PAUL SIMON POLL RESULTS THREAD AND DISCUSSION

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee366/lamp11/22Slip.jpg
#22 SLIP SLIDIN' AWAY
1977
247 points/11 votes/1 #1 vote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_H-LY4Jb2M

These results are really interesting so far

you can beat us with wires
you can beat us with chains
you can run out your roles but you know you can't outrun the history train

i didn't vote for "slip slidin' away" but i love it; i think aero's hatred of it in the I'm sorry, but Paul Simon is so overrated thread affected me somewhat.

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee366/lamp11/21ReneGeorgette.jpg
#21 RENE & GEORGETTE MAGRITTE WITH THEIR DOG AFTER THE WAR
1983
249 points/12 votes/1 #1 vote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBDDbE7lcQ

I love slip slidin away, it is another big nostalgia song for me that's hard to consider objectively.

i didn't vote for "peace like a river", which i now regret. "the cool, cool river" is nice, but just that, imo. "peace like a river" is amazing, and i only slight it cuz i didn't grow up with it. silly me.

and plax so, so otm about the "loosening up from within" (paraphrased) as it applies to "peace like a river". it's like a S&G song left to grow wild, so loose and lazy, in a weird way reminiscent of african blues a la ali farka toure in the guitar arrangement.

in a way i think "peace like a river" is of a piece with simon's 60s political activist leanings but it's so humble and just beautiful about it. i just love it.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, March 20, 2012 1:15 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what makes it for me is how the activist thing serves the narrative rather than being the thing the song is abt, like its abt the people not w/e beliefs theyre into, not really into message songs tho, I think it captures the good solidarity qualities of some olde timey protest songs w/o the polemic aspects, voted #11, tho honestly I couldve totally been intending to go for the other river song, I'm not the best w/titles, it's a good one 4 sure

yes, that is nicely put though i also like polemics tbf

anyway you're on the good list bc you voted for it

listening to "rene and georgette magritte" right now. i have never been more otm than when i voted for this, "apres la guerre" and all.

yeah that's a good song. i can never get enough of him cataloguing the doo-wop groups. didn't vote for it, though. this accursed poll :(

it's funny cuz it's so the opposite of the opened out approach of "peace like a river" - tight and precise, but no less beautiful for that

just to recap the first half:

#40 FAKIN' IT
#39 THE LATE GREAT JOHNNY ACE
#38 THE 59th STREET BRIDGE SONG (FEELIN' GROOVY)
#37 AT THE ZOO
#36 KEEP THE CUSTOMER SATISFIED

#35 MY LITTLE TOWN
#34 TRAIN IN THE DISTANCE
#33 STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
#32 SO LONG, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
#31 GUMBOOTS

#30 SCARBOROUGH FAIR/CANTICLE
#29 HOMEWARD BOUND
#28 BORN AT THE RIGHT TIME
#27 AMERICAN TUNE
#26 A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER

#25 THE COOL, COOL RIVER
#24 PEACE LIKE A RIVER
#23 I KNOW WHAT I KNOW
#22 SLIP SLIDIN' AWAY
#21 RENE & GEORGETTE MAGRITTE WITH THEIR DOG AFTER THE WAR

psyched to make a playlist of all the winners when it's done, tho I'm sure I'll get kind pissed and impatient wading through the s&g

also thank you so much for doing this, lamp, and sorry for grousing abt the rollout speed. i get excited and want to conversate with others about!

oh np i mean id like to do a more leisurely reveal too esp when im not exhausted and prone to fuck up the numbering, oh well, lyfe

see u all tomorrow morning

thank you again for doing this, Lamp! these images have been fantastic. guys, "born at the right time" is not really about ronald reagan, right? o_O

re: "rene and georgette", love the image of 50s doo-wop as this small and treasured object, a folded thing (like memory) that can be opened up and which when opened swallows the world. love, too, the way the music echoes this, the static drift the verses swelling into this romantic, nostalgic, gently swaying doo-wop chorus. so nice.

Three more of mine today but this really isn't shaping up like my list at all - too much Garfunkel, too much niceness. Not that he's ever not nice, but ILM adds a little more sugar than maybe I'm used to.

