Music |
Surprise
Paul Simon
By
Published: Jan 01, 2006
Category:
Rock
Paul Simon
I asked my young friend, Greg Fitzgerald, to write about "Surprise" because the difference between us is four decades — is that, say, ten generations? I wondered what it’s like to live in a world where you’ve always had Paul Simon. Where you could think about Simon as Simon — no thought of Garfunkel, or the soundtrack of "The Graduate," or "Bridge Over Troubled Water," or the Concert in Central Park. A pure world: a singer-songwriter sending his songs straight to you.
So…first Greg. Then me.
Surprise
by Greg Fitzgerald
I’ve been a Paul Simon fan since birth. Having inherited a passion for his music from my mother, his music has been the soundtrack to the sixteen years of my life.
Thus, I awaited his latest, "Surprise," with great excitement. I knew it was going to be something different — every new album brings a whole new Paul Simon to his listeners — and I was excited to see what that something would be.
The result turned out to be fully deserving of its title. It’s refreshing, and like every Simon album, it’s an evolution, not a revolution. It will have you listening over and over, and each time, you will discover some new thing in a song that gives you a whole new viewpoint on the song and the CD.
Here’s the thing about this CD, though. The first time I heard it, I couldn’t believe that this was the same Paul Simon who had created some of my favorite albums and songs. I was depressed that I waited six years for this. It just didn’t make sense, lyrically or melodically. It seemed like a jumble of random thoughts and songs.
But then I played it again. And the songs told a story. Songs like “Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean,” “How Can You Live in the Northeast?” and “Another Galaxy” stuck in my head, lines and melodies repeating over and over again.
And every song is new and different. The more you listen, the more the song’s voice develops, and the more you enjoy it. It all grows on you. Songs I didn’t like the first time I heard it are now some of my favorites.
There are some songs, like “Ocean,” “Northeast,” and “Sure Don’t Feel Like Love” that have you cranking the volume up and singing along. And then there are songs like “Wartime Prayers” and “Beautiful” that deliver their meaning in a much more subtle way.
Brian Eno’s influence on this album — he co-wrote three songs and did the “Sonic Landscape” — can definitely be felt. But it’s not overpowering. Eno lends a new flavor to the music, without turning it into a U2 album. A beep here, a boop there, a bit of distortion. But the music is still the focal point, and that’s the most important thing, because it’s really good music.
Other kids may have the latest hip-hop or pop song spinning on their iPods right now. But I’ll be having "Surprise" stuck on mine for a while. It’s so refreshing, so invigorating. Every time I listen to it, I’m picking up a new lyric, a new riff, that makes me look at the whole song differently.
And that’s the great thing about this album; it’s literally filled with surprises.
One more note for those of you into nuance and meaning. Take a look at the liner notes. See how each song has a mention of water or something water related that is highlighted in bold. What’s the message? Knowing Paul Simon’s affinity for New Orleans and his support of the hurricane-ravaged area, the message to me is loud and clear.
Surprise
by Jesse Kornbluth
It’s more complicated for me. "The Graduate" came out the year I was The Graduate. Just as some kids had their favorite Beatle, I had my favorite in the Simon and Garfunkel duo. (A friend brought Artie to my apartment one evening. He had never heard Neil Young sing "After the Gold Rush." I was so not nervous I launched right into it, my voice pitched high and thin like Neil’s. Could I have sung for Paul? Not in any known universe.) Later, through the way of the city, I came to know Paul a bit. Not well, but well enough to see through a star’s brittle surface to the shyness underneath.
Greg’s been looking forward to "Surprise" for six years. I haven’t. Paul’s recent CDs have been hit or miss for me; I just couldn’t connect. So I went back to the old solo stuff. And further: "Hello, darkness, my old friend." And, yes, "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Put it all together, see the arc of a career, and you grasp a truth that’s easy to overlook — Paul Simon is a giant. Not just as a musician. Not just as a performer. But as a writer. Line after line, song after song, he’s built his tower. And it will stand.
It will stand in large part because, at every inflection point, Simon articulated the feeling we were just about to have. The complex feeling. With that soft, conversational voice, he could bypass the raw power of rock and insinuate his words into your heart. He was the smart, kind kid who had just dashed off a poem he wanted to show you. I mean, he was your friend.
Your American friend. Like Springsteen and no other major rock star, he has traced the issue of manhood in America. He’s gone, as he’s sung, to "look for America." He’s done it with affection — but also with the clear-eyed skepticism of the native New Yorker. And then, too, he’s done it in his life. In 1987, he co-founded The Children’s Health Fund, which has provided medical care to kids who might otherwise have gone without. He’s helped kids when no one’s looking. And he helped in New Orleans without showboating. A critic and a builder — he’s got balance.
And a balanced life. He’s married, a father of three. "Father and Daughter," the Oscar-nominated song from "The Wild Thornberrys," closes out "Surprise." It could go nowhere else — if you have a kid, this song will put you away every time. The new songs do too, though in ways that, as Greg suggests, you can’t predict. They’re stories, most of them, or, at least, meditations, and in the booklet, they’re laid out like prose. If you didn’t know better, you might think you had just happened upon some unknown Raymond Carver texts.
Except that they’re unmistakably Paul Simon. That is, thoughtful like no one else in popular music. "Three generations off the boat," he’s made it: "I’ve been given all I wanted." But it doesn’t end there. He’s good-hearted. He wants more. And not for himself. "It’s outrageous the food they try to serve in public school. Outrageous, they way they talk to you like you’re some kind of clinical fool."
And he doesn’t stop there — this CD isn’t just another critique of the national drama. His hunger is soulful, it’s the longing for a universal opening of our hearts, for life to be the way we dream. He can move, in a stanza, from registering to vote to "the chemistry of crying." He can champion "acts of kindness" that "release the spirit with a whoop and a shout." He’s got no paint-by-numbers faith, he’ll go just this far: "Maybe and maybe and maybe some more. Maybe’s the exit that I’m looking for."
Did I say the music’s wonderfully varied and exotic? That he’s used everything from "Willie and the Hand Jive" to esoteric world beats for inspiration? That Brian Eno’s electronics never swamp Simon and his small, rocking band?
In the next to last song, "That’s Me," he tells his life story — well, a life story that could be his — in five paragraphs. Toward the end, he says, "I’m in the valley of twilight." By music business terms, for sure. I mean, he’s 64.
Well, nuts to that. This record speaks to you where you are, wherever you are. It’s smart, and it makes you smarter. It’s complicated in a way that music doesn’t often acknowledge. In the end, I think, it’s about that moment "when your eyes are blind with tears, but your heart can see" — it’s the music "Bridge Over Troubled Water" grew up to be.
So, yes, it’s a triumph. Better, it’s a friend. Lucky Greg, to grow up with this in his head.
To buy "Surprise" from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "The Paul Simon Collection: On My Way, Don’t Know Where I’m Goin’" from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "Graceland" from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "Still Crazy After All These Years" from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "The Best of Simon & Garfunkel" from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy "The Concert in Central Park" from Amazon.com, click here.
