestic violence"

i say that not knowing the particulars of the case, it just seems weird that the charge is one thing but the headline suggests another thing

Now on that page:

*Editor's Note: New Canaan Police initially told NBC Connecticut Simon was facing a domestic violence charge, but now say the singer was charged with disorderly conduct.

she hummed "What I Am" around the condo once too often

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 28, 2014 11:25 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not funny

What about: she kept shooting rubberbands at him?

Brickell's mom called the cops.

If u don't see joeks in this, get a fucking enema.

man, you couldn't make that joke without threatening people colonically.

I find it kinda funny that Paul Simon has a mother-in-law. I mean, what is he, 75?

Somebody didn't want somebody else to make a ballsy record...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgdJQ3L8W38

haha wtf at that sdtk edit

Is Paul Simon gaining new fans, or was he pretty much capped out after Rhythm of the Saints?

I dunno, younger folks I talk to have no idea who he is

Listening to his older stuff, he writes in a style that doesn't seem to translate well today. Very personal, but detailed and abstract in a way that you might have to "be there" to really appreciate, i.e. approaching his solo work with nothing to go on except the "name" is like walking into a one-man show where you're already supposed to know the backstory but don't.

I was never a huge fan, but my mom was, and so his name was kind of always floating around. It was easy to want to check him out, even if I didn't really ever latch on super tight to most of the albums.

Xp shakey is that a joke?

He's got those Sting fans now

Is Paul Simon gaining new fans, or was he pretty much capped out after Rhythm of the Saints?

― Dominique, Tuesday, April 29, 2014 5:13 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd guess that people are still retrospectively checking out Graceland, or Simon & Garfunkel at the very least.

why would that be a joke?
xp

The whole Vampire Weekend generation grew up listening to Graceland in their single-digit years.

did they? I was 13 when it came out. Am I in the Vampire Weekend generation?

no

You have to be of an age, and have the kind of parents, where it would have been one of five cassettes in the car for years of your childhood. People I know my age (32) and down a few years all love that album, know every word, quote lyrics to each other on Facebook. Bigger than Born in the USA, bigger than any other 80s rock record possibly in this way.

Yeah but I'm talking about teenagers and people in their 20s (coworkers, relatives etc.) who literally have no idea who he is. because I have played his music for them and they are like "never heard of it"

That is interesting/strange, I would believe that his profile has gone down a bit, but I still hear ''Mrs. Robinson'' a lot.

i'm 26 and graceland car trips are indeed practically my first memory but yeah i wouldn't be surprised if i'm on the tail end of that.

honestly I think the only thing they might recognize is "Me & Julio" from Royal Tenenbaums

Are people in their early 20s into the Royal Tenenbaums?

that thing is on cable all the time

it seems to have been canonized pretty quickly afaict

surely some young ppl know him as "very mellow" in Annie Hall

Some young people probably call him "Al".

did Don 'n' Glenn like him?

well, yeah

I'm sure that must have been a long 5 minute wait for you, Al

DON: Paul Simon was one of those game-changing songwriters, someone who really opened the door for their peers to write about anything in poetic terms. Song's like "The Boxer", "At The Zoo" and "Fakin' It" spent hours on my turntable while we where brainstorming our own tracks like "The Sad Cafe" and "Hotel California".

GLENN: Also, if I'm not mistaken, "Fakin' It At The Hotel California" sums up the ol'Donster's sex life...for his girlfriends, of course!

DON: Well, yeah.

I can't even imagine that people do not know who Paul Simon is.

never met anyone who doesn't know who Paul Simon is and his S&G LPs in partic seem vv popular with college aged kids.

I get maybe not knowing Hearts & Bones or something, but at very least it's easy enough to be exposed to Simon & Garfunkel, Graceland and various greatest hits. Paul Simon's best work is Beatles/Stones-level inescapable. You know it even if you're not trying to know it.

fwiw my four-year-old's favorite bedtime song is "Leaves are Green."

Would you say it's inescapable as pizza?

No, pizza might as well be oxygen.

guys I'm just talking about my own personal world of young people

!!!
http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/paul-simon-and-edie-brickell-release-new-duet.html

is that a new record for fastest time between between being arrested for domestic violence and releasing a new track?

first of all, never let it be said that Paul Simon doesn't understand the nature of music publicity in 2014. Secondly, I cannot believe Edie Brickell stole my song a day idea. (Is it just a Dallas thing?)

She's quite aware of a few many things

WTMF is this new song, mofo?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/arts/music/paul-simon-stranger-to-stranger-interview.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmusic&action=click&contentCollection=music®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

The music for “Wristband” grew out of the sliding tones of a West African talking drum track. Mr. Simon asked Carlos Henriquez, from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, to duplicate them on the bass, and found a stretch that felt like a montuno, a Latin dance vamp. Mr. Simon’s son Adrian pointed him toward the electronic music of an Italian producer, Digi G’Alessio, who calls himself Clap! Clap!; Mr. Simon met with him while touring Europe with Sting and later visited his studio in Sardinia to choose some bubbling electronic syncopation. There are also handclaps from a flamenco group — Mr. Simon recorded the whole group together and isolated the clapping, then slowed it down digitally — along with percussion and horns from Mr. Simon’s touring band. And the whole multitracked assemblage simply jumps.

The album’s sounds also include instruments invented by the composer Harry Partch — among them chromelodeon and cloud-chamber bowls — that divide an octave into 43 steps, which are used to bend the harmonic ambience of “Insomniac’s Lullaby.” And they include the gospel voices of the Golden Gate Quartet, recorded in 1939, pitch-shifted and played forward and backward. Listening to the group’s vocals in reverse, Mr. Simon heard the words, “Street Angel,” giving him a song title and a character mentioned in two of the album’s songs: a homeless, poetry-spouting schizophrenic who ends up in the hospital. “Too much dopamine, and you’re schizophrenic,” Mr. Simon said. “But just over here, and you’re a visionary.”

Who produced this? I can't imagine Simon wanted the Partch stuff, but, like, Hal Wilner would.

Huh, just his usual guys, it looks like.

Yep, usual guys --Andy Smith and Roy Halee

Simon re Partch--

Most of the album was recorded at Simon's home studio in Connecticut, with Clap! Clap! and Simon communicating via e-mail. But in 2013, the sessions briefly moved to Montclair State University where unique, custom-made instruments, such as the Cloud-Chamber Bowls and the Chromelodeon, created by the mid-20 century music theorist Harry Partch, are stored. "Parch said there were 43 tones to an octave and not 12," says Simon. "He had a totally different approach to what music is and had to build his own instruments so he could compose on a microtonal scale. That microtonal thinking pervades this album."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-paul-simons-genre-bending-new-album-stranger-to-stranger-20160407#ixzz49KDbvkCO

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=21380

Put me down with the 5s

Carl Wilson writes the Paul Simon review I've always wanted: a fan grappling with what a smug shithead Simon often comes off as in his lyrics.

