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SURPRISE REVIEW

Surprise streaming audio and video interviews

ONE OF THE BEST RECORDS OF 2006

Paul Simon SNL Turkey Suit Photos, 1976

Paul's been cranking out the hits since he was a high school lad in the late 1950s.  Over the last 40 years, Simon has become the person in all of rock music who has really consistently improved and expanded over a period of a full length career.  Most pop artists are lucky to make a good album or two.  Even the best somehow burn out their creativity.  Lotta love, but what sane person would want to listen to a Dylan or McCartney album from, oh, the last 20 years?

As example to back up my flippant "king of the jews" title, note his very distinctly sweet, stubborn jewishness in "St. Judy's Comet" as he sends out a lullaby to his son: "I'm gonna sing it once/ I'm gonna sing it twice/ I'm gonna sing it three times more/ Gonna sing till your resistance is overcome/ Cause if I can't sing my boy to sleep/ Well, it makes your famous Daddy look so dumb."

All foolishness aside, Paul Simon has the big name primarily because he has written one of the half dozen or so best catalogs of original songs in the history of pop music. 

Among his best are:

Punky's Dilemna

Sounds of Silence

A Simple Desultory Phillipic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)

Mrs. Robinson

Richard Cory

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

The Late Great Johnny Ace

Late in the Evening

Still Crazy After All These Years

The Boy in the Bubble

The Obvious Child

Can't Run But

Adios Hermanos

Born in Puerto Rico

The Vampires

Old

"[Rock 'n' roll] really is not given to thinking--and resents thinking. Which I believe is the big error of rock 'n' roll. It's always aspired to be the music of the working class. And it's never been looked upon as a vocabulary for art and artistic thinking. We have to be able to expand the vocabulary to express more complex thoughts."  -Paul Simon from an interview in the March 1984  Musician

"The Internet is opening things up," he says. "At first it caused the record business to implode, but now it's making life easier. It's broken the stranglehold that radio had. Downloading has made people more eclectic in their tastes, and I'd guess eventually that will redirect radio to loosen up, because it will have to compete. When that happens, you can say whatever you want, and there will be a place for it."  -Paul Simon from a 2006 USA Today story