The cover song that always disappointed Paul Simon: “Didn’t really add anything”
There’s a specific art that goes into making a fantastic cover song. While it might be easy for someone to play the track exactly how the original artist did, the real power behind any good artist is taking the building blocks of the track and restructuring them to become something entirely different. While many people have paid tribute to the work of Paul Simon over the years, he always thought one artist never did his track justice.
Then again, there was a good chance that no one could sing a song as well as the songwriter. Even though Simon never claimed to have the most technical voice of his peers, his chemistry with Art Garfunkel made for some of the purest songs in the rock canon, from the sombre tone of ‘The Sound of Silence’ to balladry of ‘The Boxer’.
By the time Simon struck out on his own, he was still reinventing his traditional way of writing songs. Despite his first album having more than a few things in common with his duo outfit, future projects like Still Crazy After All These Years and Graceland saw him stepping out of his usual comfort zone, using various chords from jazz along the way and being one of the first people to introduce world music to the masses.
At the same time that Simon was reinventing himself, one of rock’s first visionaries was making a comeback. After being known as a glorified punchline for years, Elvis Presley stormed back onto the rock scene in the 1970s, reminding everyone why he was one of the biggest names in music with his comeback special and his iconic renditions of tracks like ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and ‘Hound Dog’.
Once Presley began moving to the Vegas scene, the hunt was on for new material to bring into his live set. Outside of the millions of rockstars that would be happy to write something for him, Presley ended up working on a rendition of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, treating Simon’s classic with the same manic energy he put into many of his Vegas shows.
Although Simon may have been happy to see his ballad being interpreted by ‘The King of Rock and Roll’, he admitted feeling disappointed in the final result, saying, “He sang it well, but it would have been nice to hear him do it gospel because he did so many gospel albums and was a good white gospel singer. It would have been nice to hear him do it that way, to take it back – as opposed to the big ending; he seemed to end everything with a karate chop and an explosion. So he didn’t really add anything to the song”.
For Simon, Aretha Franklin’s version of the track meant far more musically, but Elvis’ contribution spoke to Simon as a fan. “It’s not nearly as significant as the Aretha Franklin recording,” Simon continued, “it’s just a pleasure for me that Elvis Presley recorded one of my songs before he died.”
The desire for the track to be turned into a gospel anthem was likely sparked from the song’s origination. Simon famously called the tune a “little hymn”. The track was given a grand production, and it took the track into a completely new place. There was clearly a desire from Simon for Elvis to strip it all back to its beginnings.
Then again, Simon was already miles away from the kind of music that Presley had been making. Considering how much flash was being put into Presley’s live shows then, it seemed almost absurd that he was singing a song by the same guy writing low-key hits like ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’.
While Presley still delivered a stirring version of the song, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from as well, with Presley being known for delivering emotional renditions of church hymns like ‘How Great Thou Art’ in between making rock and roll hits. Presley may have transformed Simon’s hit into something different, but chances are Simon envisioned something closer to what Johnny Cash did with it years later.