I've problems with the review despite my agreeing with most of it. I won't explain now. He's right about The Rhythm of the Saints though.

So far the new album's a bore.

He did "That's Alright(Mama)" as an encore tonight. Only when I got home did I notice that Elvis' guitarist Scotty Moore died, and the song choice was a tribute. Simon also never introduced any of his bandmembers. I liked the show. He only did a few from the new one-- the title track; Wristband; Werewolves

nytimes article suggests that might have been one of his final shows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/nyregion/paul-simon-retirement-stranger-to-stranger.html?_r=0

I understand the general gist, but this sentence is like a wrong stew:

While most stars of his generation, unsurprisingly, are playing greatest hits concerts, if anything, Mr. Simon’s new album is competing with those of Drake and Beyoncé on pop music charts, and with Radiohead and Deerhoof for college radio airtime.

Yo, editor: are you talking about Simon live or Simon's albums? Does he not play his greatest hits plus a few new songs? Is the new album "competing" with Drake and Beyonce just because they share the chart? Are they actually on the same chart? Is that different than when any of Simon's peers, the "stars of his generation," release a new album? Why Radiohead and ... Deerhoof as college radio standards? Doesn't Radiohead compete with Drake and Beyonce on the same charts? Doesn't Radiohead outsell Paul Simon by magnitudes? Does college radio play Paul Simon at all, let alone alongside Radiohead and Deerhoof?

Anyway, no one retires anymore. There's Bill Withers and that's about it. Solo acts otherwise retire when they die. Though hearing Paul Simon needs 15 hours of sleep and can't tell tents from mountains implies more is going on than just getting older. 71 ... that's 5 years older than Springsteen, a year younger than Jagger and Keef, 5 younger than Dylan and (come on) a decade (!) younger than Leonard Cohen.

actually, STS would have debuted at #1 if not for Drake.

When he put on his glasses, he realized the mountains were actually big white tents

He seems awkward onstage. Maybe that's part of it. He works the band hard in rehearsals I see from that article. As I said, wish he would give them credit onstage. They're good and a highlight of the show. Some of his lyrics bug me, but his voice still sounds alright.

actually, STS would have debuted at #1 if not for Drake.

Sure, but with what, 20 copies sold? The charts are no longer a sound measure of standing, imo. Neither Drake nor Paul Simon are operating on the former level of "stars of his generation," and I don't think Simon was ever really some sort of chart juggernaut in the first place, so to even call them competitors is a tad disingenuous, I think. None of that shit matters, because Paul Simon has been around for nearly 50 years. Who the fuck cares about the charts?

I guess what I mean is someone had to be number one on the charts. Whether it is Simon, Drake or Radiohead is pretty moot, since none of those is some indomitable sales force. And even then, if Radiohead is on par with them as chart peers, it's weird to bring up Radiohead in the same sentence as some college rock alternative.

Back to Paul Simon's craft....Here's an excerpt from Chris R*chards in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-comforts-and-discomforts-of-paul-simons-american-tunes/2016/06/28/6d03abb4-3d41-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html

At Wolf Trap on Monday night, Paul Simon sang a new and indisputable lyric about the mystery of music itself: “Certain melodies tear your heart apart.”

That’s obviously true, but Simon wasn’t instigating much cardiac rippage up there. Has he ever? Even when he’s touching on the anguish of existence, Simon’s song-world often feels like a place where pain can be ameliorated by dry jokes, sympathetic shrugs and knowing nods. As for his sound-world, the melodies are still cozy and the rhythms are still elastic.

So that evening, the man’s steadiness might have been his most valuable asset. Touring behind his 13th solo album, “Stranger to Stranger,” the 74-year-old proved that his growing songbook is well-tailored for the long haul. His cherubic deadpan is still working just fine; he remains fluent in rhythms from around the globe; he’s still tenaciously curious about timbre; and his band still knows how to wiggle, bounce and go boing-boing. What else could you ask for?

Maybe this: For all of its worldly wonderment, Simon’s music is so staunchly pleasant, it rarely even hints at the true wildness of our doomed planet. The songs are pristine and clever. The world he’s reporting on is not.

It’s a minor disjunction, but on Monday night, it was a nagging one — like during “Spirit Voices,” a song about tripping on ayahuasca in the Amazon jungle that felt strangely clear-headed. And again during the handsome lucidity of “Still Crazy After All These Years.” And again during “The Werewolf,” a new ditty where Simon laughs his way toward the approaching collapse of capitalism. “The fact is most obits are mixed reviews,” he sang playfully. “Life is a lottery, a lot of people lose!”

Some of this I can see, some is just too much nitpicking of the lyrics (many of which I am not crazy about but overlook based on strong melodies and/or rhythms). Not sure what Chris wanted from "Still Crazy"...On Simon's 2nd night at Wolf Trap he delivered it with a melancholy melody ala the recording. Did he want it more loose or at a faster tempo?

For all of its worldly wonderment, Simon’s music is so staunchly pleasant, it rarely even hints at the true wildness of our doomed planet. The songs are pristine and clever. The world he’s reporting on is not.

I despair at the literacy and intelligence of writers.

It's a pristine, clever world!

Only when I got home did I notice that Elvis' guitarist Scotty Moore died, and the song choice was a tribute.

Actually, the NYT piece describes him rehearsing it; that preceded Scotty's death.

"it rarely even hints at the true wildness of our doomed planet" is a noxious clause in so many ways: Simon's not as "authentic" as the rhythms he interpolates; he's too "white"; his songs by implication are too polite, hence unable to delineate the "wildness" of our planet; the use of "true"; the use of "our doomed planet."

Ha, I got Simon's age wrong in my age rant.

Sure, but with what, 20 copies sold? . . . I guess what I mean is someone had to be number one on the charts. Whether it is Simon, Drake or Radiohead is pretty moot, since none of those is some indomitable sales force. And even then, if Radiohead is on par with them as chart peers, it's weird to bring up Radiohead in the same sentence as some college rock alternative.

67,000 sold the first week, which made it #1 in terms of actual sales (i.e. not including streaming, which the Billboard Top 200 does, hence Drake on top there). In any case I don't think that sentence is nearly as bad as you're making it out to be -- it's simply saying that Simon is, unlike most of his peers, releasing new music, and that his new music has been relatively well-received among both mainstream and non-mainstream pop/rock audiences. In the context of a NYT article it makes sense to bring up Radiohead and Deerhoof in reference to college radio -- both have new albums on the college radio charts; Radiohead is well-known enough to give the average NYT reader at least a vague idea of the kind of music on college radio charts while Deerhoof is obscure enough to suggest that the chart is very different from the pop chart despite Radiohead appearing on both. It might've been weird to bring up Radiohead if the article were on, say, Pitchfork, but in the Times it helps to give context. If anything it was weirder to use Deerhoof as an example as (at least on the last chart I saw) they were at #459. A better choice might've been Holy Fuck (#13, vs. Simon at #14).

