Rewrite: Paul Simon’s old works newly considered

Paul Simon / Homeward Bound

Part of Paul Simon’s “Homeward Bound: The Farewell Tour,” which stopped at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., last Friday for a sold-out show, includes the performing of songs from his new album, “In the Blue Light.” On both the album and in concert, Simon has returned to a body of work – specifically 10 of the artist’s favorite, although perhaps, less-familiar songs – to lend new perspectives by adding some new colors and textures, tweaking arrangements and collaborations, in pursuit of an ever-evolving ideal of his own poetic and musical genius.

It added a nice touch to the pacing of Simon’s two-hour show, which also featured a jukebox of familiar favorites, including: “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” “Graceland," “Homeward Bound,” and a Johnny Cash-inspired re-imagining of “The Boxer,” book-ended by a couple of Simon and Garfunkel chestnuts, “America” and  “The Sound of Silence.”

In spending a few hours with Rhymin’ Simon, it was like a showcase of the music of my life from a musician I’ve always respected and admired. As I observed all around me, everyone it seemed, was feelin’ groovy.

In the liner notes for “In the Blue Light,” Simon writes about choosing “songs that I thought were almost right, or were odd enough to be overlooked the first time around.” They include: “One’s Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor”; “Love”; “Can’t Run But”; “How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns”; “Pigs, Sheep and Wolves”; “René and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War”; “The Teacher”; “Darling Lorraine”; “Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy”; and “Questions For the Angels.”

Simon performed a few of these "rewrites" during the show I saw and shared interesting tales about each while introducing them – a nice touch.

In a promotional video for “In the Blue Light,” Simon reveals that “at the present, you have a chance to fix a mistake you made, especially, when the song you’re playing is 25 years-old or more than that, and comes from the Seventies. That’s interesting. The way I wrote melodies then, I can take the lyrics and clarify what the point of the song is. Maybe, it wasn’t clear. Maybe, I didn’t know what the point of the song was. Sometimes, it takes a long time to figure out. ‘Oh, I see, that’s what I’m talking about.’ Like ‘Magritte.’ It’s an emotional song – it’s evocative – but I really have no idea what it’s about. But I know it produces an emotional feeling. It’s nice. It’s a mystery.”

In her review of “In the Blue Light,” NPR’s Ann Powers notes a commonality among these songs is “a blend of melancholia and late-in-life wisdom spinning. Yet the album’s mood is not heavy. Simon, one suspects, is still less interested in making a sweeping statement than in that little whoop of inspiration, which he finds time and time again by trusting new collaborators to help him rebuild his stories until they gleam and go.” Simon wore that philosophy close to his heart throughout what was a most enjoyable “baby boomer” concert experience.

Paul Simon, Mark Stewart
and yMusic

Simon’s 15-piece band includes a couple of his long-time sidekicks, the multi-talented, mutton-chopped guitarist Mark Stewart and bassist Bakithi Kumalo, as well as the New York-based chamber pop ensemble yMusic. Among the band, there’s an instrumental arsenal and flexibility – a clay drum, a French horn, a button accordion, a piccolo, and a penny whistle – that add to the rich flavor of the sound.

In concert, I found a contemplative mood in the presentation of both Simon’s new and old material that slanted toward jazz and so-called “new music,” growing out of earlier versions of songs from the Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints years, such as “The Boy In the Bubble,” that blended Afro-pop, reggae and salsa back in the early ‘90s, when these albums were released. There were other genres and destinations visited, including Brazilian drumming and Mariachi horns, and the Cajun zydeco on “That Was Your Mother” remained timeless and joyful. A revisited “Questions For the Angels” pondered the significance of human life.

Throughout each of the twenty-six songs that Simon performed and interpreted, he maintained credibility while exuding a certain sense of playfulness by showing some zydeco-style dance steps.

