The first album to use this title is one of the most mysterious in Paul Simon's output and almost belongs more with Simon & Garfunkel's discography, given its 1965 recording date. Following the failure of Simon & Garfunkel's first, all-acoustic folk-revival-style album, Wednesday Morning 3 A.M., Paul Simon headed off to England to see about pursuing music over there. While he was in London, he found himself in demand as a visiting American "folk singer" (though Simon's credentials in this area were rather limited), began building up a following in the coffeehouses, and was eventually pegged for a performing spot on the BBC. Suddenly, there were requests for Paul Simon recordings, of which there were none — as a result of his being signed to Columbia Records in America, however, he was brought into the London studios of British CBS and recorded this album with only his acoustic guitar for backup. The resulting album is spare, almost minimalist, as Simon runs through raw and unaffected versions of songs that he was known for in London, including "The Sounds of Silence," "The Sun Is Burning," "I Am a Rock," "A Simple Desultory Philippic" (in its earliest form, and far nastier than the version later done by Simon & Garfunkel), and "Kathy's Song." The notes are very, very strange, but a bigger problem is the production by Reginald Warburton and Stanley West, which isn't terribly sympathetic; the sound isn't very natural, being very close and booming, but the album is a fascinating artifact of Simon's work during the interregnum in Simon & Garfunkel's career. And there is one fascinating number here, "The Side of a Hill," which eventually resurfaced as the countermelody song in the Simon & Garfunkel version of "Scarborough Fair" (a song curious by its absence here, considering that Simon was doing it in his coffeehouse appearances) two years later. Curiously, Simon has done his best to suppress this record through the years — he reportedly objected when Columbia Records began importing it directly during the late 1970s, and he has never permitted it to be reissued on compact disc, thus making the original album a collector's item. (British import; out of print)
I start with the knowledge that everything that I write will turn and laugh at me. Still, you never get used to mocking laughter. I am forever withdrawn and shuffling before my own words. I do have some feeble phrases that I put forward to excuse myself: "But that's the way I felt at that time." But I can barely hear them for the ringing of the laughter in my ears. You see, I know that in one year's time (did I say a year?) I'll reread these scribbled notes and think "Oh no, did I write this junk?"
(Scene: A small room. One bed, unmade. The chairs and tables are made of old books and Ravi Shankar albums. The walls are papered with flourescent sheets upon which are printer many art anti-beliefs ( now out of date ) and several abortive attempts at short stories. From a gramophone near the wall the muted sounds of laughter can be heard.)
PAUL: (Reading notes of L.P.) Who wrote this junk?
PAUL : You know very well who did.
PAUL : Don't tell me it was you.
PAUL : Once again your sardonic and piercing shafts of wit have touched me to the quick. I bare my neck to the sword.
PAUL : How many times have I told you never to write anything down?
PAUL : Oh God, not this again.
PAUL : Yes, I'm sorry, but you know the rules. Put on the L.P. Derisive laughter for twenty minutes.
PAUL : Oh no, I can't.
PAUL : Here, just let me set the needle for you...
(Scene fades as the laughter is amplified to migraine intensity. Paul crouches in corner with hands over his ears. )
Me. I'm a phony. I guess I've been a phony all my life. When I say phony I don't mean it in the sense that I want you to think that I'm something I'm not. Not at all. The fact is that I don't care that much what you think. Oh, I care, But not that much. What I mean is, I want ME to think that I'm something I am not. In fact I just want me to think that I'm something.
On the rare occasions that I have glanced at my reflection I have repeatedly, and quite deliberately, turned my back on the reality of the picture and wandered off, warm and sleepy, into a valley of illusion.
(Scene: A golden Walt Disneyed poppy spreckled field, inhabited by cartoon field mice (didn't I see you in 'Bambi' ) and the little old wine maker who tends the poppies. A friendly dirt road skips over the horizon where an enormous egg cream rises majestically through the pink puffy clouds).
THE MAN WHO TENDS THE POPPIES : Hello there! And where are you bound for lad? Is it to London where the streets are paved with gold?