Except that like I noted, Radiohead is rubbing shoulders with Simon on the pop charts, so it's a weird reference point. Yeah, I get why they brought those acts up, and yeah Deerhoof, but it still makes no sense to me. They could have said Sufjan Stevens and Vampire Weekend, to name two acts heavily indebted to Paul Simon and in essence beating him at his own game on college radio (in as much as any of them dominate college radio, any more than Deerhoof), which is a different thing.

And which of Simon's peers no longer release new albums? Which of them only does greatest hits sets? The Stones?

The Who

I don't know how wide a net he's throwing with "stars of his generation" but in terms of people who had big hits in the '60s a quick search shows that members of The Turtles, Cowsills, Paul Revere/Raiders, Spencer Davis Group, and Gary Puckett are all playing near me this summer, and that's just at one club. Donovan too, though it looks like he put something out three years ago. It seems like there's always a supply of these guys playing at amusement parks and town festivals (admittedly not always with any original members -- I think Herman's Hermits are still touring . . . and yes, his argument is maybe a bit weaker if his net only includes people who have remained stars at close to Simon's level over the decades). re: Sufjan and Vampire weekend, the sentence would have less impact if he used examples like that. Seeing Simon in a list with Deerhoof and Radiohead is more surprising than it would've been with those two. If that was the angle the writer wanted to go with he would've picked, I don't know, Mumford and Sons and the Lumineers for his pop chart examples rather than Drake and Beyonce.

It doesn't belong in "Best Music Writing 2016" or anything but I don't think it's that bad.

you're being very hard on a NYT piece from the metro desk, Josh. this is not Pareles or Ratliff edited by Sia Michel or Fletcher Roberts; this is a guy who writes about shit that 60-90 year olds on the upper west side and park slope co-op members care about, and he and his editor probly were at Yale or Princeton when he put out Still Crazy… while I think it would be good for the metro or business desk to have the culture people to look at shit they do if they're not confident, there's a lot of moving parts and only so many hours in the day…

I was being hard, but only in passing, because I was mostly making fun of that single sentence. I know all about writing for broad daily paper audiences, but that was just weird (to me, I guess) on several levels. OK, so Paul Simon is not just doing the hits, and ... neither are most/many of his peers (whoever they are). And again, Simon's not "competing" with Drake and Beyonce any more than he's competing with anyone on the charts, let alone as a "pop" act. For those who care about the charts, James Taylor (a peer? close enough) just got his first No. 1 record ever on the top 200. If number one means anything to anyone anymore, then I'd say that, yeah, that actually makes musicians of Simon's ilk/stature/whatever perfectly "competitive."

And then beyond that, it's strange that Radiohead is brought up as the alternative, because iirc Radiohead and Drake were literally bracketing Simon's new album on the charts. Is Radiohead the alternative or ... Simon's pop peer? Is it any weirder that Simon should (allegedly) get college radio play alongside Radiohead than see Radiohead get "pop" chart action alongside Drake and Simon? And the Deerhoof stuff, it rubbed me the wrong way that the band was dropped as a lazy college rock signifier, because I never got the impression Deerhoof was a particularly dominant college rock act, and certainly less so lately than the likes of Sufjan or even Vampire Weekend, who, sure, would have changed the bent of the piece a little, but mostly because Simon on college radio alongside a band like Vampire Weekend, which is overtly indebted to him, isn't that weird at all. And of course even then, Vampire Weekend has spent its own fair share of time on the erstwhile pop charts.

Anyway, long story short, charts are stupid and pretty irrelevant these days, and to even debate whether Simon is "competitive" with pop acts is equally irrelevant, given his 5 decade tenure, most of those years spent as a reliable "pop" (as in "popular") act. He's not any more "competitive" with Drake than Drake is "competitive" with him as a septuagenarian legacy artist. It's apples and oranges, and I felt inserted into the piece for some awkwardly unnecessary contemporary references.

guys, the album's good

really good

I like the album a lot! I think I liked the last one more, though.

There is a funny symmetry to Clap! Clap! producing on this, since he makes his music by sampling/re-contextualizing West African music. Like, if Simon was going to work with a young electronic music producer, who else would it be? But he's also dope, and I really like the album.

West African? I thought he was just ripping off Harry Parch. That was he says in the liner notes, anyway

Ah never mind I should shut up

simon’s song-world often feels like a place where pain can be ameliorated by dry jokes, sympathetic shrugs and knowing nods

betrays a lack of close listening

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2016/06/paul_simon_s_new_album_stranger_to_stranger_reviewed.html

Carl Wilson in Slate:

Simon has written loads of songs that make me flash like a strobe light or puddle like sweet custard. But as I’ve been reminded by many moments on his impressive new album, Stranger to Stranger, others turn me sour and wary. It’s the voice and lyrics—almost never the reliable sonics, beats, and melodies. It’s been true from the sententious poetry smushed into “Sounds of Silence” and the feel-good flim-flammery of the “feelin’ groovy” song on to today, though he’s a much more able and subtle writer now than he was during the Simon and Garfunkel era.

I like Carl's closing paragraph too:

Alternatively, we Simon skeptics might simply say he inclines to smugness. Or that, for all his talent, he is more clever than he is wise. As the worst great songwriter himself sang on Hearts and Bones, “Maybe I think too much for my own good … Other people say, ‘No no/ The fact is/ You don’t think as much as you could.’ ”

The heart of the album rests with "The Riverbank" and "Papa Bell" imo.

Surprise is the only dud album in his catalog. You're The One should be rediscovered.

^Agreed. Altho I'm still not too keen on most of Capeman. YTO much better than I gave it credit for at the time.

I love Paul Simon but most of Hearts & Bones, nearly all of Still Crazy, Capeman... all duds.

It's hard to get past the lyrics of Still Crazy - it has a self-pitying, self-justifying tone. Wouldn't say dud, but there's a big dropoff after the singles. One Trick Pony is kind of boring, and I don't enjoy the doo-wop of Capeman. Everything post Capeman is pretty solid for an old guy.

