Paul Simon Archives - Page 6 of 6

Paul Simon: “How terribly strange to be 70”

On March 1, 2007, Simon made headlines again when he was announced as the first recipient of the recently-created Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

I don’t think I can fully explain how INTEGRAL Paul Simon has been in my life, but I’ll try. In fact, I’ll try twice: once, now, for the albums related to his solo career, and again on November 5, for the earlier stuff with Art Garfunkel; November 5, Artie turns 70 as well.

Paul Simon (1972) – Here’s a video of a young woman playing Duncan at a Paul Simon concert; there’s a song I once could relate to.

There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973) – for a time, my favorite Paul Simon/S&G album.
Kodachrome – I used it. Quite a bit, in the day.
One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor – just a few months ago, I noted that some tax break for small struggling businesses was a good thing. Someone took great exception to this. I replied, “Well, as Paul Simon would say, ‘One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor'”. I used to cite it a LOT.

Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) – like Paul, a breakup album for me, big time. I watched the Grammys when, in “Simon’s acceptance speech for the Album of the Year award…he jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder, who had won the award the two previous years…for not releasing an album that year.” I LOL. Probably my favorite album.
I Do It for Your Love – ‘the orange [carpet] bled the blue”; not literally, but a good reflection of an apartment I once shared.
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover – listened to grand debates about whether this song was namechecking comic book icons JACK Kirby, STAN LEE, and ROY Thomas. And if so, who the heck was Gus?
Have a Good Time – I used to play this song every March 8: “Yesterday eve was my birthday…”

Paul Simon appeared in my favorite movie, Annie Hall (1977).
He put out the first of two many greatest hits albums (1977) which featured Slip Slidin’ Away. “You know the nearer your destination…”

After One Trick Pony (1980 movie and soundtrack), featuring Late in the Evening…

Hearts and Bones (1983) – this album sold not at all well. “The album was originally intended to be a Simon & Garfunkel reunion album called Think Too Much, following their Central Park reunion concert in 1981, and the world tour of 1982 – 1983… However, creative tensions appeared between the duo during the sessions…This led to the duo abandoning the project altogether; Simon wiped Garfunkel’s vocals from the completed tracks and reworked the songs for a solo album.” And many people in my circle of friends were LIVID about this, that he didn’t have the right to wipe off Art’s vocals. I defended Paul, but I was clearly in the minority.

It was generally believed that Paul Simon’s commercial appeal as a musician was about over, even by Paul Simon. He did appear on We Are the World single (1985).

But then, Graceland (1986), which was so beloved by the girlfriend at the time, it was wearying. Still, a great album, with Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, You Can Call Me Al, and Homeless.

On The Rhythm of the Saints (1990) tour, I saw Paul Simon for the one and only time, in the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany in March 1991 in the nosebleed seats. And the percussion on The Obvious Child was STILL too loud. (The show was similar to the Central Park show in August of that year.) The girlfriend and I broke up very shortly after this show. Guess I wasn’t “Born at the Right Time.”

I just never warmed up to Songs from The Capeman (1997). That said, I should note that the killer wanted to go to college at my alma mater, New Paltz.

You’re the One (2000) was more to my liking, though there’s no single song that stood out for me.

Surprise (2006) was well-promoted and had songs that moved me. It included the song about narrow-mindedness, How Can You Live in the Northeast?; the unfortunately appropriate Wartime Prayers, and Father and Daughter. A different mix of the latter song appeared way back in the children’s film The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002). I took great exception to the last line in the chorus: “There could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you.” Says YOU, Paul Simon! Of course, at the time it was first released, I didn’t HAVE a daughter, but still…

So Beautiful or So What (2011) – Amazingly still relevant. The Afterlife is a funny song about death.

Here’s what I ended up picking as my Top 10 Paul Simon solo cuts. Except for the top 2, it’s pretty fluid. Any one of about 15 songs, most mentioned here, could have been on the list. (All songs linked to recordings.)

