“Think like a song”: why Paul Simon thought his song ‘Amulet’ sounded too complicated
“It’s very helpful to start with something that’s true; if you start with something that’s false, you’re always covering your tracks,” said Paul Simon when discussing the art of songwriting. He was always adamant that regardless of theme or topic, every songwriter should start from a place of honesty. “Something simple and true that has a lot of possibilities is a nice way to begin.”
Ever since he was young, Paul Simon has started mastering the art of songwriting. This means that he has dabbled in creating as part of a duo, which saw him succeed in Simon and Garfunkel and as a solo artist. Nothing has ever been off-limits when it comes to Simon’s songwriting, as different genres, themes and writing methods have been explored frequently.
One of the greatest examples of how experimental Paul Simon was as a songwriter is his album Graceland. This album saw him step away from his standard folk writing and instead embrace African rhythms. While some people saw this as controversial, it represents Simon’s open-mindedness as a writer.
It started when his friend Heidi Berg gave him a copy of the album Accordion Jive Hits No 2. One of the songs that stood out the most was ‘Gumboota’ by The Boyoyo Boys, which Simon ended up re-recording with the band for his album. While he ended up feeling distant from that track, it represented the song that inspired his record.
“If it wasn’t that ‘Gumboots’ led me into the whole project,” said Simon, “I would have dropped ‘Gumboots’ from the album. Because I think it’s the weakest of the South African cuts.”
While Simon was an excellent songwriter, and there was no creative approach off-limits, that didn’t mean he didn’t struggle to arrive at the finished product occasionally. When you have written so many songs and are a maverick in embracing the different ways you can put songs together, it’s easy to see why it might be easy to trip up on the songwriting process.
This happened when he started working on his 2011 album So Beautiful or So What. He began writing using a guitar-voice method that he had mastered on previous records, but it wasn’t sitting right with him this time around. He ended up having to change his approach to stop overcomplicating things and ensure things came together.
“[It was] A little bit awkward at first,” he said when discussing the songwriting technique, “And then, you know, I was a little bit apprehensive about whether I could do it. ‘Amulet’, which was my first attempt, was much too complicated. So I said, I’ll have to think more like a song. Not so much like whatever my fingers do. I have to try to put it into a structure that can be made into a song.”