Remember refusing to believe the critics and buying tickets for The Capeman -"how could something with all that talent go wrong?" - and in the middle of the first act thinking "what a waste of all the various talents!" Crossed paths with Quincy Jones at the intermission, overhearing that he didn't like it (but he also said he didn't like Graceland!). As I recall, the music is mostly uninspired pastiche of various styles Simon had done better with before, with "Shoplifting Clothes" being particularly memorably offensive and indefensible - a song based on a bad joke on the title and concept of an excellent Coasters song- and I'm afraid I don't have the Alfred-like ability and instinct to relisten, reevaluate and recuperate.

Old time conveniently located West Village destination:

Jimmy Day's/ Boxer's, 190 W 4th, Corner Barrow, therefore lots of windows.

Seems to have recently been something called Oliver's City Tavern which is also closed.

Ha sorry, wrong thread

most of side B of hearts and bones is pretty damn good IMO

H&B is a perfect example of a flawed record that one can love to bits. Christgau's description ("a finely wrought dead end") is one of his pithiest.

I have been listening to his latest album lately, due to this thread and I really like it, surprisingly.
I didn't expect anything from him and am quite impressed (maybe because I haven't listened to any album from him past Graceland).
The voice doesn't seem to age and could have been recorded in the 80s or even 70s which is very weird (when you compare to McCartney's, for instance).
Even the production has a classic aspect to it but with a touch of modernity without sounding forced or cheap.
I'm not familiar enough with the material yet but it also seem quite strong.
Overall it seems up there with any album he's released.

it doesn't seem as melodically generous as some of his other albums, but it's quite good.

i liked carl wilson's review a lot, but i do think that there's a sort of trap for songwriters of simon's ilk. if he tries to write about "social"/"political" phenomena that are supposed to be outside of his own experience, he can be accused of being opportunistic, naive, or touristic. but write solely about his own life and experiences and he'd be accused of being solipsistic. some songwriters choose to end-run this dilemma by just being impressionistic and/or inscrutable (someone like scott walker) but i think it's not in simon's nature to do that exclusively. i think he strikes a pretty decent balance b/t the various options.

It's true that I haven't noticed a track that really stands out.

Man, there are definitely some dud tracks and cheese on Still Crazy/One-Trick Pony/H&B, but the good stuff is so good. This probably reads like challops but I actually think OTP is one of his strongest records, if you just lop off the forced "Ace in the Hole" and maybe the title track. More consistent than H&B (though the top-drawer stuff there is really essential Simon) and just more memorable, lyrically and melodically, than most of Still Crazy. (I will admit that side two of that one is super forgettable - can't hum most of the songs, looking at the titles, and why on earth he left "Slip Slidin' Away" off of that I cannot fathom.)

Tried halfheartedly to like Capeman, never could.

i saw Capeman for free... he needed a dramturg or somethin'

i listened to the new album on a plane last week, on shitty plane headphones. Had some decent stuff.

hard to get past the lyrics of Still Crazy - it has a self-pitying, self-justifying tone

p sure he was going for a Dostoevskian thing here

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/books/review/rock-lives-this-seasons-pop-music-biographies-and-memoirs.html?_r=0

Alan Light reviews a bio done on Paul Simon, without any cooperation from Simon

HOMEWARD BOUND: The Life of Paul Simon (Holt, $32), Peter Ames Carlin’s biography of Paul Simon, presents the portrait of an artist with a much greater compulsion to keep his eyes on the prize. Carlin — who has chronicled the lives of Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen — received no cooperation from Simon; the closest he got to the singer was getting glared at from the stage of a 2013 lecture at Emory University. But the thoroughly researched and solidly told “Homeward Bound” reveals many sides of a complicated, ambitious, insecure figure.

The most newsworthy element of this story is Simon’s ruthlessness. Carlin explains that at the heart of the fraught, almost comically competitive relationship between Simon and his on-again-off-again partner/rival, Art Garfunkel, is a solo deal that a teenage Simon secretly made with a record company during the duo’s early, brief moment of pop success under the name Tom and Jerry. It’s a pattern that seems to play out repeatedly in his career as described by those who have known Simon — according to one of the legendary Muscle Shoals session musicians, he promises them royalties on 1973’s “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon” album, but they never see the money; he borrows a tape of South African music from a musician acquaintance, then, she says, blows her off and turns her idea to use the irresistible rhythms into the basis for the “Graceland” album — only to record two songs for the project that Los Lobos and Rockin’ Dopsie and the Twisters say were largely created by them without giving them songwriting credit or revenue.

But Carlin isn’t out to do a hatchet job; his love for Simon’s towering accomplishments as a songwriter is clear. He’s especially insightful examining the colossal Broadway flop of “The Capeman” and the “Rhythm of the Saints” album, inevitably overshadowed as the follow-up to the “Graceland” juggernaut. Unfortunately, “Homeward Bound” breezes over Simon’s fascinating latter-day work, sprinting through the last 20 years (a new family with the singer Edie Brickell, and new music that stands up to the best of his catalog) in about 20 pages.

Um, who cares about lending someone an inspirational tape, really, as long as the South African musicians he recorded with got paid (?).

as long as the South African musicians he recorded with got paid (?).

That is the question. Did not realize earlier musicians had also grumbled about him not paying :

according to one of the legendary Muscle Shoals session musicians, he promises them royalties on 1973’s “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon” album, but they never see the money

When I saw him on tour this summer, he didn't ever introduce the band (but I assume they got paid).

Maybe they got paid in exposure, a la nu-economy interns.

Carlin did a pretty good biog of Springsteen (albeit with Bruce's co-operation). I trust him to do a decent job here.

Would read if only for, but of course not only for, The Capeman material.

I have no problem believing Simon is something of a cagey asshole professionally and personally. great songwriter though.

i guess simon probably won't write an autobio? i can see it being kinda feisty.

I saw Paul Simon on the Graceland tour - it was one of the first concerts I ever saw. I have strong memories of his bass player from that show. When I saw him again a couple years ago, that bass player was still in the group. For what it's worth. Assuming the guy gets paid.

I love this guy's work, but have no doubt at all that his autobiography would be insufferable self-serving crap.

I'm under the impression that the core of Simon's backing band these days have been with him for quite a while, including a few South African musicians dating back to Graceland and Vincent Nguini (whose Cameroonian) who's played with him since early '90s as main guitar dude.

If Simon can't be honest enough about going bald to not try to hide it for 40 years, I doubt he would hold his own feet over the flame in a memoir.

Put it this way, I love Simon & Garfunkel as much as anyone and I spin The Rhythm of the Saints frequently, but I've never read or watched an interview with the guy where I haven't felt like dozing off.

maybe garfunkel should just make a documentary about him and simon a la Herzog's My Best Fiend

I've just had to throw on The Rhythm of the Saints briefly just to listen to 'The Coast', which is probably my answer to the question "what is your favourite song from Paul Simon's solo career?"

ba ba ba Ba Ba Ba PROUST!

