Paul McCartney on the difference between him and Paul Simon’s songwriting
The name Paul is almost guaranteed to appear twice on any list of the greatest songwriters of all time. First, accompanied by the surname McCartney, on account of the bassist’s truly unparalleled contributions to the craft as one of the driving creative forces in The Beatles. Scroll down a little further, and you’re likely to find Paul Simon’s name on the list, too, for his bouncy solo career and his folk-rock masterpieces with Simon and Garfunkel.
McCartney spent the entirety of the 1960s earning his place at the top of that list. Initially, he worked alongside his bandmate, John Lennon, to sow the seeds of Beatlemania with early hits like ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. As the relationship between the two soured, McCartney began to write alone, but his songwriting was just as strong.
From the soothing ‘Hey Jude’ to the mournful ‘Yesterday’, McCartney proved his talent with a pen over and over, forging some of the greatest songs of all time. His style was sentimental, pulling songs from dreams he had and regrets he felt, winning over audiences with gorgeous melodies and intricately woven yet universally resonant lyrics.
Simon started out with a songwriting partner, too. While McCartney spent the early 1960s penning songs with Lennon, Simon was with Art Garfunkel on their aptly named folk project, Simon and Garfunkel. Together, they carved out favourites in the folk genre and in the soundtrack realm with ‘Mrs. Robinson’ and the iconic Bridge Over Troubled Water.
When Simon went off on his own, he expanded his sonic explorations far beyond the realms of an acoustic guitar, pulling in genres from across the world on the iconic Graceland in 1986. The record spawned singalong-worthy hits like ‘You Can Call Me Al’ as well as the twangy ‘Graceland’, using beautiful imagery to evoke loss and longing.
Though they’re both considered amongst the best songwriters of all time, they’re not necessarily similar in the way they approach and execute the art of composition. While McCartney simply allowed songs to flow out of him, leaving them as untouched as possible, Simon had a tendency to refine and rework his creations.
“I have to be careful that something just doesn’t come out too bland,” McCartney explained during a conversation with Rolling Stone, “Paul Simon works his music much more than I do, with a first draft, a second draft, third draft. I do that as well, but not as much as he does. It’s different kinds of music.”
It’s difficult to imagine anything McCartney writes coming out too “bland,” but the songs he writes can seen slightly less re-drafted than Simon’s. While Simon weaves together images of Graceland and diamonds on shoe soles, McCartney often relied on more raw emotion for his lyrics. His phrasing is just as beautiful and evocative, but it tends less towards detail than Simon’s.
McCartney admitted that this hasn’t always worked out for him. “I do sometimes write one and look at it and shudder and say, ‘I don’t like that,’” he explained. However, his process has spawned some of the most well-known and well-loved songs in music history at the same time.
Neither McCartney’s method nor Simon’s endless redrafts are superior ways to approach songwriting. They each work for the songwriter in different ways, and each has spawned some of the most beautiful songs of all time.
