The 1990s band Paul Simon could never understand: “I don’t really get it”
Paul Simon wasn’t interested in making the same generic folk songs for the rest of his life.
Simon and Garfunkel was a great start to his career, and there’s a chance that he wouldn’t choose anything over writing ‘The Sound of Silence’, but there was a lot more to explore once he broke off with Art Garfunkel and began working with other genre-focused musicians. He wanted the chance to go into other musical territories, and a lot of the biggest names in his record collection were the ones that took the same risks that he could.
Then again, there were always going to be limits on where Simon could go as a songwriter. As great as the man is at putting together a catchy tune, you and I probably didn’t need to hear what his underground hip-hop album would have sounded like or see him try his hand at being an MTV starlet, but that’s because he knew his lane. He excelled at writing certain kinds of songs, and he didn’t try to make music that was too far outside of his comfort zone.
Graceland still took a lot more chances than what everyone was expecting out of him, but whereas you can still tell when you’re listening to a Paul Simon song, it was almost impossible to pin down anything once the alternative movement kicked in. These artists were taking as many weird detours as they wanted to throughout their career, and even when the disaffected rocker became all the rage, there was no stopping Radiohead from becoming one of the biggest bands in the world.
Thom Yorke didn’t necessarily want to be in one of the biggest bands in the world, but after OK Computer, everyone realised that they had something weird on their hands. Radiohead was not going to be known as a one-hit wonder for the rest of their lives, but throughout every single record they’ve made, it’s always been about going in a different direction. They could get overtly political when they wanted to and absolutely beautiful on other tunes, but that didn’t mean that Simon totally got it every single time.
He could certainly respect Radiohead for what they were doing with different sounds, but he felt that it was a shame that so much of their material was incomprehensible to him, saying, “I really put the lyrics up front. I don’t really get it, why people bury their lyrics. Especially if they have something to say. Like Radiohead, I can’t hear the lyrics when I first put the record on.”
“I think these are guys who have something to say, why stick it there in the track where I’m kind of straining to hear what you have to say?”
Paul Simon on Radiohead
But that’s simply how Radiohead operates. York’s voice is just another instrument in the band for them, and even if the lyrics do fade into the background, hearing him soar over the rest of the group gives his bandmates a lot more time to stretch, like on ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and ‘Exit Music for a Film’ where he holds high notes for as long as he can as the band keeps getting more and more chaotic.
So when someone does take the time to listen to the lyrics after the third or fourth time, they’re rewarded by what Yorke actually has to say. Some of the tunes might be a bit more depressing than others, but there’s a much more pointed angle that they took on during their later projects, like Hail to the Thief, or when they created pure melancholy throughout every single second of A Moon Shaped Pool.
Radiohead isn’t necessarily the easiest to understand or the easiest emotional music to swallow, but the fact that Simon couldn’t understand them didn’t mean he couldn’t respect them. They are trying to make music that no one else could have possibly imagined, and even with over a decade between releases, they have managed to be one of the most consistent bands when it comes to surprising their audience.
