The song that Paul Simon will always regret and the chorus that he couldn’t cut: “It didn’t build”
Throughout his career, Paul Simon has written more than his fair share of immaculate melodies. Whether with Simon and Garfunkel or on his own solo material, Simon’s knack for lyrical depth and musical complexity has resulted in melodies that delicately creep their way into listeners’ hearts and stay for years.
Simon has more than a few perfect songs in his repertoire; there are bound to be a few that don’t sit well with him. The very process of art means that very few things can be perfect; it is, after all, created by a fallible object itself: the human. And, for Simon, a seriously meticulous artist capable of coming as close to the hallowed ground of “perfection” as many can hope to achieve, there are many songs which fall just that little bit too far below the watermark of what he deems to be acceptable.
Then again, songwriting is never a linear process all the time. While the greatest songs tend to come from a spark of inspiration and can often appear in one gulp, Simon has never thought of it in those terms, looking to expand his craft as a songwriter by testing his capabilities on every project. It is part of what makes his output interesting and keeps fans coming back for more.
Throughout the making of the album Graceland, for instance, Simon went to South Africa while still amid apartheid to work off the native musicians. Considering his impressive knack for songwriting, Simon was able to subvert his normal process by bringing the sounds of African rhythms and melody into his work, from the fantastic groove on ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’ to the relentless joys of ballads like ‘Under African Skies’.
When delivering songs for his greatest hits album, though, Simon contributed the song ‘Slip Slidin’ Away’. Despite the lighthearted title, the song is a severe story about a man who tends to make the wrong decisions in life. Although the track might be taking a voyeuristic perspective into the man’s life, it’s also somewhat of a cautionary tale, reminding the listener not to get caught up in the complexities of life and end up like the poor father who is never there for his children.
Although the tune may be fine the way it is, Simon considered the chorus a point of contention throughout his life. Even though the song went over well, Simon thought the leading hook didn’t need to be hammered into the listener’s head.
Since most of the song’s story is cleared up in the final verse, Simon thought it was unnecessary to play the chorus again, saying, “The last verse is a powerful one, but the chorus, it keeps coming back to the chorus. You know what that chorus is going to say. I always felt it should be shorter, but I didn’t know which verses to take out. Either the last verse or the father/child verse. But they all seemed like they had to be in there, so I left it. But I always felt that the record and the song stayed on a plateau. It didn’t build”.
“Slip slidin’ away / Slip slidin’ away / You know the nearer your destination / The more you’re slip slidin’ away,” sings Simon in the chorus. And it’s hard not to understand where he was coming from, caught between a hook, the bait and the line, Simon’s vision for a track with some serious potency was undercut by what most would consider to be a handy little hook.
Knowing perhaps that the chorus was too good to only use a couple of times, he kept bringing the tune back to it, and, in turn, hamstrung his ability to really build out the premise of his tune. He was, in many ways, stopped by his own good work. A regret he likely carries with him every time he hears the song.
Even though songwriters often get stumped on which words to put into their melodies to complete the musical phrase, Simon’s problem works in the opposite direction. Instead of leaving the listener on a sad note, they are brought right back to the chorus as if to put the musical exclamation point on what we already heard. ‘Slip Slidin’ Away’ may still have its place amongst Simon’s best compositions, but if the songwriter had his way, there’s a good chance that some of that could get trimmed off the final version of the song.
