Paul Simon, the reluctant performer: “For me, it’s a secondary form of creativity”
Upon the release of his latest album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occassionally, Harry Styles crowned Paul Simon as one of his greatest influences, and according to Styles, you could hear Simon in the lilts and the melodic kicks, the shimmering overture.
Soon thereafter, Styles announced an eye-watering 50 shows in support of his third solo album, including a record-breaking 30-night residency at Madison Square Garden – it was clear that here, the inspiration he had taken from the Simon and Garfunkel mastermind had ended; this kind of macabre showmanship would never be on Simon’s to-do list.
We needn’t just rely on Simon’s sheepish confessionals in interviews to see this: When Styles hosted and performed on the iconic US late-night show, Saturday Night Live, Simon made a cheeky appearance to simply introduce the popstar as he sang one of his slower, more haunting tracks. Simon stayed well away from the stage himself.
In an interview with Playboy all the way back in 1984, Simon detailed his lacklustre connection to live performance. He’d tried and tested his own hypothesis most notably at their 1981 reunion concert in Central Park, where an estimated 500,000 people showed up to witness in real-time the performance that was subsequently recorded and released as a live album.
While many other performers would’ve bawled at the unfathomable experience, Simon maintained an air of reticence about the whole ordeal… “Afterward, our reaction was, I think, one of disappointment,” he mused, like a chemistry teacher succintly noting the elemental changes in an experiment he was carrying out before a group of wide-eyed students.
Simon’s disappointment stretched to the live album that was made from the free event, one that he didn’t “particularly like” due to his reluctant nature as a performer. “I don’t think that Simon and Garfunkel as a live act compares to Simon and Garfunkel as a studio act.”
Fans will have their own opinion on the album that kicks off with the live rendition of ‘Mrs Robinson’ and ends, 19 songs later, with ‘The Sound of Silence’. Simon thought the whole thing was cheugy: “In terms of performing, I’ve never been comfortable being a professional entertainer. For me, it’s a secondary form of creativity. I’m a reproducer onstage of what I’ve already created.”
The maestro is airing an idea we’ve all had from time to time: Styles announces 50 dates for fans to scream along to songs that are all… The same? Simon performs songs for 500,000 people, but the songs are all… The same? By this logic, the active creation in the studio is much more rewarding than becoming a repeated copy of yourself, tasked only with hitting the right notes and never conjuring up anything new.
Certainly, some performers offset this quiet internal ambivalence by hiring hundreds of dancers, changing their set-list every night, or, in this day and age, helping put together a digital production so all-encompassing that just observing or being part of the idea is transporting.
But Simon never pretended that he had this in him: “I’m not a creative performer.” Still, watch any Simon and Garfunkel recording and try to stave off the tears, or the awe. Simon might be a reluctant performer, but watching him has never been short of magical.