PAUL : (To himself) This guy obviously thinks I'm Freddy Bartolomew. (Out loud to the POPPY TENDER) Will you come off the David Copperfield bit, I'm on my way to the magic city, there to become a poet. Can you show me the way?
POPPY TENDER: I'd be glad to. There have been so many like you of late all going to the Magic City to become poets. Let's see now (He places his finger alongside of his red button nose in a pose of contemplation ... or maybe he places his finger in his red button nose in contemplation. It depends on who's directing) ... Go down the happy road three peaches trees and one apple orchard and turn left at the great big picture of Dylan Thomas... It's only a short way ( but very far )
PAUL : ( To himself ) I wonder what significance should be attached to that remark. Could he be deep? (Out loud to the POPPY TENDER) thank you, sir, I'm much obliged.
POPPY TENDER: Here, take these poppies with you in your basket ( what basket? ) for it's a long way ( but very near ) to the magic City and you will be hungry.
PAUL : ( Already starting up the road ) No thanks. I haven't the time to stop now. I want to get to the magic City before the night falls. (He walks a few paces then pauses) ... Well , maybe I'll just take a few poppies...
The POPPY TENDER laughs and his eyes twinkle and Paul realizes that the POPPY TENDER is none other than Bert Lahr and that Paul himself really is Freddy Bartholew. )
This L.P. contains twelve of the songs that I have written over the past two years. There are some here that I would not write today. I don't believe in them as I once did. I have included them because they played an important role in the transition. It is discomforting, almost painful, to look back over something someone else created and realize that someone else was you. I am not ashamed of where I've been and what I've thought. It's just not me anymore. It is perfectly clear to me that the songs I write today will not be mine tomorrow. I don't regret the loss.
I am finishing these notes. They have prodded and driven me where I didn't want to go and reflected what I didn't want to see. One thing I know : I won't reread them.
Paul Simon.
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I AM A ROCK : The loneliest people in the world are those that cannot share their loneliness, through fear, pride or anger. And the ache builds walls, fear populate their dreams and pride is then the jailer of their soul.
LEAVES THAT ARE GREEN : This is a song of urgency, of the passing of time and somehow it is also Paul's most peaceful song.
A CHURCH IS BURNING : This song is a fire alarm. A negro church is set on fire by white segregationists... "The flames rise higher like hands that are praying a glow in the sky". A church which fulfills her prophetic duty to preach justice, denounce the oppressor demand freedom, will always be burning, with the fire of petrol and the fire of the human and Holy Spirit. "You can burn down my churches, but I shall be free".
APRIL COME SHE WILL : A child's counting rhyme, a cuckoo calling, a country walk, a changing love, a changing year, a tune that lilts like soft wings across the trees.
THE SOUND OF SILENCE : "Take my arms that I may reach you" across the silence that divides the hearts, the neon that burns cold and stabs sight and "formulates at the end of a pin" all that lives in its light and shadow. A major work, it expresses the love of any poet, any individual in the face of an indifferent world and almost pleads "hear my words that I might teach you", teach you to love again.
A MOST PECULIAR MAN : Epitaph for a suicide, what a shame he's dead, but wasn't he a most peculiar man? A memorial to the face in the crowd, to you , to me, the face of the sound of silence.
HE WAS MY BROTHER : I first heard this song in June, 1963, a week after Paul wrote it. Cast in the Bob Dylan mould at that time, there was no subtlety in the song, no sophistication in the lyric; rather, the innocent voice of an uncomfortable youth. The ending is joyously optimistic. I was happy to feel the way the song made me feel. It was clearly the product of a considerable talent.
KATHY'S SONG : written by Paul in New York for Kathy in London, it is very much a love song of our times, quite unromantic but intensely emotional, brutally honest yet terribly gentle, a statement of love for what it's worth... "the only truth I know is you..."
THE SIDE OF A HILL : An anti-war song with a difference, it waves no tired flags at us but states simply: what is the life of a child worth? ... a sad-gay lullaby for dead children and the dead consciences.
A SIMPLE DESULTORY PHILIPPIC : This is, of course, a take-off, a take-on, a private joke, but no joke is all that private or any less serious for being a joke.