10. Mother And Child Reunion (from the eponymous album) – I love the story how Paul wrote this after seeing it on Chinese restaurant menu; it’s a dish with chicken and egg.
9. Something So Right (There Goes Rhymin’ Simon) – this feeds right into my general pessimism, and surprise.
When something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it
I’m the first to admit it
But the last one to know when something goes right
Well it’s likely to lose me
It’s apt to confuse me; It’s such an unusual sight
8. Getting Ready for Christmas Day (So Beautiful or So What) – I listened to this single, released in November 2010. Paul doing something new for him, sampling, in this case of a 1941 sermon by the Rev. J.M. Gates, interestingly from the year he was born.
7. The Late Great Johnny Ace (Hearts and Bones) – this is a song about a 1950s singer who died, but also about the death of John Lennon. The Philip Glass ending I always found haunting.
6. American Tune (There Goes Rhymin’ Simon) – the tune is quite similar to the JS Bach hymn O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, and it has a wounded lyric.
Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken, And many times confused
And I’ve often felt forsaken, And certainly misused.
But it’s all right, it’s all right, I’m just weary to my bones
5. Gone at Last (Still Crazy After All These Years) – at some point in the 1970s, I heard the Jessy Dixon Singers perform this sans Simon and the late Phoebe Snow, and it was still great.
4. Graceland (Graceland) – a wonderful story-song traveling with his “child from my first marriage” and a great guitar line.
3. Still Crazy After All These Years (Still Crazy After All These Years) – the first line was literally true, eventually: “I met my old lover on the street last night. She seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled.”
2. The Boy In The Bubble (Graceland) – The first song on the ‘Graceland’ album, and I was so obsessed with the intro of it, that sometimes I’d play it again. An extended version of this was “released on vinyl clocking in at 6:13, including a heavier focus on rhythms between the verses.” My friend Rocco owned it, and my local record store promised to order it for me, but they were unable to restock it. Thanks, YouTube.
1. Loves Me Like a Rock (There Goes Rhymin’ Simon) – growing up to be President. AND the Dixie Hummingbirds on vocals.

“On March 1, 2007, Simon made headlines again when he was announced as the first recipient of the recently-created Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The Prize, created by the Library of Congress, was awarded to Simon during a Concert Gala featuring his music at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the evening of May 23. The event was nationally broadcast on PBS on the evening of June 27, 2007” and of course, I watched. Here’s Love Me Like a Rock, featuring Stevie Wonder.

Paul Simon at the 9/11 anniversary ceremony in 2011, performing The Sound of Silence.

The Meme with the Red Tattoo

Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, Beach Boys, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder

This is a music meme – I LOVE music memes, stolen from SamuraiFrog:

First album you bought – Beatles VI.
Last album you bought – Laura Nyro and Labelle – Gonna Take a Miracle.
Favourite debut album – Boston. Or America.
First album you listened to all the way through – the movie soundtrack to West Side Story, probably.
Last album you listened to – Lyle Lovett – It’s Not Big, It’s Large.
Favourite album of 60s – Beatles – Revolver. Or Beach Boys – Pet Sounds.
Favourite album artwork – Beatles – Sgt. Pepper. Or Beatles – With the Beatles, which has that same iconic picture as Meet the Beatles in the US
Most underrated album – Beach Boys – Sunflower.
Worst album you own – The Beatles at the Star Club in Hamburg. A really lousy recording.
Best album to dance to – a compilation called Sun Splashin’.
Favourite album of 70s – Paul Simon – Still Crazy After All These Years.
Album you like, but you never thought you would – there are two that stick out because friends hated them: Emmylou Harris – Wrecking Ball, and Joni Mitchell – The Hissing of Summer Lawns.
Most overrated album – I can go with Radiohead – OK Computer.
Best album to cheer you up – – any of the early 1970s Stevie Wonder.
Most disappointing follow-up album – Chicago at Carnegie Hall, bloated four-album set.
Favourite album of 80s – Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues, largely because I saw the group on that tour at SPAC.
Best album to relax you – Beach Boys – Pet Sounds.
Favourite second album – Meet the Beatles, assuming that Introducing the Beatles was first.
Most listened to album – This is difficult because of the different US and British iterations of Beatles albums. Possibly Sgt. Pepper. Or Pet Sounds. Or Still Crazy.
Favourite album of 90s – Johnny Cash – Unchained.
Last album you recommended to somebody – Johnny Cash’s third American album.
Last album you downloaded – I don’t remember, but it was an artist I had never heard of.
Most pleasing follow-up album – Paul Simon – There Goes Rhymin’ Simon.
Favourite album of 00s – Johnny Cash’s fourth American album.
Favourite third album – The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland.
Favourite fourth album – Joni Mitchell – Blue.
Favourite album of 10s* (so far) – Bettye Lavette – Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
Favourite album of all time – probably Revolver, UK version.

* I take the possibly unpopular position that while 2000 was (obviously) the last year of the 20th century, it was also the first year of the 00s; no rule that the decade markers and the century markers need to coincide, which I explained here. So the 10s begin in 2010 (or 1910), the 20s in 2020 (or 1920), etc.

Z is for at the ZOO

Yes, what ARE they talking about? I’ve been paranoid about gathered birds…

Simon & Garfunkel had been performing on their “Old Friends” tour this year, and I had been considering going to one of the shows in Massachusetts. Then I heard the show had to be canceled because of Art Garfunkel’s vocal paresis.

Old Friends/Bookends was the last pair of songs, segued together, on the first side of the 1968 S&G album, Bookends. The collection also featured “Mrs. Robinson”, “A Hazy Shade of Winter” and “America”.

At the Zoo was the last song on the second side of the album. (Remember when albums had “sides”?) Here’s a video of the song.

I recall really liking this recording when I was in high school, whereas my good friend Carol HATED it, and also the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever; odd the things one recalls. And I was particularly fascinated by the attributes that Paul Simon assigned to the animals.