Okay, I'm leaving this LP on for lil while.

He was a mean individual

^^ would watch

also yeah "The Coast" is amazing. Turrican, I think you and me were the only people to vote for it on the Simon ballot poll, maybe. But mannnn that main guitar figure is just so compelling and lovely.

"The Coast," "The Cool, Cool River," "Can't Run But," "Further to Fly" -- these are best-ever compositions.

yeah Rhythm.. is amazing and Graceland isn't even all that great really.

The demo of "The Coast" is worth a listen just for the alternate first verse alone.

"The Coast" and the title track are among the most r e l a x e d pieces of music ever.

Cool Cool River is soooo good!

And is in 9/8 for bonus points.

'Spirit Voices', 'Born At The Right Time' and 'The Obvious Child' are all amazing too, IMO. I don't know if it's better than Graceland but I certainly listen to it more!

huh I had never really dug into the whole arc of S&G's career/output. Weird how much of it was in fits and starts - a hastily recorded debut album that disappears, Paul goes to England and records a solo album (and produces Jackson C. Frank), Garfunkel goes off to act in Catch 22, their big breakthrough single is orchestrated and released without their input, Paul has writer's block for most of 1967, etc. It's almost like they were never really a functional unit apart from maybe 1969.

Yeah, that's very true! One of the main reasons for their on-and-off activity post-Sounds of Silence is that Simon took a long time to come up with a batch of material. He was really picky when it came to songwriting.

damn STS

good songs

Just realized I missed him in Chicago last night on his farewell tour.

Great setlist:

America
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
The Boy in the Bubble
Dazzling Blue
That Was Your Mother
Rewrite
Mother and Child Reunion
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard
Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War
Can't Run But
Wristband
Spirit Voices
The Obvious Child
Questions for the Angels
The Cool, Cool River
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
You Can Call Me Al
Graceland
Still Crazy After All These Years
Late in the Evening
Homeward Bound
Kodachrome
The Boxer
American Tune
The Sound of Silence

The Cool, Cool River

yeeessssssss

damn that setlist is fire

i just impulsively spent a small fortune to catch this tour so uh thanks i guess!

this show was a lot of fun btw though i think the think that will stick with me was a sort of chamber music version of rene & georgette magritte; he sang it faithfully and intimately and it was just totally gorgeous.

yeah i’m hoping he works more with ymusic (and gabriel kahane, who did some of the arranging) in the future

yeah definitely. (also thought your globe review aptly captured the vibe of the show.)

thank you : )

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/30/641385734/first-listen-paul-simon-in-the-blue-light

Sounds good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu2f5LHnVKk

is someone gonna stream his final show on 9/22?

Oh, I've been waiting to hear this since I saw the show. Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War is really good.

Can't Run But is a nice version as well. Pretty great live.

Man, all old Jewish men really end up looking like the same person.

I dig the New Orleans-ized 'Pigs, Sheep and Wolves'.

These new versions, especially Can't Run But, are horrible. The way he phrases the lyrics in that song on the new version is so bad. His enunciation of the T in 'but' drives me crazy. I had high hopes, but this sucks.

Going to see him tomorrow, my first solo experience with him since the '91 tour behind The Rhythm of the Saints.

I can't imagine a new version of 'Can't Run But' being anywhere near as good as the original. One of my favourites on Saints..., that.

Strongly disagree with brotherlovesdub here. Just having heard the new album for the first time, I'm really loving it already. No matter how good the original versions already were, these new takes exist in their own right and all have something to offer.
The original 'Can't Run But' is a big fave of mine as well, and I agree nothing could top that song with its outstanding rhythm section. But this variation is so different, I'd think that the two versions could exist on the same album without it being repetitive and with neither take being redundant.

'How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns' might be an early favourite with its gorgeous Wynton Marsalis trumpet work.

wow, that's a cuíca drum on Me and Julio...

Always thought it was Paul doing funky monkey sounds!

the more you know...

Lol

so i tried listening to _So Beautiful or So What_, omg what a disaster, almost ripped the metaphorical tone arm off at around track 5. this is rockism at its purest and most vulgar, but there were no songs. which is fine, but that's just what i want from PS.

Cool Papa Bell came on randomly – and while i think the song is great, it's weird as shit hearing Paul Simon say "mother fucker"

this revive worried me.

i'm gonna be sad when Paul goes.

we’ll always have Pa Salieu

Seriously, just seeing a generic Paul Simon thread get bumped, heart skipped a beat.

Sorry, motherfuckers.

You did it again!

What are we supposed to do, have the mods put NOT RIP on every thread?

Automatically add "RIP" to the name of every thread as a memento mori.

every thread revive - "dead or cancelled?"

the putting RIP on thread things is weird

it’s also weird that people forget ilx isn’t a news feed? you used to be able to, like, just talk about old music on here...

Some forums elsewhere have a dedicated "dead thread" that they continuously update. You could do one for ilxor's music forum. (There's probably one elsewhere in ilxor already.)

I like adding R.I.P. because it makes clear which thread is/was being used to document immediate reactions; kind of has a memorial function.

Something I find funny about the “newsfeed” aspect is how, in the old days, new threads would be launched for every news item, with article links & detailed excerpts... now the assumption is that everyone has one eye on what’s trending every second, so a thread will be bumped with just “hmm” or “lol” (and discussion ensues).

listening to my mum's Paul Simon playlist right now - it is all obviously good music but it strikes me that Kodachrome (which is particularly good, musically) is surely a deliberate attempt to write the worst lyric of all time. a lecherous, truculent commercial

I heard (free on the Broken Record podcast) the first hour of this five hours of conversation with Paul Simon and, yes, Malcolm Gladwell. The rest is available on Audible and for sale as an audiobook.

Really enjoyed it, especially given how prickly Simon usually is as an interview subject, and diving into songwriting and music-making as much as specific biography (which he's said multiple times he's just not interested in, outside of his songs).

xp

> Kodachrome (which is particularly good, musically) is surely a deliberate attempt to write the worst lyric of all time. a lecherous, truculent commercial

Amusing to me that the cheap and ugly "here's images representing several songs inside this commercial package" cover art of the album shows a picture of himself when he's young, in black and white, over the Kodachrome logo. Isn't the song about our memories being oversaturated, brighter than reality, sunny in memory when the truth was ugly?