FLOWERS NEVER BEND WITH THE RAINFALL : Illusions are real and reality an illusion, our pretences as sincere as our sincerity is pretended - a hard truth and a rain-soft melody make a lovely song.
PATTERNS : An almost excruciating study of life and its meaning in the face of death, giving neither the upper hand. In a larger sense, the song is beyond its creator and anyone who listens to it, for it is itself a pattern and yet a song. Song alone can explore the patterns of life and remain unscathed, our bitterness lies far below, envying the song and its wongs. This song envies no one.
Notes by Judith Piepe ( except 'He Was My Brother' by Art Garfunkel )
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Biography :
Simon and Garfunkel, 1984
Such is the clarity and natural balance of the recording that every nuance, the slightest emphasis, is crystal clear. The words of the first song, I Am A Rock are surprising: the singer appears proud of his ivory-tower existence, his cutting-off of most normal forms of human companionship and intercourse. 'I' cannot be him. He would have made a better point had he transferred to the third person singular, but it would have lost its immediacy. We would have remained less than totally convinced of Simon's commitment to the message. It cannot be Simon for another reason. The song is an anti- human message: no man is an island, and the net result of such an existence will become clear enough later on. But the imagery and literary qualities of the lyric are remarkable. The alliteration of 'freshly fallen silent shroud of snow' raises the lyric to a high plane of achievement. The illusions conjured up by the story, and the locale, declare this artist to be one of no mean ability. Quite apart from these deeper qualities, the song is magnificently performed. The third and fourth lines of the lyric are sung slightly ahead of the beat, in classic rock style, though the song is anything but rock music. The result is that the emotional tenor rises perceptibly at these moments, until it bursts into the arrogant claim 'I am a rock, I am an island'.
The wintry image continues in the next song, Leaves That Are Green. It is the turning of the year. The leaves turn brown, wither and crumble. We learn the reason for the loneliness - the girl has gone, 'faded in the night'. 'Hello hello, goodbye goodbye' begins the last verse, with much repetition of 'goodbye'. When one thinks of the Lennon/McCartney song of 1966 'Hello/Goodbye' (not quite with the same theme, but very similar) there is no doubt that at this stage Simon was the deeper artist.
A Church Is Burning is another remarkable song of startling imagery and courage. It is an anti-Ku-Klux-Klan protest, but not at the essentially anti-Christian bigotry that such an organization displays. The strength of the song comes from the realization that a spiritual belief can never be destroyed. The tangible, physical appurtenances of such a belief may therefore wither and fade, or be smashed, but the soul is immortal. As Judith Piepe so well says in her liner notes: 'A church which fulfils her prophetic duty to preach justice, denounce the oppressor, demand freedom, will always be burning, with the fire of petrol and the fire of the human and Holy spirit.'
This is a very unusual subject for a 'popular' singer; and it is the only time that Simon recorded the song. Perhaps the singer of the first song has other qualities to sustain him in his loneliness.
To quote Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time: 'The moving waters renew the earth. It is spring.' April Come She Will is the start of the song; the '-il' sound in 'April' and 'ill' in 'will' are echoed in all the succeeding couplets - 'May - stay' and so on through the summer months. We are reminded of the impermanence of all relationships- change, no matter over how long a time, still occurs; 'By - die' in the penultimate couplet; not the girl, surely, but the affair, for in September the singer remembers that the love 'has now grown old'.
Such a simple, short song demands music of the utmost simplicity. The alliteration of the lyric is echoed in the ostinato music, and the constant flow around the same key. This is a gem.
In the light of later developments the next song The Sounds Of Silence is a most revealing performance. It begins slower than we expect, if we know the succeeding Simon and Garfunkel versions, and in general Simon is a little rougher with his song than he allowed it to be used later. Judith Piepe calls it 'a major work', the very phrase Art Garfunkel applies to it on his notes for the Wednesday, 3 a.m. album, and it must have created a vivid impact on listeners of twenty years ago. In many ways this performance senses the need for fuller treatment; Simon - or someone else - taps an insistent rhythm as the song grows in intensity; his voice becomes more urgent and compelling; the tempo is gradually increased and the guitar is heavily struck. It is as though the artist is about to burst the confines of his own resources, to tell the world of the certainty of his vision.
