I'm sorry but Paul Simon is so overrated

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lptpdpWgA51qjpaxko1_250.gif

pure sex

Talked to a gal this weekend who thought for decades that the song was called "Coat of Chrome."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmAAaXI8riY&ob=av2e

I think I thought that too for a while til I bought the 45.

Tonight I listened to my favourite Radio 2 programme about standards, mostly c.1920s-1950s.

The theme was songs with the word 'crazy' so it made a rare foray to 'still crazy after all these years', which presenter Russell Davies praised.

What was interesting was, he agreed with Horseshoe's view of the song as being about a murderer! Though maybe a would-be killer rather than one who has already done it in the song.

I had never really heard the song all the way through before. Need to hear it again.

I post this mainly for Horseshoe's benefit.

I feel like the "murderer" reading sort of steps too far away from the tone/mood of the song, or maybe it's just like - - - for the people that bought and connected with this record at the time, it totally wasn't a "twist" song about one of those "always was a quiet guy, kept to himself" cases... It was about a feeling that they themselves had or recognized...y'know? This sense of being in your 30s (in the 70s), a little rattled, some notches on the bedpost now and most of the old dramas with people settled down into warm recognition (maybe with a few lines around the smiles) - the important thing isn't that he could picture himself going off and doing something nuts, but that he "would not be convicted by a jury of (his) peers" - because they're going through the same thing and can all relate to where he's coming from.

...I dunno!

no no you guys this one's pretty easy

"I look outside my window and I watch the Cars" - Paul is in London where Roy Thomas Baker is producing their debut, he sees them arriving at the studio daily for tracking
"I fear I'll do some damage one fine day" - he is thinking of covering one of their songs in his own style
"but I would not be found guilty by a jury of my peers" - old hippies will love my Cars cover no matter what it sounds like
"still crazy after all these years" - I am an axe murderer

i'm sorry but lol

I'm not sorry

always thought that the line "It was late in the evening, and I blew that room away" referred to simon's desire to mow his audience down with a submachine gun.

^^Inspired by his viewing of Female Trouble.

stepped outside to smoke some angel dust

i think when he went outside and "smoked himself a J" he actually killed a dude named Jay with an axe.

thanks, pinefox!

whatever, you guys lol yourselves a lol, i think "still crazy after all these years" is legit menacing. i was convinced by WmC's reading earlier in this thread, but still.

best interpreted via the SNL turkey suit performance

I think it's more an undertone/subtle implication than the cruz of the song but that interpretation is completely legit and is how I've always thought of it

crux

like, all of what Dr. Casino notes is true (and is crucial to why the song works so well!) but then there's this subtext underneath of it referring to a deeper, more personalized, threatening craziness.

A few more layers than "I get up to wash my face/When I come back to dance, someone's taken my place."

it's back to BED btw

always thought that the line "It was late in the evening, and I blew that room away" referred to simon's desire to mow his audience down with a submachine gun.

― tylerw, Tuesday, August 30, 2011 1:06 PM Bookmark

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahah

horseshoes reading would be less convincing if paul simon didnt look like a guy who stares at you intensely on the subway

lol he does! btw i don't think paul simon, the actual historical person, killed a dude.

nah i just think he thinks about it, like, all the time

http://hem.passagen.se/hakangbg/paulsimon.jpg
saw a guy like this on the bus, he definitely was thinking about killing me

Most murderrific material was his Broadway musical The Capeman... which I saw, for free! It wasn't the worst thing I've ever experienced.

Capeman album is very strange

i don't know that one at all, but it's on Spotify!

best song title: "You Fucked Up My Life"

I'll just say that I don't think Derek Walcott's style really jibes well with Simon. Hearing Simon employing declarative "motherfuckers" and "n******" is very jarring.

"Adios Hermanos" is a great song. Don't really like the rest.

I think the MFs and Ns are more Simon writing in the full-on voice of a character than Wolcott's doing. (I don't think DW co-wrote "Adios", which makes me think a) it was the song that convinced Simon he could write a bunch of songs on this same thing and b) working with a Nobel-prize winning poet doesn't improve what Simon does.)

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

I'll just say that I don't think Derek Walcott's style really jibes well with Simon. Hearing Simon employing declarative "motherfuckers" and "n******" is very jarring.

for the record this is not Walcott's style either.

I'm more apt to credit or blame Simon for it.

sorry my post was poorly worded, didn't mean to imply a direct causal relationship between the two sentences. It's more like Walcott's style doesn't work AND Paul's writing "in character" is sorta off-putting

adios hermanos is a great song that i cant really listen to

best interpreted via the SNL turkey suit performance

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, August 30, 2011

This was great.

listening again to the radio programme on BBC iPlayer

he played the song, again, and said it suggested a quiet killer
and told of the turkey shoot, I mean, turkey suit, performance

glad to see this thread revival happened.

he played the song, again, and said it suggested a quiet killer

wait Simon's actually said this...?!

They brought him out to do "Sounds of Silence" at the 9/11 memorial.

it was Russell Davies who talked about the song, on the radio

I'd like to see that latest performance. saw James Taylor playing in a suit on BBC!

http://gawker.com/5839085/watch-paul-simon-perform-sound-of-silence-at-the-911-memorial

Not a bad version by the way.

Once in high school in the pitch black of a cold winter morning I heard the click of my clock radio alarm coming on and then those words "Hello darkness my old friend" and it freaked me out for a few minutes.

I, too, saw The Capeman on Broadway. Thought the music was going to have more of a genuine Latin feel given the vocalists involved and was disappointed by what it turned out to be, especially the second-rate Leiber and Stoller imitation "Shoplifting Clothes"- heck, back in the day Jerry and Mike were already borrowing from Latin music and it was a lot better than what PS came up with. My fellow theatergoer Quincy Jones liked it even less than I did, according to the conversation I overheard during the break.

Talked to a gal this weekend who thought for decades that the song was called "Coat of Chrome."

― The Freewheelin' Rebecca Black (Eazy), Monday, August 22, 2011 3:20 PM (2 weeks ago)

NOTHING BUT THE DEAD AND DYING BACK IN MY LITTLE TOWN

was just jammin rhythm of the saints, those later tracks they sneak up on you

yeah that album rules. "spirit voices"!

Loved his Simon & Garfunkel work... I never really delved too far into his solo work (I've heard the self-titled debut, Rhymin' Simon, Graceland and Rhythm Of The Saints), but it never really did that much for me aside from a few moments. I think 'The Coast' is one of the best songs he's ever written.

born at the right time through rhythm of the saints is an awesome stretch