posted
I adore their voices, but I also love their poetic style of capturing human dignity.
"America" captures some of that American Dream, highlighting the emptiness that can come from it. "Homeward bound" contains a line... "every day's an endless stream of cigerettes and magazines." That line is a perfect capturing of that emotion, but it is not just the words, it is the voice and style of conveying.
They are so gentle and their voice so beautiful and their social critique so amusingly honest at times.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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I do like S and G a lot, but not solo Paul Simon. Nothing can be more boring that solo Paul Simon with the exception of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover." That song is so funny. But to me, most of the Graceland album is very mediocre and that Call me Al song has ridiculous lyrics. But, it doesn't get better than Scarborough Fair and Sound of Silence, but I learned they added all those extra instruments (the record company) thinking that a simple song with guitars wouldn't sell well. I disagree. I like it so much better with just the guitars and adding the extra instruments makes it sound as overproduced as some Nick Drake songs did. When you have cool guitars, nothing else is nessasary.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Cecilia! You're breakin' my heart! You're shakin' my confidence daily! Oh Cecilia! I'm down on my knees! I'm beggin you please to come home... come on home... Jubilation! She loves me again! I fall on the floor and I'm laughing!
*sticks it in and dances around the front room*
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I love them both. I agree that in terms of sound Simon is boring without Garfunkel, but you mustn't forget that G was only a singer, while S did the really hard work of writing the songs.
Posts: 803 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I also love S and G. The Central Park Live Album was played in my home every Sunday while my mom and brother and I cleaned house. I can't listen to it without having to call my mom for a chat.
I disagree about Simon being a mediocre artist without Garfunkel. I love the Graceland album, but it's so inextricably linked with my childhood, I may be biased. I just love how Ladysmith Black Mombazo (sp?) works with the lyrics penned by Paul Simon. Also: Linda Ronstadt sings in one song. I lurrrv Linda Ronstadt.
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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Big Simon and Garfunkel fan from way back. And while I definitely would rather listen to S&G together than just Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel's solo albums are most charitably described as "interesting"
A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road...
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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You. . . you must have concrete running through your veins. I mean. . . friggin' 'That Was Your Mother!' Anyone who doesn't feel the desire to dance to that song isn't breathing.
Now, 'Rhythm of the Saints' had some snoozers; I never learned to like most of the tracks, but 'The Obvious Child,' 'Born at the Right Time,' and 'Spirit Voices' are beautiful in tone, meaning and melody. Three songs make the whole album worth buying.
The one Art Garfunkel album I bought was returned speedily to the Wal-mart from whence it came, exchanged for Eric Clapton's 'Unplugged' CD-- and I do not regret it.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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If we're going to talk Simon songs that make you want to jump up and dance, it'd be a crime not to mention "Me and Julio Down By the School Yard." Makes me want to jump up and do...well...some kind of uncoordinated gyration.
Posts: 186 | Registered: Dec 2000
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Tell her to make me a cambric shirt parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme without no seam or needlework if she would be a true love of mine...
I actually like the old riddle song better than the interleaved canon version S&G sing, though. The scarlet battalions and whatnot distract a bit from the simplicity of the riddles.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told. I have squandered my resistance, For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises. All lies and jest. Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
If nothing else, their lyrics demonstrate quite well why concrete imagery is preferable to abstraction, while at the same time showing when abstraction can be used well. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I own two boxed sets -- S&G and Paul Simon as a solo artist -- and I'm not even slightly ashamed of it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I think my favorites are "Scarborough Fair" and "The Sound of Silence".
quote: And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never share And no one dare Disturb the sound of silence.
I have an, ah, extensive collection of it. Luckily my parents were fans, so we have many CDs around.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Paul Simon has a whole catalog of fantastic music that he's made as a solo artist, in my opinion. I suspect that I would dislike Paul Simon the man, were I to meet him, but Paul Simon the musician I find well worth listening to. Songs like:
Mother and Child Reunion Duncan Armistice Day At the Zoo Me and Julio Down By the School Yard Kodachrome American Tune Loves Me Like a Rock Have a Good Time I Do It for Your Love Still Crazy after All These Years Hearts and Bones Stranded in a Limousine
as well as most of Graceland and virtually all of Rhythm of the Saints are just...amazingly good. Different strokes, I guess.
Graceland feels a little dated to me now, but that probably has more to do with my associating it with my being in High School than anything inherent to the music.
I'm going to have to second Tante's entertainingly put evaluation of Garfunkel's solo stuff, I'm afraid--not a big fan of it.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I use the tune of Scarborough Fair for Schule occasionally. (For אדון עולם, all those who know it.)
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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You. . . you must have concrete running through your veins. I mean. . . friggin' 'That Was Your Mother!' Anyone who doesn't feel the desire to dance to that song isn't breathing.
Amen!
quote:Paul Simon the musician I find well worth listening to. Songs like:
Mother and Child Reunion Duncan Armistice Day At the Zoo Me and Julio Down By the School Yard Kodachrome American Tune Loves Me Like a Rock Have a Good Time I Do It for Your Love Still Crazy after All These Years Hearts and Bones Stranded in a Limousine
as well as most of Graceland
Double Amen!
I've been listening to Paul Simon since before I was born. Graceland was released when I was 2 or 3, and we taped the PBS broadcast of his release concert in South Africa. I would still be watching it if I hadn't moved away from home!
I really can pass on most of Simon and Garfunkle, although some of it is decent. But Paul Simon solo, I love. His voice is incredible, his poetry moreso. He makes stuff that's really incredibly difficult sound so easy! And it's all on so many levels. "Kodachrome", for instance, has at least four-- that I've been able to find.
Oh, did I mention he's an incredible guitarist and bassist?
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I just tried to find my parody of the 59th Street Bridge Song, but it looks like the thread it was in dropped off the server. I can see it if I google for "Feelin' Snarky", but I get a 404 error when I try to follow the link.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Dang it, I've been missing the S and G love!
Lemme just add to it then. I grew up on Simon and Garfunkel, old LPs that we listened to while we did housework on Saturday mornings. Then, when my hi-tech brother figured out how to dub the records onto cassette tape, we listened to them on long car rides.
Actually, those car rides had a lot to do with why I started listening to S&G on my own. I found one of those old tapes and absconded with it...I've been terribly hooked ever since. I own all of there albums on CD (except for the 'best of' albums) and I listen to them often. In fact, when I was on my mission, I was looking forward to listening to their music again when I got home...I remember thinking about it specifically.
This is all to prove that I'm a huge fan.
quote:And so you see I have come to doubt All that I once held as true. I stand alone without beliefs, The only truth I know is you.
If you need to link to a thread and the URL you have is old (from before the upgrade), just copy and paste the "f=2;t=026518" section over the same section in the URL for a current thread.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I like both S&G and Simon solo. Though, that may have something to do with my having grown up on both Simon alone has a different style from S&G, very different. *shrug* But I like both Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: I do like S and G a lot, but not solo Paul Simon.
I'm right there with you. Never did like any of Simon's solo work.
I just got tormented with some of them at the stupormarket one time too many. That bodyguard song really does have very stupid lyrics.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:That bodyguard song really does have very stupid lyrics.
And since when do songs have to have meaningful lyrics? They just need to be fun! And I like You Can Call Me Al. The lyrics don't have to be super meaningful commentary or anything, maybe he was just going for goofy and fun.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I just tried to find my parody of the 59th Street Bridge Song, but it looks like the thread it was in dropped off the server. I can see it if I google for "Feelin' Snarky", but I get a 404 error when I try to follow the link.
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