Anyway I voted for American Tune, Hazy Shade of Winter, and I Know What I Know. I had reservations about American Tune because the production is a touch syrupy, which is a thing with that whole album for me. I agonised over I Know What I Know because what I'm really loving is the incredible backing vocals, which obviously aren't Simon at all; I can't hardly see past them to the song itself. That's why I had trouble assessing the Graceland cuts in general for this poll.

horseshoe i think we are voting p similarly, peace like a river and born at the right time were my #3 and #4 and my highest placed songs so far and the top pick from their respective albums. lamp so otm about peace like a river. the ambiguity of time in that song is so interesting. all these messianisms, morning-time coming, the glorious day. I guess that's a standard trope of protest songs, but this isn't we shall overcome, nobody knew from time to time if the plans had changed. and the way this bleeds into the construction, carried along on that bassline. it occurred to me that the bass on this song is the secret weapon, the thing it rides along as the guitar spills off in all these counter-flows and eddies. but yeah so many things going on just structurally, the little key change into the "beat us with wires" section. that thing about history and about rivers, not the source or the mouth but the momentum. the milieu. the coming together. how it seemes to just coalesce for a moment before drifting on again.

yeah, i never noticed how much he uses the river/time metaphor before.

so annoying to think how much garfunkel there's gonna be in the top 20 though. who let all these s&g fans in. diminishing my goodwill towards BOTW somewhat.

this latest bunch has 3 of my top 5.

i forgot peace like a river, this is what happens when you are rushed

i put scarborough fair as my no. 2 i think because i wanted to rep for s&g, but then i put a fair amount of other s&g on my ballot so i dunno

"American Tune" behind "Magritte," wha?

That's a point. Someone explain the appeal of Rene & Georgette, please. I find it almost absent in its slightness, but I also get the impression there's probably a couple of layers of meaning there that aren't reaching me.

I voted American Tune higher than Rene and Georgette, but love both. In re the "appeal" of the latter, besides the really lovely chorus there's the notion of Doo-wop (and by extension music) as a redeeming force. Sort of a Simon thesis statement, but in a gentle, un-didactic way.

Can we guess top 5, or does that spoil things for people?

"american tune" is nice; i didn't vote for it; apparently it was used in a commercial for barack obama?

I don't know a dream that's not been shattered

I love "American Tune" (it was my #4), but my favorite version is Willie Nelson's not Paul's.

This performance from the two of them in '93 is great:

http://youtu.be/q_12lzRizYw

#22 SLIP SLIDIN' AWAY
#21 RENE & GEORGETTE MAGRITTE WITH THEIR DOG AFTER THE WAR

my 1/2

The "he kissed his boy as he lay sleeping" line in Slip Slidin' has been a guaranteed tear-up moment for me ever since I had kids.

Have you heard the acoustic Slip Slidin demo? I like it better than the original

me too

me three.

yeah, me too

Someone explain the appeal of Rene & Georgette
i'll try, i put it pretty high on my ballot. i think i like this one not only because of the lovely melody, but because it is a simon song that i find kind of mysterious? i'm not really sure what the song is *about* and that is actually a little rare for simon? he's a very purposeful writer, and it's unusual that a song of his feels so beguilingly strange. maybe? i don't know.

I like "Rene" more now than I did in the mid nineties when I bought Negotiations that's for sure.

the appeal of rene and georgette is all in the sort of yearning way he sings the names of all the doo-wop groups. any paul simon songs about music i automatically love, i think. but also i didn't vote for it.

rene is super ridiculously evocative. love the imagery in that song so much i don't really care what it's about.

I like the key change in "Siiiide by siiiddde...."

so annoying to think how much garfunkel there's gonna be in the top 20 though. who let all these s&g fans in. diminishing my goodwill towards BOTW somewhat.

― judith, Tuesday, March 20, 2012 5:19 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol otm

I'll count it a victory if Julio tops BOTW.

my ballot was like 80% S&G or Graceland, hate all you want but a) diehard-only polls are lame and b) i promise i will someday be better acquainted with PS's catalog

My ballot was 15% S&G.

idk its a song about memories, about before and after. there's artifacts and traces of past lives that become fossilised in those artifacts. how things were before. its like when sonny takes a look back on his yearbook photos in obvious child or the child of his first marriage. a kind of density of association, overstuffed with memory. here crystallised, here forgotten. but also like the mannequins of christopher street. its almost benjaminean: the trace the archive. an old photograph of them when they were younger. before and after. and how in that instant dancing alone in their room, the distinctions seem to fall away. i mean melodically it doesn't do much for me and i find the language a little clunky in places like someone said. a little heavy handed compared to the subtle allusions he works on other parts of that album.

al, i agree that diehard only polls are lame, i was just grumbling. also i guess someday i should become better acquainted with s&g's catalog. grumble grumble.

my ballot was 5% S&G