In the complete recorded legacy of Simon and Garfunkel this may not be the most profound version of the song, but on its own terms it provides an overwhelming experience.
And the result of ignoring the 'warning', of a lack of spiritual qualities to compensate for the avoidance of human contact? Self-obsession, selfishness, and profound loneliness that leads directly to an early death. The Most Peculiar Man of the next song committed suicide by turning on the gas last Saturday. His neighbour, Mrs Reardon, tells us 'he was a most peculiar man'. The rock has crumbled, the island is submerged.
The song is therefore another warning against turning inwards upon oneself, and as Simon performs it in the most matter of fact way, rather like a court official reading the most awful details in a clinical,-detached manner, the impact is the greater. More is achieved by the understatement here than by all the angst of public grief.
Art Garfunkel says in his liner note, He was my brother . . . the innocent voice of an uncomfortable youth'. This is well said, the immediate post-war generation having been brought up in the comparative safety of a Western world so shocked and exhausted by the horrors of world war that violence within it was almost burned out by the conflict. Fifteen or so years later, with swastikas daubed on synagogues in Germany, the natural aggression of man was exerting itself in frighteningly familiar ways, which were nevertheless new to the younger generation. So when Garfunkel speaks of 'uncomfortable youth' one senses the corruption of innocence, or as Henry James put it, 'The ceremony of innocence is drowned'. But the feeling of brotherly love, with a martyr to man's inhumanity to man, is a spiritual, life-enhancing one. The song, in spite of a certain squareness in its structure and less than inspired melody, met wide acceptance by the sympathetic youth of Simon's generation.
By all accounts the Kathy of Kathy's Song was an English girl with whom Paul Simon had struck up a close personal relationship. The singer of this song is in New York: 'I gaze . . ., where my heart lies.' The actual cut of the melody appears to owe something to Dylan. The spirituality that has been such a surprising and consistent feature of the songs of this collection is reinforced by the oblique religious references to 'the only truth I know is you'. God is Love, Christ tells us, and as God is Truth also, as Gandhi told us, it follows that true love is more than a physical state. It may be too much to claim that in his love the singer senses spiritual qualities over and above those of his everyday life, but the fact that one can infer such things is a measure of this remarkable artist's achievement. At times one has to stop and remind oneself that this is music written within a popular framework.
In The Side Of A Hill a child's corpse is buried; the soldier who killed him polishes a gun. Immediately, in the light of Simon and Garfunkel's later development, we connect with 'Scarborough Fair'. This is the first version (or at least an early one) of the 'Canticle' behind 'Scarborough Fair'.
One can understand the reasons for changing it. The imagery here is somewhat brutal and the experience not fully realized. The experience is also second hand, however well intentioned, but as an early draft for the later masterpiece it is worth the occasional airing.
A Simple Desultory Philippic also resurfaces on a later Simon and Garfunkel album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, when Robert McNamara - President Johnson's Secretary for Defence, one of his three special advisers on the growing war in Vietnam and arguably the most disastrous of the trio - replaced Lyndon Johnson in the song's lengthy subtitle, 'Or How I Was Lyndon Johnsoned Into Submission'.
This song has already been described in the section on the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme album. This performance, which preceded the other, is just as wry and perhaps the more genuine for being closer to the whole string of influences to which Simon refers and acknowledges have shaped his life. There are few surprises, for a sensitive literary young man of his generation could hardly have remained aloof from them. Significantly, perhaps, the reference to Dylan is oblique and spoken, not sung, in Bob Dylan's own 'parlando' style, but the cross-reference to Dylan Thomas is also significant for literary reasons. The music spurts out and ejaculates, perfectly setting this early type of verbal collage.
Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall is another song that appears on the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme album. Here the music is moved to the centre stage, as the constant repetition of the same note demands a changing harmonic pattern to sustain it. Judith Piepe says it has a 'rain-soft' melody. The inherent gentleness and almost feminine qualities of this song are its most lasting characteristics. But the sentiment, summed up in the haunting line 'I'll continue to continue', is essentially optimistic, as hope springs eternal.
