PAUL SIMON POLL RESULTS THREAD AND DISCUSSION

fiddlesticks

To me, "Born at the Right Time" is about having a conscience bringing a baby into the world ("The planet groans/Every time it registers another birth") balanced out by the actual beauty and miracle of an actual baby. There's never a right time to add another person to an overpopulated world, and never a wrong time, either. Plus, that great chorus and those descriptions like "I see them in the airport lounges upon their mother's breast/They follow me with open eyes, their uninvited guest"). Favorite version is the 1991Live in Central Park jam.

"Rene and Georgette" (big fan, but not on my ballot) works kinda like Randy Newman's "In Germany Before The War" (or Van Sant's Elephant as far as making tiny details resonate in the context of unspoken big historic events.

H&B the song will make the top 20 (not my #1), and I was surprised at "Train" placing low because to me that's the clear No. 2 on that album (but Rene trumped!).

my S&G bias is about being a casual fan more than anything else. i didn't know much beyond "Mrs. Robinson" and "You Can Call Me Al" until around college age probably and don't a ton beyond best-of stuff even know.

To me, "Born at the Right Time" is about having a conscience bringing a baby into the world ("The planet groans/Every time it registers another birth") balanced out by the actual beauty and miracle of an actual baby. There's never a right time to add another person to an overpopulated world, and never a wrong time, either. Plus, that great chorus and those descriptions like "I see them in the airport lounges upon their mother's breast/They follow me with open eyes, their uninvited guest").

otm otm otm

paul simon writes all the best songs about kids

^^^ yes

On another note I'm listening to the latest album again and am struck by how wondrous and surprising his guitar playing continues to be.

yeah so beautiful or so what is a gem. i perfunctorily threw a couple songs on my ballot low down but all of it sounds great to me.

S&G is 25% of my ballot. Not by design -- I don't make much differentiation in my mind between S&G and solo Simon.

I voted my ringtone #1 in this poll. I think it will place, haha.

I voted for 3 S&G songs, but this poll would be more informative to me if there were fewer S&G songs placing, b/c those are songs that everybody knows & it doesn't seem there's lots more to be said about them, & anyway they're music for squares which kept me for years from listening to solo Simon too, & I've gotten over those dumb feelings now but I dunno, "Feeling Groovy" still makes me feel lame.

Yeah S&G were about 25% of my ballot

The S&G hate here is making me wish I didn't vote. Some serious bullshit being slung all over the place.

omg i am kind of kidding! i don't know the s&g catalog very well; it is not as appealing to me as paul simon's solo catalog (almost nothing is); some s&g songs are wack.

LOTSA HARMONIES UP IN THIS THING, HUH GUYS? *grin*

I wouldn't take it too hard.

horseshoe's just kicking dirt <3

VG i very much appreciate your take on "Scarborough Fair" btw

aw yay! thanks!

Hey! S&G hate needs to be balanced against the doe-eyed love that's causing them to pack these results.

is the S&G hate just garfunk hate?! we should poll art after paul. dude has got some jams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb4acvJpktc

"Rene and Georgette" (big fan, but not on my ballot) works kinda like Randy Newman's "In Germany Before The War" (or Van Sant's Elephant as far as making tiny details resonate in the context of unspoken big historic events.

that makes sense, but i've always taken the title as a red herring. the song seems to have nothing directly to do with the artist, his wife or the war. in my mind, it's about a network of things: the mid-20th century immigrant experience in new york, city life itself, the beauty of ordinary things when you are young and they are new - and also age, nostalgia, remembrance, the way a past hidden away inside you can suddenly swell out unexpectedly to carry you away. to some extent, i think of it as paul simon's saccharine-free take on "when i'm 64": a sentimental but understated song about the shared things that sustain us as we age.

i like to think it's about a different rene and georgette magritte. people who happen to share only a name with that famous couple. and who have a dog named "after the war".

nah for me it's S&G Simon frowns, shit like "Dangling Conversation", his precious enunciation, the earnestness of "Silent Night", the fact that an hs english teacher played "Richard Cory" for us in class.

xp

the only solo Garfunkel I know is 'Bright Eyes'

we should poll art after paul. dude has got some jams.

lol Art's solo work is pretty dire imho. His album cover makes a great tryptich with similar covers for Leonard Cohen and Pete Townsend tho. The "sad balding men of the 70s" motif

can't even deal with bright eyes, too intense. that whole "Breakaway" album is pretty sweet imo. worth it if you find it for 75 cents in the used bin.

Bright Eyes makes me sad for all the bunny rabbits

paul simon's saccharine-free take on "when i'm 64": a sentimental but understated song about the shared things that sustain us as we age.

Totally - - - and thus a kind of bracket piece for "Old Friends," which was by a young guy imagining oldness, and here's a guy getting into middle age and working out what musical memory and nostalgia can actually mean to somebody who's stacked up some experiences.

like to think it's about a different rene and georgette magritte. people who happen to share only a name with that famous couple.

yup.

and who have a dog named "after the war".

lol!

COFFEE BREAK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrl3T8MaX8E

cover connections!
http://www.shugarecords.com/images/records/b0cf0838-fcb4-45ec-b70d-adba339fceb9-0.JPGhttp://images.junostatic.com/full/CS437504-01A-BIG.jpghttp://www.musicko.com/wp-content/uploads/Pete-Townshend-Empty-Glass.jpg

*poor bunnies*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wrV870TiF0&

But Art was in this movie:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OvpzV6fF1Mw/TwhFDzEH-9I/AAAAAAAACXk/Mi9s4TC0ejk/s1600/short1.jpg

Which has amazing Go-Go performances from Trouble Funk and Chuck Brown.

Makes up for a myriad of sins.

i'm sorry is this the ART GARFUNKEL POLL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION thread

xp whoa that movie looks amazing. we should poll garfunkel's movies too.
paul really blew it by not using this as a cover photo
http://www.paul-simon.info/PHP/pictures/upload/gallery/484_pssdcf.jpg

I am NOT watching that video tyler, until I am home and have a box of kleenex at my disposal

Garfunkel's peak postbreak moment is his performance in Nic Roeg's Bad Timing, no contest

That 'Breakaway' cover...like, does anyone HONESTLY believe that Garfunkel has any game at all, let alone enough to pull that off convincingly?

have you seen Carnal Knowledge

no

Paul Simon will play 'Graceland' in its entirety at this year's Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park on July 15

I dunno if I'd recommend it (haven't seen it since I was a teenager and it was rather inexplicably on TV), but it's pretty much all about Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel fighting over women

(primarily Sybil Sheppard and Ann Margaret, iirc)

I can't take Garfunkel's hair seriously, is my problem I think

tsk tsk Shakey, Candice Bergen

also Garfunkel disappears for a good chunk of the film

ah right. sorry

garfunkel rocks a sweet 'stache at the end, iirc. the guy has crazy game are you kidding me?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Watermark_%28Art_Garfunkel_album%29.jpg

THIS IS A PAUL SIMON POLL YOU CRAZY STAN

I want to push him in the water

and I don't even hate him, why does Garfunkel bring up these terrible feelings in me

lol sorry, i'll save it for my blog http://artgarfunkelisneat.wordpress.com

he sings like a museum iirc

lol