Five classic songs Paul Simon hated with a passion: “It offends me”
In 1970, at the height of their fame, Simon and Garfunkel unceremoniously split. Only a few months before the break-up, Bridge Over Troubled Water was romping through the charts, pushing the duo towards a new global pinnacle that humble old folk was never meant to hit.
It soon became the best-selling album of all time, and at the close of the 1970s, it remained in the top spot with over 25million sales recorded, nearly twice that of Led Zeppelin III in second place. Despite the end of the duo, their ubiquity had never been more pervasive.
In truth, they had been far from strangers to the masses in the 1960s. Their acclaimed debut, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., might have only peaked at 30 in the US album chart and 24 in the UK, but they went on to close the decade of peace and love with just shy of 90million record sales, making them the fourth most popular musical act of the 1960s. The third-placed artist with 110million sales was none other than The Rolling Stones.
However, it says an awful lot about Paul Simon’s strong will that he gave up this esteemed position so easily. He knew his craft well enough to be confident that calling quits on Simon and Garfunkel would be far from the closing chapter of his career. This was also born from a degree of fierce competitiveness. His songs might be sweet, but there is a bite to the little songwriter that far outstrips his bark.
As he once proclaimed when it comes to the figurative songwriter’s championship, “I don’t like being second to Bob Dylan,” and that’s a position he’s found himself in frequently. Thus, when he sees a chance to call a spade a spade, or more specifically, call a subpar track from a peer “garbage”, he doesn’t pass it up.
With that in mind, we’ve looked at the songs he loathes to gather greater insight into Simon’s thoughts. As a result, you can imagine what he does like and the pitfalls he looks to avoid. It has served him well bashing these tracks, as he remains one of the premier songwriters modern music has produced.
Five songs Paul Simon hates:
’59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)’ – Simon and Garfunkel
One thing Simon is always after in his music is depth. Amid the many masterpieces in his back catalogue, he thinks the poppy Simon and Garfunkel hit, ’59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)’, is too shallow to bear. The song was born from a strange period for Simon, whereby he returned from England to his homeland, and a strange new fame awaited him. This landed him in a depression, and he was struggling to write anything cheery. But one fine morning snapped him out of that, but artistically, he wishes it didn’t.
”I started to swing out of it,” he said. “I was getting into a good mood, and I remember coming home in the morning about 6 o’clock over the 59th Street Bridge in New York, and it was such a groovy day really, a good one, and it was one of those times when you know you won’t be tired for about an hour, a sort of a good hanging time, so I started to write a song that later became the ’59th Street Bridge Song or ‘Feelin’ Groovy’,” he said. But when he sobered up, he grew to hate the track, neglecting to play it live until 2018, when he said: “I’m going to penalise myself. I’m going to sing one of my songs that I loathe.”
‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ – Paul McCartney
The purpose of a song has always been very important to Simon. And when it comes to political music, he questions whether pop is the most sincere medium. “I’m not saying that there is no places for a politically stirring song. ‘La Marseillaise’ swings pretty good, actually,“ he told Rolling Stone in the 1970s. “And there’s nothing wrong with ‘We Shall Overcome’, right? So it can work. ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ – that’s garbage,” he said of Paul McCartney’s 1971 effort with Wings.
Continuing, he added: “I don’t say that someone can’t write a social song, or even a song that’s a political song, and have it work, as a song and as a political statement. But mass manufacturing of tunes, sort of ‘let’s knock off ‘Power to the People’,’ I find it in bad taste. It offends me. I don’t feel it talking to me at all.”
‘Power to the People’ – John Lennon
He wasted no time in tackling McCartney’s old Beatles bandmate, questioning the true motives of his solo work. When he heard ‘Power to the People’, he said: “I have reactions to it. First reaction, he strikes me as being very interested in being seen or heard. Then I have to think, ‘What is he doing? What is the purpose of it? Is his purpose to get publicity for himself? Is his purpose to advance a certain political thought?’ I don’t know what his motivations are.”
Musing on the track, he continued: “Many things he’s done, I think, have been pointless. Some have been in bad taste. Others have been courageous. I think he’s generally a well-intentioned guy. I don’t know, it’s not my style”. In fact, there aren’t that many Lennon songs he has ever praised, favouring a more traditional and crafted Cole Porter mode of songwriting.
However, it wasn’t just the lack of polish that fok star disavowed in Lennon’s work, the bespectacled Beatle’s champagne socialist also drew his wrath. Simon lambasted the vapidity of it all, boldly explaining: “It’s a poor record, a condescending record. Like all of these cliche phrases. They’re dangerous. What does that mean – ‘Power to the People’? And who is he saying it to? Is he saying it to people who have any idea what it means?”
‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ – Karen Carpenter
Simon was once romantically involved with Karen Carpenter, and the pair remained fairly close thereafter. However, according to the producer Glenn Berger, he was anything but friendly to her when he visited the studio to see how she was getting on with recording her self-titled solo record. At the time, she was battling with anorexia, and the crew had taken it easy with her. The fact the album would ultimately be released posthumously is indicative of the situation.
Nevertheless, Simon didn’t hide his thoughts on the songs that he heard, including a cover of his own material. According to Berger, Simon allegedly said: “In a voice that combined derision, snobbishness, concern, and alarm… ‘Karen, what are you doing? This stuff is awful!’”. In his memoir, Berger clarified that Simon was right, but “his insensitivity was stunning”. The whole studio knew that the material wasn’t up to scratch, but according to Berger, Simon either failed to read the room regarding her delicate disposition or just had a very different sensibility on the matter.
‘Sound of Silence (Electric Version)’ – Simon and Garfunkel
It was the breakthrough hit for Simon as a songwriter and remains a revered masterpiece, but he still feels he far eclipsed it with his latter work. ”It’s a young lyric, but not bad for a 21-year-old,” he once said. But any degree of naivety was the least of his worries when he heard one of the mixes. The track had been found in the archives by noted Bob Dylan producer Tom Wilson, while Simon had moved to England after cutting the track.
Wilson smelled a hit. He figured with The Byrds flying through the charts with electrified versions of Dylan, the same could happen with this humble chord progression. He was right, but when Simon heard the version hitting the charts, he recoiled. Simon’s old colleague, Al Stewart, recalls in Paul Simon: A Life, “Paul was horrified when he first heard it … [when the] rhythm section slowed down at one point so that Paul and Artie’s voices could catch up.” He eventually ensured both versions were heard in equal measure by exclusively plugging the acoustic arrangement thereafter.