The metaphor of Kodachrome, a technological wonder that seemed to distort reality in a beautiful way, doesn't seem to fit the first verse about how poor his education was compared with how clever he is now, clever enough to use bad grammar ironically; in fact it's almost an inversion of the theme: "when I was in school it was bad, but now I am smart" seems like a contradiction of the following verse's "I seem to recall in my memories, when I was single these girls were fun and sunny days, but if I met them again I know deep down it would be hell in black and white"

I suppose I'm trying to over-analyze a rather tossed off lyric, but let's keep going for a bit. So, is he telling his current partner here and now, though I may be with you now, 'mama,' I refuse to disown my memories of my past loves, for surely they are harmless, I know that though they are pretty memories those memories are like oversaturated kodachrome photos, better in memory than in real life? No, he isn't saying don't take the photos away. He's saying don't take my camera away - my ability to continue to record reality in an inauthentic way.

As a songwriter, steeped in nostalgia and inauthentic storytelling, eager to recast his persona from the pseudo-intellectual black turtlenecked poet of harpsichord rock in his Simon and Garfunkel days and replace that with a folksy Americana, aw-shucks I use bad grammar and it don't hurt me none even though I'm actually quite intelligent, he is a sort of false camera. He is telling the listener, don't make me lose my art, which in its simplest description is to prettify the past through my bullshit stories, of which you will enjoy several examples on the proceeding lp. "Mama" the current girlfriend is more a stand-in for his current adult contemporary audience. Don't make me be honest, he pleads. The singer-songwriter of the early 70s prizes emotional honesty but he is from the earlier generation of dylanesque stuffing and puffery.

This, then, is why the photo on the album cover is of him, young, in black and white, and clearly not a kodachrome photo. Why the two verses don't thematically match on the surface level. Paul wonders, can he see others with rose-tinted film, but himself truly as he was? Or is he still caught up in nostalgia even when looking at a truthful photograph of himself? Is even a black and white photo of yourself a sort of Kodachrome?

He is finally confessing in this song, obliquely, that he will not be able to fully share the true self in his stories, they are cleaned up and false. This is something we've certainly suspected his entire career - that Sound of Silence, I am a Rock, Kathy's Song... these were approaching reality but not the black and white truth of his depression during his failed music career c. 1964; not the almost psychotic isolation of his narcissism while harmonizing with his so-called best friend; not a true rendering of his great failed love. Of course the worst falseness was his writing Bridge over troubled Water for Artie, a man who he had repeatedly pushed away, who he could never truly be there for and support, but would repeatedly return to when it suited him.

I do think Paul eventually overcomes this limitation with the song Hearts and Bones, which is a decent attempt to skirt these limitations to express his past honestly by using poetic language truthfully, even if you can't figure out what the hell he's really talking about in his past.

that is either the most frighteningly brilliant analysis of a song lyric on this entire website, or you're simply much smarter than Paul Simon

either way I am impressed/delighted that my drunken Xmas morning throwaway surface-level response to the song brooked this

that said, I think we could both be onto something. I said 'deliberately' bad or self(-image)-sabotaging, you provided the contextual sauce. Idea; legwork and ingenuity, lol

Great stuff, thanks!

> my drunken Xmas morning throwaway

In this case, I must confess great minds drink alike. Merry Mimosas are to blame

Maybe I’m late to this lore, but that ^^ 5-hour Simon documentary has a section on recording The Boxer and how the crash at the chorus was made with a snare drum played next to an open elevator shaft.

Yeah, Hal Blaine loves to tell the story about how a security guard was startled when they did that, I think.

mig, that analysis makes me think of Simon's "Have a Good Time", where the singer's cynicism about unearned optimism is more obviously extended to the society around him.
I thought "Mama" in the "Kodachrome" chorus was an actual (if vaguely sketched) mother figure; he does say in the coda that taking away his Kodachrome would "leave your boy so far from home", seems more a child's plaint than a boyfriend's.

Has anyone sprung for “Miracle and Wonder” yet? I listened to the excerpt on Broken Record, and I felt like it was long on Gladwell and kind of disjointed, but maybe it was less of an excerpt and more of a trailer?

Since it’s “only” 5 hours long (most of the audiobooks I buy are 20+ hours, cuz I’m cheap), I’m a bit leery to spend $15 on it if it’s going to be more of the same.

I did spring for it, am about 3.5 hours into it, and loving it. Lots of Simon playing songs on an acoustic guitar and walking through choices in the music and lyrics. There's a Gladwell essay within it that creates an overall theory about Simon's songwriting (related to his being from Queens), but there's definitely enough Simon overall that Gladwell doesn't overshadow it.

That said, the except on Broken Record isn't so different from what follows.

Thanks, Eazy. I did enjoy the excerpt, a little more than I had characterized it. I’ll just chew up a credit on it, ffs, Simon’s songs have been part of my life since birth & a huge influence besides, & I dunno why I was being so flinty about it.

I had the same feeling at first, as someone who has enjoyed so many Broken Record interviews for free. This one is carefully edited and put together in a way that feels more like a five-hour documentary that happens to be audio-only, rather than just podcast interviews.

Finished this and would definitely recommend it. They spend as much time (or more) on Rhythm of the Saints as Graceland.

Only downside is having the "climax" of the documentary being Simon getting somewhat personal, when he clearly hates doing that in public outside of his songs. It reminded me of the Bill Cunningham documentary culminating in exposing this very private person, rather than letting him speak through his work and public life.

If this had been made earlier, it unquestionably would have been a holiday-ready coffee-table book Conversations with Paul Simon, and maybe it still will be.

As is, it's a really satisfying listen to dive into as we all hunker down for a bit.

What so many hats on his album covers

One man’s ceiling is a taller man’s floor

Rhiannon Giddens, accompanied by PS on acoustic gtr., did a great "American Tune" on that recent Simon tribute TV special (the only performance I saw).

Also like Willie Nelson's studio versions of that and "Graceland."

and Elvis's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," at Madison Square Garden ca. '71. When he gets to bridge of the song, especially.

was listening to this yesterday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_to_Stranger

The weird instruments are neat but they often just sound like either a synth or a crappy guitar - still it's interesting

Hmmm:

Paul Simon has announced the release of his highly anticipated musical work, Seven Psalms. Intended to be listened to as one continuous piece, the 33-minute, seven-movement composition transcends the concept of the “album” and will be released in its entirety on vinyl, CD and across digital platforms on May 19.

Glad he's not 100% retired yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiDc4DbFQZY

Hidden track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Fn2r-8hHI

Preview of the new album, free NY Times article

“Seven Psalms” sounds like a last testament from the 81-year-old Paul Simon. It’s an album akin to David Bowie’s “Blackstar” and Leonard Cohen’s “You Want It Darker,” which those songwriters made as mortality loomed; they each died days after the albums were released.

…that’s quite the premonition.

Dang.

what the fuck!!!

Paul Simon won't die, he'll just be homeward bound

i don't think i could write that graf without following it up immediately with one about how he's not sick / dying, he still feels fine, he's healthy / productive, etc. (assuming those things are true.)