Someone told me
It’s all happening at the zoo.

I do believe it,
I do believe it’s true.

It’s a light and tumble journey
From the East Side to the park;
Just a fine and fancy ramble
To the zoo.

But you can take the crosstown bus
If it’s raining or it’s cold,
And the animals will love it
If you do.

Somethin’ tells me
It’s all happening at the zoo.

The monkeys stand for honesty,

Could this be a reference to the see no evil/speak no evil/hear no evil depiction of monkeys? (And why IS that?)

Giraffes are insincere,

I suppose that could be because they wouldn’t/couldn’t look you in the eye.

And the elephants are kindly but
They’re dumb.

I suppose this is a function of the pachyderm’s lumbering gait. But I was watching an episode of CBS News 60 Minutes, rerun on July 4, that indicates that elephants are considerably more sophisticated than we might have thought. “Researchers listening to elephant sounds and observing their behavior are compiling an elephant dictionary.”

Orangutans are skeptical
Of changes in their cages,

I mean, aren’t we all wary of change? Perhaps they were picked because they are fellow primates, or because of the scansion of the word “orangutans”.

And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

Ah, the inmate running the asylum.
Actually, it seems that the understanding of keeping animals in zoos has improved tremendously since I was a child, with more room for the creatures to roam, e.g.

“Paul Simon released a children’s book titled At the Zoo (ISBN 0-385-41771-3) which combines the lyrics of the song with the very detailed illustrations of Valerie Michaut. To make this book appropriate for children, Simon made changes and additions, including identifying Rum as a beaver.”

Zebras are reactionaries,

Because they see everything in black and white?

Antelopes are missionaries,

You know, the horns and the markings on their foreheads rather look like a cross, I believe.

Pigeons plot in secrecy,

Yes, what ARE they talking about? I’ve been paranoid about gathered birds since I saw that Hitchcock film.

And hamsters turn on frequently.

I suspect that hamster cages could generate lots of energy, if only we knew how to harness it. In that aforementioned children’s book, the hamsters are given headlights, which they “turn on frequently”.

What a gas! You gotta come and see
At the zoo.

ABC Wednesday

30-Day Challenge: Day 2: Favorite Movie

I wish I could pull out a Marshall McLuhan to shut down an arrogantly wrong comment.

Considering all of the movies I’ve seen, all the GREAT movies I’ve ever seen, it is surprisingly easy for me to pick my favorite:

Annie Hall (1977).

It was my touchstone picture for a number of years. I saw it four times in the movie theater, and it was one of the first films I purchased on VHS.

It’s the roller coaster in Coney Island, which I loved as a child. It’s early Christopher Walken, bizarre as he would later become.

The opening of the film was more story, fewer jokes, my kind of humor. It reminded me of seeing Woody Allen on Ed Sullivan in the 1960s. The film also features Paul Simon, one of my music icons of that decade.

I related to Alvy Singer. Many is the time I wish I could pull out Marshall McLuhan or an equivalent person to shut down an arrogantly wrong comment. I have an aversion to driving. I hate going into a movie after it’s started. I came to believe that, “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

Annoyingly, I used to say “la-di-dah, la-di-dah, la-di-dah” a lot. Incidentally, Diane Keaton won an Oscar for this role, though I always thought it was REALLY for her acting in that same year in Waiting for Mister Goodbar.

But mostly, in Annie Hall, it’s the split screenshot of Annie and Alvy with their respective therapists:
Alvy’s Therapist: How often do you sleep together?
Annie’s Therapist: Do you have sex often?
Alvy: [lamenting] Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week.
Annie: [annoyed] Constantly. I’d say three times a week.

It defined how two people can experience the exact same events, yet see them very differently. This is a useful lesson when dealing with most human interactions. For instance, a Protestant and a Catholic can both take communion; for the Protestant, it’s representational of the body and blood of Christ, while Catholics believe that transubstantiation takes place. still, it’s the same act, for presumably the same God, and the chasm that exists over this seems unnecessary.

Other contenders: Groundhog Day, West Side Story (not a great movie, but a great musical), Young Frankenstein.

Oh, and one other: Star Wars, with the retronym Episode 4: A New Hope (meh). The Empire Strikes Back may be the better picture, but this one started it all. Star Wars lost the Academy Award for Best Picture to…Annie Hall.

Two long-running television shows end Monday night.
24 (FOX) will be over after eight seasons, and I’ll be happy about that. I fear that people have confused the fiction of the former CTU operative with real life. the United States Attorney General just recently was compelled to say, “We’re not Jack Bauer.” The TV Guide article about the show’s ending asks cast members, “What’s your favorite scene?” I watched the first season, but as the writers/producers decided how much more Jack can take, and deliver, I bailed.

Law & Order is gone after 20 years, after NBC failed to get a cable company to purchase reruns of season 21. I must admit I pretty much stopped watching it when the late Jerry Orbach left about eight years ago, but I’ll watch one more “ripped from the headlines” vignette.