The final song on the album, Patterns, was also used on the later album. In this recording it comes over as an amazing song. Apart from its inherent qualities, which are considerable (the monotonality, the incessant minor mode and the narrow compass in which the melody moves, forcing the music into a tight band of concentration), its literary images sum up everything on the album. Night, birth, death, love, children, the lonely room, disappointment and uncertainty with the outside world, unyielding belief in the creative artist's spiritual qualities and strength (the powers to overcome any obstacle) and the fundamental integrity of this solution are all here. It is fabulous, the more so for being heard in context - the patterns of this changing chiaroscuro defining a work of genius.
Simon and Garfunkel
by Robert Matthew-Walker, ©1984
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Biography :
Paul Simon - Now and Then, 1973
In May 1965 Paul Simon went into the studios in London and recorded 'The Paul Simon Songbook'. Although two producers are credited, it was a simple affair with Simon singing to his own guitar. Nothing else. Yet it works very well and often the songs have not sounded better in the more lavish treatments they have subsequently received. This is largely because the material is often straight reporting and their matter-of-fact nature suits an uncomplicated presentation.
The album's contents are largely based on those used in his 'Five to Ten' performances. Despite this there is a bootleg of his radio performances around and the idea that religious broadcasts are being sold under the counter appeals to my sense of humour.
The only song from the B.B.C. series and omitted on the record is 'Bad News Feeling' a ballad about drug addicts in the same vein as 'A Most Peculiar Man'. In its place we have the engaging oddity, 'A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I was Lyndon Johnson'd Into Submission)". As might be expected from the title this is full of humorous lines and in-jokes. It works extremely well and the middle eight includes Simon's impersonating his apparent mentor, Bob Dylan.
However, although Dylan's writing has influenced the early Simon, the end product is quite different. Dylan's vocals are loaded with marked mannerisms ("At its very best," said 'Time', "it sounds as if it is drifting over the walls of a T.B. sanatorium.")awhile Simon is clear and precise Dylan sounds bitter and resentful while Simon is sorrowful. Dylan castigates his listeners while Simon simply tells his tale.
The sheer force of Dylan's songs and their interplay with his own personality bulldosed into your mind and led to him being hailed as the new pop Messiah. Simon doesn't have this quality and he probably wouldn't want it. He is restrained and polite. Compare 'With God on Our Side' with 'The Side of a Hill' and you'll see what I mean. As Robert Christgau put it "Paul Simon has in abundance the very quality that Dylan lacks: taste."" Listen to 'Like A Rolling Stone' and try to imagine Simon writing it.
There is a big difference musically between the two artists. Remember how Paul Simon discovered folk music in Times Square in the early sixties. Dylan had lived with this music all his life. So too had most of the other contemporary folk artists, and indeed Paul Simon was one of the few omissions from the big-name artists appearing at the 'Tribute to Woody Guthrie' concert at the Carnegie Hall.
This lack of knowledge has worked to Simon's advantage. It has taken writers like Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton many years to change their writing habits. However good the songs have been, the melodies have tended to be simple and repetitive employing easy folk chords and (especially in Paxton's case) all-join-in type choruses.
On the other hand Simon has provided us with interesting and imaginative melodies from the word go. Very few of his songs are even verse- chorus-verse-chorus. He prefers using the title as the refrain at the end of each verse.
However, the topics that Dylan and Simon wrote about were often one and the same. Dylan is of course famous for his anti-war tracts and his jeremiads about man's inhumanity to man. Simon isn't really far behind with things like 'He Was My Brother', 'The Side of a Hill' and 'A Church is Burning'. But Simon's purpose is different. "There's no point in commenting what's going on because everybody knows that. I just write the way I feel and the way I feel reflects the part of society I'm living in."
Many of the songs on 'The Paul Simon Songbook' bear this out. This technique is perhaps best seen in 'A Most Peculiar Man' which is directly based on a newspaper clipping. Judith Piepe explains, "It was just three lines and included the item that the woman who had lived above him thought he was a most peculiar man. Paul thought it wasn't enough, so he sat down and wrote an epitaph for a stranger and for all suiciders." to have grasped that Simon attributes his isolation in the song to a broken love affair.
