The Human Comedy: The time Paul Simon told his favourite joke while remembering Mort Lewis
At the start of ‘Graceland’, Paul Simon sings about the Mississippi Delta “shining like a national guitar” as he journeys in his car “through the cradle of the civil war”. It’s serious, much like many of Simon’s songs, and tackles something he became well versed in over the course of his career—the convergence of art and American history. “Serious” by all means, because that’s what Simon is usually associated with, tackling subjects not to be laughed at, rendering any sense of humour the last thing associated with such a contemplative fellow.
That’s not to say Simon doesn’t crack a few jokes every now and then—it’s anyone’s guess what the musician is really like behind the scenes, with his walls down and dim nightlights pervading the room like an intimate flood of “anything goes”. In interviews, the glimpses of laid-back Simon show a friendly, down-to-earth aura where conversation flows as easily as the finest wine, but comedy? Not really something of focus in the various sources tackling everything great about his artistry.
Known primarily for his reflective and poetic lyricism, Simon’s music has been central to many great studies. It offers pieces of his life in various narratives and abstractions, covering all bases from emotional turmoil to relationship heartbreak to friendly betrayal. On the odd occasion, he injects humour and wit into his songwriting, the most obvious example being the sardonic ‘You Can Call Me Al’ with lines like the ever-important question, “Why am I soft in the middle now?”
However, despite the rest, including ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’, ‘One-Trick Pony’, and ‘Gumboots’, Simon’s humour often appears subtle, reflecting the unexpected twists and turns of life itself where no space of time reflects the one-dimensional nature of a single genre. Everything mirrors everything, all the time; sadness, humour, despair, joy—and Simon’s music covers it all like the words uttered by a man well-lived.
Still, behind the curtain, Simon remains somewhat of a mystery and those fleeting moments of the real person behind the art come in dribs and drabs, resigned to those deeply cut conversations and interviews where, for one moment, he completely and unapologetically drops the mask. One such moment occurred during an interview with Uncut a handful of years back when the musician reflected on the allure of having Mort Lewis as a close and personal friend. As it happens, he was actually referring to his unique sense of humour, which is a quality that endeared him to the man from day one.
“People stopped telling jokes, people don’t tell jokes anymore,” the musician observed, to which he was (boldly) urged to tell a joke. What he said next seemed so far removed from any façade Simon had been holding that if it played out like a scene in some HBO sitcom, the audience would have deemed it out of character. “This guy’s got a cat. He’s absolutely dedicated to his cat. His brother says to him, ‘Your life is totally dominated by the cat. Why don’t you just take a trip to Paris for a week? I’ll take care of the cat, he’ll be fine,'” he begins…
At this point, it’s important to note that this isn’t one of the best jokes ever told, not exactly—ultimately, it’s a little long-winded and, in all honestly, not entirely fitting with the tone of the rest of the original interview. However, it successfully reflects Simon’s unique sense of humour and how he often said the things that were on his mind, no matter the reaction it got from those around him.
That said, let’s get back to the joke. After the “guy” offers to look after his brother’s cat, the friend leaves specific instructions on how to take care of the cat, Simon said, and then he “flies to Paris”. The following morning, the cat’s owner calls his brother to check in on his pet, but he informs him that “the cat’s dead”. Obviously, he’s beside himself and asks, “What kind of way is that to tell somebody news like that?”
When the brother asks what the appropriate approach would have been, he says: “You do it gradually. ‘The cat is on the roof. But it’s fine. The fire department are coming so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.'”
He continues: “Then the next day you say, ‘The cat fell off the roof but fortunately he landed in a tree. He seems to be settled. The police are coming to get him.’ Then the next day, ‘The cat fell out of the tree, broke a leg. But we got the best vet we could. He says no problem, he can set the leg. He’ll be fine.’ Then the next day you say, ‘We gave him anaesthesia, we did everything we could, but we just couldn’t save him.’ That is how you tell somebody a thing like that. But forget it.”
After that long, drawn-out preface, Simon reaches the punchline, with the brother responding with a darkly amusing set-up fated to stun anyone listening; in response to “How’s mum?”, the brother says, ‘Mum is on the roof…'”
It’s one that undeniably warrants no elaboration, considering it likely suggests that the brother is using the advice to break bad news slowly rather than blurt the entire thing out. It also demonstrates Simon’s specific flavour of humour while indicating that he enjoyed the more sinister punchlines. In any case, for a globally cherished “serious” musician with an art for blending existential musings with creativity and innovation, it proves Simon also knows a lot of jokes, thanks to his late Simon and Garfunkel manager.
Whether it was a “good” joke or not is open for discussion, but there is something undeniably endearing about how he had this quip stored and ready to go whenever anyone asked him to tell a joke on the spot. Even better, he seems to have a thing for dark humour, which makes complete sense considering his penchant for addressing the many facets of life and its insistence on blending tragedy with comedy.
