Paul Simon’s one “predictable” flaw as a songwriter, according to Paul Simon
Over the years, a plethora of peers have aimed proverbial punches at Paul Simon.
John Lennon infamously called him a “singing dwarf” in a scathing, ableist attack. Joni Mitchell said that he tries to pile in more words “than the bar could handle”. And even Simon himself has held his hand up and said that he’s frustrated but accepting of the fact that he “comes second” to Bob Dylan.
None of these detractors, Simon included, however, have ever been able to remotely taint masterpieces like ‘America’, ‘Graceland’, ‘The Sound of Silence’, ‘Hearts and Bones’, ‘Cloudy’, ‘The Boxer’ and a vast array of other unimpeachable classics that have been galvanised rather than eroded by the passage of time. Despite endless attempts at derision, Simon remains among the greats.
But even the greats have flaws. In fact, there’s a fair school of thought that says that those very flaws are what make them so great. David Bowie might have dared to venture into the emerging genre of jungle in the 1990s, and he shouldn’t have, but it was that exact same daring spirit that led to gems like ‘Life on Mars’. Bob Dylan’s constant reinvention might have made him look like a has-been following trends in the 1980s, but it also made him the original trendsetter back in the ’60s.
With Simon, things are slightly different. His class comes from an unwavering sense of craftsmanship. I’ve always felt that this is displayed in a meta masterstroke in ‘Kathy’s Song’. As he approaches the dainty fifth verse, he sings, “I don’t know why I spend my time, Writing songs I can’t believe, With words that tear and strain to rhyme.” In spite of his own demurring, there isn’t actually a word out of place in the whole song – it achieves a sense of perfection.
Such perfection requires hours of honing. Experimentalism and invention are certainly creditable facets of songwriting, but they can often result in waywardness. Simon doesn’t usually go for that. Instead, he clings to the coattails of a muse that bolts down a well-trodden, straight and narrow. This is his triumph, but according to man himself, it is also his flaw.
”I still have the desire to be good,” he said in a 1973 interview with Roy Carr, a period during which Simon and Garfunkel were quite possibly the biggest act on the planet, even though they were no longer together. “It’s very embarrassing to be bad,“ he added. This ushered him towards what he knew he could do well in his second chapter.
“When I became a solo performer again, on the surface I was doing something different, because people always thought of me as being one-half of a group,“ he said. “Now if you find what I’m doing interesting in terms of musicality, then that’s great. That means I succeeded.” But therein also lies his flaw: “Once you get to know me, once you’ve heard four or five Paul Simon albums, then you might feel that there is a sameness and predictable quality about what I do.”
If predictable brilliance is a flaw, then it is one that you ironically wish the world had more of. But it was clearly on Simon’s mind in ’73. Gladly, not enough to thrust him towards monumental changes – his very recognition of the fact implies a maturity and self-awareness that would warn against that. But he did go on to pursue a more vernacular and expansive approach with what followed, and as a result, songs like ‘Hearts and Bones’ pleased him more than ‘The Sound of Silence’.