I'm reluctant to be one of those ghouls who speculate about strangers' health, but his facial appearance and slight hand tremor in the trailer suggest he is dealing with Parkinson's. He may be farewelling his performing days, rather than life. Seems like a beautiful record.

When he released Person to Person a few years back, he talked about having no new material and potentially wrapping things up, so it's been extra special that he made In The Blue Light (dense rearrangements of some of his neglected songs) and now this. Definitely agree the paragraph sounds ghoulish unless Pareles has inside info.

Of course we all remember the exactly 0 contemporary reviews of You Want It Darker or Blackstar which labelled them as premonitions of death (think there were one or two of The Next Day which may have hinted at this though)

I thought there were such reviews of Blackstar, but I’m notoriously revisionist in my recollections.

Can anyone recommend a good write up on Simon's lyrics and/or lyrical approach? I was listening to Negotiations & Love Songs and admiring what I perceived to be significant lyrical growth from the self-titled thru the late 80s.

Separately, I never listen to One-Trick Pony but "Late in the Evening" is such a monster track for him that really stands out in the context of that comp.

The Hilburn bio was, I thought, terrific about his lyric writing. He dedicates parts of chapters to how Simon (who participates) pared the lyrics to "Graceland" and "The Cool Cool River."

Is the Gladwell audiobook any good? I like the idea of the format but not sure I can cope with extended Gladwell-ese.

I don't relish repeating myself too much, but here I am again saying that the bonus "work in progress" tracks from Saints reflect a type of magic.

"My horse and my saddle and my gracious companions, we tripped over a mountain and we fell into a vast canyon."

That is a lyric that the dude THREW AWAY. He wrote stuff that nobody else could, and was just like, "Nah. Not good enough. I'll do something else instead."

It is a great blessing that we even have access to his discarded ideas. Imagine what life would be like if we could know about the stuff that Mozart or Bach considered and rejected.

In the last few months many of us watched the frickin Beatles consider, then reject, various musical and lyrical ideas. That was a certain type of run but not nearly as sublime in my view.

How about the bio by Peter Ames Carlin, Homeward Bound?

my travelling companions are ghosts and empty sockets, I’m looking at ghosts and empties
and I’ve reason to believe we all will be received at Graceland

Ordered the Hilburn bio - thanks, Alfred. I do think the Gladwell audiobook is probably worth it in spite of Gladwell, and I should buy that. I listened to the first (free) one a year ago and enjoyed it. Will probably spring for that, too.

Ok I will say one more thing about the lyric writing of Simon is how honest he is about being embarrassed by his early output.

Ask him about "Call Me All" and he gives you a decently intelligent answer. Ask him about "For Emily" ("clothed in crinoline," etc.) And he is like "ouch, too early."

His assessment of his own work is refreshingly direct.

His lyrics on the new one are especially spare & elegant. On first listen, they remind me of Quebec folkie Myriam Gendron's album of Dorothy Parker poems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VzfSWMzUA0

Is the Gladwell audiobook any good?

I loved it. Simon is up there with De Niro as far as giving evasive, shut-down interviews, and this one feels like him “opening up” just this once definitively for the record. He also has a guitar handy during the interviews, so there’s a lot of him demonstrating moments musically/lyrically by talking through the songs themselves.

I wonder if it's the same bit included in the 2013 reissue where he discusses the origins of "Graceland" and plays a couple of his guitar runs.

Separately, I never listen to One-Trick Pony but "Late in the Evening" is such a monster track for him that really stands out in the context of that comp.

― Indexed, Friday, May 19, 2023 9:51 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

great album. 'nobody' 'oh marion' too

xp aw I love For Emily, and find it charming

xps I've never been a huge Simon & Garfunkel fan for that reason, though I guess it's remarkable how much he grew as a lyricist, steadily improving right into his solo career. The only S&G records I really want to listen to are the last two LP's, Bookends and Bridge, and even they have moments that I'm not too crazy about, where they get too precious or lean in too hard into self-pity, etc.

I was listening to Negotiations & Love Songs and admiring what I perceived to be significant lyrical growth from the self-titled thru the late 80s.

Separately, I never listen to One-Trick Pony but "Late in the Evening" is such a monster track for him that really stands out in the context of that comp.

FWIW, what's pretty remarkable about his solo output through One-Trick Pony and maybe even Hearts and Bones is that if you mix together the highlights, they all sound apiece, like they could be from the same incredible album. Individually they all clearly have their own identity, but until he did Graceland there's a strong stylistic unity to much of his solo work.

Listened to Seven Psalms and it played as fairly stuffy and serious. Maybe suitable for a career coda, but not how I'd like to think of Simon after he's gone (hopefully never).

The audiobook is on Slsk if that's your thing.

I am very much in awe of Seven Psalms. While it's essentially a lengthy poem over relatively sparse acoustic music, I still find it very lush with beautiful guitar playing and clever, intriguing lyrics.

Listened to Seven Psalms and it played as fairly stuffy and serious.

It's a half hour musing on pretty serious stuff, but there are also funny moments and relativation. For example: "Good morning, Mr Indignation / Looks like you haven't slept all night / In my professional opinion / Go back to bed and turn off your light".
I also really love this bit: "The Lord is my engineer / The Lord is my record producer / The Lord is the music I hear / Deep in the valley of elusive"

I'm reluctant to be one of those ghouls who speculate about strangers' health, but his facial appearance and slight hand tremor in the trailer suggest he is dealing with Parkinson's.

That would be terrible, I hope you're wrong there and I hope Paul's still got some time to go. Interesting to note here that the final 'Psalm' includes the following bit:
"Wait / I'm not ready / I'm just packing my gear / Wait / My hand's steady / My mind is still clear"

"in my professional opinion" is such a Paul Simon lyric... I haven't listened to this yet but I can hear him singing it...

xp you're right, though I was referring to the music itself, which I'm still having a hard time finding a way in to

Wow this record is seriously great, top tier work IMO, one of the greatest things he’s ever released.

gorgeous

we’re blessed to have him <3

that Myriam Gendron records is one of the best of this century

Insider info or not I find that NYT excerpt in super bad taste. “This sounds like Paul Simon will croak any day now”.

he's such a good guitarist

yeah i was marveling at how he still knocks me out in all three facets
lyrically, there’s lines that just floor me with starkness or beauty or both
vocally, his voice still has the power to send me back to childhood in the best way
musically, his guitar playing sounded so good (idk any smart guitary words to say so “good” has to cover a lot of technical griund lol)

how is he still the best

He doesn't always play sophisticated guitar parts (because he has so many skilled subordinates) but lots of people have not what a fine, precise player he can be when he sets his mind to it.

In one mid-career interview he rummages around in a closet, pulls out a Martin and starts playing "The Coast" - which is demanding enough for anyone - so nonchalantly as to make it look easy.