In 'A Most Peculiar Man' we never learn why he is isolated, and I admire Simon's matter-of-fact technique in telling us of his death before launching into a full-scale dramatic ending.
In 'I Am A Rock' the character does not commit suicide. He lives in self-assurance and the song forms a justification for his action. Even so, I can see what a minister meant when he said the song's text was "He who tries to save his life shall lose it."
Despite such topics this is not a depressing album. The songs are certainly disturbing and Simon thinks that "a lot of the pain that comes in some of these songs is due to the exaggeration of being high." But more than drugs the songs stem from our over-crowded city lives and I think they accurately reflect it. Simon fully understands the lonely-in-a-crowd theme. And so do we after hearing the album.
As every schoolboy knows, Paul Simon's chief field of inquiry is the lack of communication between people. It's ironic that Simon himself should be so careful about what he communicates. His chief song in this theme is, of course, 'The Sound of Silence' and yet each line is meticulously worked out. The lyric cleverly exposes the problem and Simon puts over his song cleverly although his delivery seems forced on some words. Still it's a minor carp on such a good track.
To think that the album is all social conscience would be quite wrong.
As well as these songs Simon has material more in the mainstream of popular music. 'Kathy's Song' is a very fine love song, although Judith Piepe's diagnosis, "quite romantic but intensely emotional, brutally honest yet terribly gentle", doesn't ring true. Kathy incidentally is pictured on the cover of the album and the bootleg album 'Chez' is made up of a tape sent to her.
This is the only straight love song. A more oblique and cynical view of love is presented in 'Leaves That Are Green'.
The printed songbook for the album contains a short story by Simon entitled 'On Drums and Other Hollow Objects'. In his early years Simon often said he was going to write a book. "In between performances, I'm always writing, trying to develop characters, so that I can write the Great American Novel." An ambitious task and we also learn how he planned to tackle it. "See, I'm attacking it by doing short stories and developing character studies in the short stories. By developing these character studies, I'll incorporate them eventually into this novel". It was a novel idea, but the project has long been abandoned and all we have left is this short story. It falls well into line with Simon's musical output in both content and execution. It's about the difficult relationship that Paul has with hid old grandfather.
Considerably more obscure are the liner notes to the album. In them Paul analyses his songwriting,
"I want ME to think that I'm something I'm no. I want me to think I'm soemthing."
In conclusion to some strange ramblings with poppy-tenders and his alter-ego, he gives a thoughtful summary,
"This L.P. contains twelve of the songs that I have written over the past two years. There are some here that I would not write today. I don't believe in them as I once did. I have included them because they played an important role in the transition. It is discomforting, almost painful, to look back over something someone else created and realize that someone else was you. I am not ashamed of where I've been and what I've thought. It's just not me anymore. It is perfectly clear to me that the songs I write today will not be mine tomorrow. I don't regret the loss."
Paul Simon - Now and Then
by Spencer Leigh, ©1973
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Biography :
Simon And Garfunkel. Old Friends. A Dual Biography.
"The job of a folksinger in those days was to be Bob Dylan. You had to be a poet. That's what they wanted. And I thought that was a drag." But Simon was always very savvy about meeting the demands of the public, and he tried to fulfill their expectations. Finally Judith Piepe's persistence paid off at the BBC. She squeezed Paul's songs into a brief slot in the religious programming schedule and over a two-week time span began to get some response. A small controversy over one of Simon's songs, "A Church Is Burning," a cautionary tale about the evils of the Ku Klux Klan, garnered some valuable publicity. The head of religious broadcasting didn't understand the symbolism of the lyrics and seemed horrified at the image of a burning church. The flap sparked enough interest in Simon's lyrics to warrant a British book, The Religious Content of Simon's Songs.
The BBC soon began to get letters from listeners regarding many of Paul's songs. People wanted to know where they could find recordings of his music. Fortunately for Simon, Columbia Records had just opened a branch in London and was looking for local performers to fill out their list. In May 1965, since Paul was still technically a Colum