I'm sorry but Paul Simon is so overrated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjtOa8d_BHU

i haven't made up my mind on paul simon and probably never will.

he's so good and a bunch of what he's written really moves me, but he's also (or even simultaneously) a perfect exemplar of things about that generation of people that drives me up a fucking wall

You guys are nuts, that song is the dream of a milquetoast who wishes he had the guts to really go off on the world but knows he never will.

i am just guessing at what those things are, but if i'm right i think they're inseparable from what's good about his songs.

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

yes a "national guitar", like, the blues, i get it. also you can't see the 'delta' as a thing, can you? it's about as big as connecticut. and the "cradle of the civil war"? that's... south carolina. virginia maybe, in another sense. every other thing he says i feel like saying, "well, maybe, but..."

he has a way of writing things that have the form of being moving and insightful but aren't

i really enjoy his first solo album from 1965. it gives you a good idea of what life without Art might have been like.

oh okay. aero agrees with you >:[

xp

i dunno p sure you can see the delta as a thing

like from a plane

You guys are nuts, that song is the dream of a milquetoast who wishes he had the guts to really go off on the world but knows he never will.
--L.P. Hovercraft (WmC)

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

yeah but evan hes driving in that song, remember, he keeps harassing people at gas stations

fyi 2 50 ways/steve gadd fans:

btw i agree that "50 ways to leave yr lover" is really corny but if you ever wanted a version that just had that mellow-as-hell rainy-day opening and those sick steve gadd drums here it is:

http://soundcloud.com/aordisco/50-ways-to-leave-your-lover-pollyns-re-edit-remix-paul-simon

― max, Sunday, August 7, 2011 3:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also you can't see the 'delta' as a thing, can you?

You can. I can, at least. I don't like the simile in that line, but don't have a problem with the subject.

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