I'm sorry but Paul Simon is so overrated

and yeah delta/nat'l guitar = the blues is kinda facile but....nat'l guitars are shiny and so is water. if anything, i'd say he has a talent (if you want to call it that) for taking not-very-deep lyrics and sublimating them with melody

i mean i love cortez the killer but it is possibly the most embarrassing song every written if you take even a second to actually pay close attention to the words

and i agree with wmc---i actually do conceive of the delta as a thing as much as a region or w/e

i buy that interp, too, it's just less fun

― horseshoe, Monday, August 8, 2011 12:41 PM (1 minute ago)

I don't want the song to be fun, it's a total life-wasted tragedy! If you stripped out the lyrics and just listened to the music, would you think "I wonder how the lyrics of 'Palisades Park' would fit here..." It's a huge bummer!

okay i always thought national guitar was an abstract image and not an actual thing. this changes things.

I don't want the song to be fun, it's a total life-wasted tragedy! If you stripped out the lyrics and just listened to the music, would you think "I wonder how the lyrics of 'Palisades Park' would fit here..." It's a huge bummer!

― L.P. Hovercraft (WmC), Monday, August 8, 2011 1:45 PM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark

omg i didn't mean the song was fun i meant imagining what's happening in the ellipses is fun.

i love "red rubber ball"

that's a great edit too, max

like "the mississippi delta was shining like a national guitar" is just... awful

I have always loved this line, personally

ok, my bad --

shit, now I'm going to try to imagine "Palisades Park" with this melody...what have I done?

that's a great edit too, max

― 5ish finkel (goole), Monday, August 8, 2011 1:47 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i like the song way more without goofy ol rhymin simon

Rock HyraxHardy still on the money re: "Still Crazy."

ok i've been googling for this for a bit and can't find anything -- does anyone remember this pbs special (series?) about two fortyish dudes who get in an old convertible and drive across america, maybe on rt 66?

okay i always thought national guitar was an abstract image and not an actual thing. this changes things.

― ℗⎣▲✘ (ico), Monday, August 8, 2011 1:45 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

hahaha i thought this for the longest time and still sometimes choose to just go w/it

if I sang "The Paul Simon ILM thread is shining like national dog shit" would it still be an abtract image

no because you've posted a lot of pics on WDYLL threads so I can visualize you singing

He should have said "shining like a dobro"

it's too late, I totally ruined the joke

Still don't get hating on the words in "50 ways" that stuff is totally fun

Also really good drums on "oh marion"

deej otm

hop on the bus, gus you don't need to dicuss muuuuuuuuch

xp

people hate sounds i guess

May I just add a point of interest as the instigator of this thread?

Despite my repulsion with Paul Simon's solo career, "Still Crazy After All These Years" was the first album I ever owned. I was 12 and it was $9.99. I was lured to the purchase after wearing out my '45 of "Kodachrome." Little did I know what was to await me on that large piece of vinyl.

for reasons i cannot explain
we all will obtain
much hard one

this thread is the reason why i'm getting into paul simon

Hope you're proud of yourself, Alamac.

Neither proud nor disgusted. Just havin' a discussion, Hovercraft.

I briefly considered buying a copy of Greatest Hits Etc today and thought of this thread, I passed though - already have two good LPs (the S/T and Still Crazy). He just seems more like an album artist to me.

At the national ILX karaoke, I will perform "America"

The Mississippi Delta
was shining like a national ILX karaoke

"well, but cohen's stuff are lyrics. because poetry is actually just song lyrics written down - which cohen really seems to get, this seems like a big part of what he's doing. it's not just poetry set to music; it takes flight in music; but it survives better on paper than simon's imo"

?!?
Everybody knows the plague is coming, but everybody knows the best lyric ever penned is "Everything you think and everything you feel is alright alright alright alright alright" or something similar, something that doesn't read well on the page but is completely The Best when sung. The music is the end, not the crib sheets. Have you ever heard Shakespeare set to song? Or Auden? Or Yeats? It is THE WORST. Leonard Cohen's greatest contribution to this world-- and it is substantial-- is his book of collected "lyrics", which read so well and fall so flat once sung.

You like "Story Of Isaac"? So do I; but it is the rarest example of Cohen bending a lyric to a melody, something he's failed to do on, say, "Hey, that's no way..." "Susanne" "So Long Marianne" "The Future" "Tower of song" "Everybody Knows" "Bird on a wire" "Ain't no cure for love" "Don't go home with..." "Sisters of mercy" "Coming back to you" "Famous blue raincoat" and seriously the man is, to me, just a trumped up Robert Ashley, and I love him, and I love Robert Ashley, but you cannot talk criticize a magician/dope like Paul Simon because his lyrics don't stack up to Cohen's poetry.

If we're talking about music, and I think we are, I'd say without hesitation that there are 10+ Paul Simon songs that *murder* the best L. Cohen song in its bed, without a fight; my champion is "I know what I know", fwiw.

I usually come in second to (to Dylan), and I don't like coming in second. ...One of my deficiencies is my voice sounds sincere. I've tried to sound ironic. I don't. I can't. Dylan, everything he sings has two meanings. He's telling you the truth and making fun of you at the same time. I sound sincere every time.

I like Simon, but this a dickish comment and I kind of disagree with it. I think his voice is pretty detached.

True!

simon is deeply ironic

yeah, it's not Dylan's irony that he can't match, it's Dylan's venom/anger

should he try?

No

Simon listens to himself and hears James Taylor

paul simon performed where i work a couple of years ago. i remember he was ultra-sensitive about a times piece that had been written about him at the time.

simon is deeply ironic

not really? on h&b and esp in the talking to strangers bit of graceland that max ref'd it's the emotional range of his voice that's so affecting. he's pretty good at "acting" in a way that Dylan isn't imo. he can muster anger and venom sure, but he can't match Simon for tenderness (for lack of a better word)

he is way too tender for me

most often i am moved by something that does not try too hard to be particularly tender

really? He's tender occasionally.

no tenderness beneath surm's honesty

should he try?

nah

this thread has made me love paul simon even more than i previously did btw

such a fan

compare Springsteen slap at home in "Born to Run" vs "My Little Town" (leavin' nothin' but the dead and dyin')

plax otm

NOTHIN' BUT THE DEAD AND DYIN' BACK IN MY LITTLE TOWN

that song hits a little close to home these days