The duets Paul Simon found difficult to sing: “Tough ones”
It’s always interesting analysing the musical knowledge that certain artists have, some can excel within their chosen genre, meanwhile, you have others whose understanding of sound runs so deep that it applies to all styles. Paul Simon is a great example of the latter.
No matter what portion of his career you’re looking at, you’re going to be treated to some truly exceptional, thought-provoking, and moving music. He didn’t just write songs; he pulled them into existence, dragging emotion, metaphor, and real-life events from deep within himself and layering them over sound. Never has there been music as easy to connect with as there is with Paul Simon.
Simon has never been worried about applying his songwriting ability to multiple different styles. One of the most famous instances of this was on his record Graceland, where Simon famously took an affinity towards African music and so flew over to make a record inspired by it.
Simon was inspired to write Graceland because he felt a connection to an album his friend gave him called Accordion Jive Hits No 2. One of the songs on there, ‘Gumboota’ by the Boyoyo Boys, was such a revelation that he decided to hop on a plane and seek the band out. Simon recorded his own rendition of ‘Gumboota’ with the band, which he didn’t like quite as much, but still found a place for on Graceland.
It wasn’t just African music that he dabbled in either; as well as the standard folk sound that he was most famous for, he also dabbled in reggae. The song ‘Mother and Child Reunion’ is a pretty great example of this, which wasn’t an out-and-out reggae song, but you could certainly hear the influence.
Because of Simon’s seeming ability to intertwine that reggae feel into his music, when the opportunity for him and Sting to tour and play together arose, it made perfect sense for them to join forces. If anyone is the master of injecting that reggae style into rock-centric music, it’s Sting, so these two would be a musical match made in heaven.
“I thought we should investigate reggae,” said Simon, “because we both sort of went there for a while.”
When the two of them started putting together a setlist for their tour, Simon was surprised by how many classic Police songs Sting wanted to include. He felt as though Sting would be more focused on sticking to one sound, but he was happy to throw a couple of hits in the mix. Simon was excited about playing such tracks, but also found them incredibly difficult to sing. It’s not like Simon hadn’t sung as part of a duet before, but the songs Sting presented were so reliant on rhythm that he found discovering the right harmony to attack the track pretty tricky.
“I didn’t think I was gonna get a chance to sing ‘Every Breath’; I figured he’d just keep that in his set. But that’s fabulous, you know, so that became another. And ‘Late in the Evening’. But those are the tough ones, in a way,” he recalled.
Concluding, “The rhythm tunes presented more of a problem, mostly because you don’t usually hear two voices in rhythm tunes; they’re about grooves and stuff and idiosyncratic phrasing, and it’s easier to get a blend when it’s a ballad and it’s simple and empty.”