At age 76, Simon still knows how to musically swing. He has always smartly arranged his lyrical compositions – there’s a New York-born poet’s sensibility to his writing  – and his voice can still carry the high notes of timeless tunes like “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”


The pacing of Simon’s show worked by weaving together the different ebbs and flows of his solo career with songs made famous during his collaboration with Art Garfunkel in the Sixties.

Earlier this year, Simon announced an end only to his touring, not from making music or from occasionally performing. Thank goodness for that, as his mind and sense of curiosity remains strong. While he has more hits than the time to play all of them, as one critic suggests, his songwriting continues to treat pop “as a force of inclusion and adaptation, learning constantly from different idioms and discovering where they can overlap or coalesce.”

Photos: Concert photos by Michael Dickens © 2018.

Paul Simon: Still creative after all these years

Paul Simon / Feeling groovy late in the evening.

Paul Simon's 13th solo album, Stranger to Stranger, is just out to critical acclaim, and following two recent weekend concerts at UC-Berkeley's Greek Theater, the 74-year-old singer/songwriter stopped by City Arts & Lectures in San Francisco last week for an insightful conversation with Dave Eggers that was a benefit for the writer's 826 Valencia project.

For over 90 minutes, Simon, whom New Yorker critic Kelefa Sanneh recently labeled as "one of the most accomplished overthinkers in the history of popular music," spoke both thoughtfully and haltingly about a variety of things, including: his new album, a series of songs filled with experiments in rhythm and texture throughout its lithe 37-minute duration; his creative process; his approach to writing music and composing lyrics that paint an imperfect world; and the emotional outpouring from singing "The Boxer" on the same night as Muhammad Ali's death, just moments after learning of The Greatest's passing.

As Simon spoke about the physics of sound – "the tone of the universe is a slightly flat B-flat" – he also strummed a faux air guitar, picking at the melody with his right hand and moving the fingers of his left hand up and down his imaginary fretboard. Later on, he reached for a guitar positioned behind his chair to illustrate a chord progression as he crooned the notes to a song.

On Stranger to Stranger, Simon's collaborators include the Italian electronic producer Clap! Clap! and long-dead composer and inventor Harry Partch, whose variety of homemade instruments contributed to the texture and dreamlike ambience of the album.


https://soundcloud.com/concordmusicgroup/the-werewolf


On "The Werewolf," for instance, Stereogum.com, writes: "Warped banjo, hand claps, and intricate down-home percussion are interjected with peculiar invest bursts. Simon soulfully warns of a werewolf's impending approach with some vivid storytelling and irresistible melodies."

Always a storyteller, Simon shared a funny anecdote about a 2004 Simon and Garfunkel reunion concert that he and his former music partner Art Garfunkel gave on the grounds of the Rome Colosseum. He said that while Garfunkel was singing an extended solo, Simon gazed out at nearby residents listening from their apartment balconies while thinking to himself, "I wonder what an apartment like that would cost?" He also talked about his 1986 ground-breaking album Graceland, and waxed about what it's been like being in the midst of a late-career renaissance.

"He has managed to become neither a wizened oracle nor an oldies act, and his best songs convey the appealing sensation of listening to a guy who is still trying to figure out what he's doing," wrote Sanneh in his New Yorker article, "Cool Papa," published last month.

Paul Simon and Dave Eggers / Old friends.

"Ain't no song like an old song," Simon once wrote, and the New York native has been practicing his craft for the past 50 years, releasing a new album about every three years or so. Although Simon said he doesn't keep up with the latest music trends and hits, he remains an attentive listener with a curious mind, one who always is collecting raw ingredients and rhythms for the future. Writing music, he noted, gets harder.

"But harder is fine. It's not like harder is the opposite of fun."

By night's end, Simon broke out an acoustic guitar and sang "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)," which served as a nice bookend. He left to a standing ovation from the mostly Baby Boomer audience at The Nourse.

It all made for a memorable and enjoyable evening.

Photos: By Michael Dickens © 2016.