I think about that sometimes. Dude could just casually write some of the best music ever, and yet still have extra effortless music that he might - might - eventually get around to recording.

*have noted

that Myriam Gendron records is one of the best of this century

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, June 9, 2023 12:19 AM (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, it really is stunning. Quiet & methodical, and devastating in places. There's a density of meaning — each word has weight — that maybe you'd expect in formal poetry, but the poems work surprisingly well as songs. All to say this new album feels substantial in a similar way, despite how brief & airy it is.

yeah its not called “seven psalms” for nothing, he really leaned into that hymnal aspect, the searching within the lyrics is quite profound

https://www.laweekly.com/los-lobos-on-paul-simon-do-you-mean-zydeco-when-you-say-zy-decko/

It’s funny, I swear I heard Casey Kasem mention a lawsuit — or possible lawsuit — on American Top 40 around ‘86 or ‘87. I can’t remember the context, though, if he was introducing a Simon song or a Los Lobos song. But when I saw that Steve Berlin interview however many years ago I thought, “Oh yeah, I remember that.” I thought the lawsuit Casey mentioned might have had something to do with the production, which was all ‘80s-gated-drums awfulness.

you're thinking of this

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/los-lobos-steve-berlin-labels-paul-simon-a-jerk-alleges-graceland-snub/

oh wait, that's what the LA weekly link says too. sorry, i thought it was something different at first

Iirc, the initial lawsuit in the '80s was over "Gumboots", which was a pre-existing instrumentalk recording that Simon overdubbed lyrics on and then copywrited words & music to himself.

Graceland has more co-writing credits than any other Simon solo album.

which is to say: I think Simon played it pretty fair.

“Graceland” was one of the few CD’s my family owned when I was a kid - highly enjoyed it, but it’s also massively disappointing how much of it was stolen in some way from so many people - not just Los Lobos and Rockin' Dopsie (who weighed a lawsuit but decided it would be too costly) but above all Heidi Berg, and this is on top of the ongoing debate of cultural appropriation.

But true, in his defense, he granted quite a few cowrites. But I think it still falls short.

XP to Soto

Lawyers were involved., Lol.

I think he was generally more on the level with the rest of the African players on the album, but the Zydeco band who did the backing on "That Was Your Mother" also she's him and claimed an experience mirroring that of Los Lobos.

Ha, or what bird said.

But then again...

what was the controversy again, dq? was it that Ladysmith Black Mambazo weren't paid for appearing on the album or something?
― rener, Sunday, December 16, 2001 7:00 PM (twenty-one years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Paul Simon made the singers suck his dick
― Mike Hanle y, Monday, December 17, 2001 7:00 PM (twenty-one years ago) bookmarkflaglink

“Graceland” was one of the few CD’s my family owned when I was a kid - highly enjoyed it, but it’s also massively disappointing how much of it was stolen in some way from so many people - not just Los Lobos and Rockin' Dopsie (who weighed a lawsuit but decided it would be too costly) but above all Heidi Berg, and this is on top of the ongoing debate of cultural appropriation.

― birdistheword,

I suggest reading the Hilburn bio, which devotes a chapter to the question of sources, songwriting, publishing, local recording, and so on. At best I'll say Los Lobos didn't know what they were getting into when told they'd "jam" with Paul Simon.

It probably should be mentioned that Graceland was a real surprise blockbuster --Simon hadn't had a hit single in 5 years, and a big hit studio album in 10. Going in, few even thought this would be a course correction much less a license to print money.

that Myriam Gendron records is one of the best of this century

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, June 9, 2023 12:19 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

at any rate The Rhythm of the Saints is better.

You don't wanna know what Simon made those Brazilian drummers do to him tho.

we had a lot of fun
we had a lot of money

there's no... Proof

I suggest reading the Hilburn bio, which devotes a chapter to the question of sources, songwriting, publishing, local recording, and so on. At best I'll say Los Lobos didn't know what they were getting into when told they'd "jam" with Paul Simon.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 14, 2023 7:36 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

the fact that the dust jacket of the book makes it look like paul simon has hair tells me all i need to know about the trustworthiness of this bio as a source

Trust me as an expert in other people's trichotillomania.

Good seeing Seven Psalms on some year-end lists.

An inability to fall asleep in a cheap motel due to the loud sex that a couple is having next door sends Duncan off on a long reverie.

^^Underrated Gear! ILE thread title

I hope this Grammy weekend tribute to Paul Simon at the Troubadour was recorded.

Setlist:
Blind Boys of Alabama, “Loves Me Like a Rock”

Jason Isbell and Sadler Vaden, “Kodachrome”

Molly Tuttle and Ketch Secor, “Mrs. Robinson”

Natalie Lafourcade, “You’re the One”

Bobby Rush, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”

Ruthie Foster, “Slip Slidin’ Away”

John Vincent III, “The Only Living Boy in New York City”

Brett Dennen, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”

Larkin Poe, “Paranoid Blues”

Susanna Hoffs with Grace Bowers, “Hazy Shade of Winter”

Gaby Moreno, “Late in the Evening”

Silvana Estrada, “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)”

Sean and Sara Watkins, “Hurricane Eye”

Madison Cunningham, “Kathy’s Song”

Andrew Bird and Alan Hampton, “American Tune”

Johnnyswim, “Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War”

Marcus King, “America”

Allison Russell, “The Sound of Silence”

Dwight Yoakam, “The Boxer”

Jackson Browne, “I Am a Rock”

Rufus Wainwright, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”

Rodney Crowell, “Graceland”

Finale, “You Can Call Me Al”

Part two:

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” from the @theTroubadour for @AmericanaFest’s pre-Grammy salute to “The Songs of Paul Simon” pic.twitter.com/yx9QqZiw9E

— Rufus Wainwright (@rufuswainwright) February 6, 2024

Jason Isbell and Sadler Vaden, “Kodachrome”

Fitting, as Patterson Hood's dad plays bass on the original!

That's a great lineup. Would have loved to see that last 6 song stretch in particular.

Rufus oh wow! <3

John Vincent III, “The Only Living Boy in New York City, New York, 10003, USA”

no rhythm of the saints appreciators among the bunch, apparently -- not my people!

(Yeah, I thought ‘City’ sounded odd at the end of that title, wondered if I remembered it wrong, but that’s from Variety.)

Anyone have MGM+?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/15/entertainment/paul-simon-restless-dreams-review/index.html

The Paul Simon doc, IN RESTLESS DREAMS, is remarkable. I remember before going to work at the mill when I was 18, putting a quarter in the juke and playing "I Am a Rock" and "April Come She Will." Made another 8-hour shift more bearable.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 29, 2024

really want to see the doc!