RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 133

RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 132

RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 131

RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 130

RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 129

RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 128

PAUL SIMON: "THERE GOES RHYMIN' SIMON"

Original released on LP CBS 69035 (UK)

and Columbia 32280 (US), May 1973

A1. Kodachrome 3’35

A2. Tenderness 2’55

A3. Take Me to the Mardi Gras 3’30

A4. Something So Right 4’36

A5. One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor 3’48

B1. American Tune 3’47

B2. Was a Sunny Day 3’44

B3. Learn How to Fall 2’47

B4. St. Judy’s Comet 3’21

B5. Loves Me Like a Rock 3’40

All songs composed by Paul Simon

MUSICIANS:

Guitar: Paul Simon, Cornell Dupree, Pete Carr, David Spinozza, Alexander Gafa, Jerry Pucket

Electric Guitar: Jimmy Johnson, Pete Carr

Bass: David Hood, Gordon Edwards, Bob Cranshaw, Vernie Robbins

Acoustic Bass: Richard Davis

Electric Bass: Bob Cranshaw

Drums: Roger Hawkins, Rick Marotta, Grady Tate, James Straud

Percussion: Airto Moreira, Roger Hawkins

Keyboards: Barry Beckett, Bobby James

Piano: Paul Griffin, Bobby Scott, Barry Beckett

Organ: Carson Witsett

Vocal Group: The Dixie Hummingbirds

Vocal Duo: Maggie & Terre Roche

Horns: The Onward Brass Band

Strings arranged by Del Newman

Produced by Paul Simon

Cover designed by Milton Glaser

«And high up above

my eyes could clearly see

the Statue of Liberty

sailing away to sea.

And I dreamed I was flying»

Paul Simon’s “There Goes Rhymin' Simon” is the logical step in Paul Simon's solo recording career, and it is a dazzlingly surefooted one. Despite its many light, humorous moments, the core theme of his first album, Paul Simon, was depressing: fear of death, its focal point a sung poem, "Everything Put Together Falls Apart," that while worthy of comparison with the best work of John Berryman, could hardly be called "easy listening." Since the album dealt with anxiety, it communicated anxiety and was difficult to accept as entertainment. This isn't true of “Rhymin' Simon”. Like its predecessor, it is a fully realized work of art, of genius in fact, but one that is also endlessly listenable on every level. Simon has never sounded so assured vocally. He demonstrates in several places pyrotechnical skills that approach Harry Nilsson's (in embellishment of ballad phrases) and John Lennon's (in letting it all hang out), though for the most part, Simon's deliveries are straight - restrained and supple, bowing as they should to the material, which is of the very highest order.

“Rhymin' Simon” shows, once and for all, that Simon is now the consummate master of the contemporary narrative song - one of a very few practicing singer/songwriters able to impart wisdom as much by implication as by direct statement. Here, even more than in the first album, Simon successfully communicates the deepest kinds of love without ever becoming rhetorical or overly sentimental. The chief factor in his remarkable growth since Simon and Garfunkel days has been the development of a gentle wry humor that is objective, even fatalistic, though never bitter. Thematically, “Rhymin' Simon” represents a sweeping outward gesture from the introspection of the first album. Simon has triumphantly relocated his sensibility in the general scheme of things: as a musician, as a poet of the American tragedy, and most importantly as a family man. “Rhymin' Simon” celebrates, above all, familial bonds, which are seen as an antidote, to psychic disintegration in a terminally diseased society. As an expression of one man's credo, therefore, it is a profoundly affirmative action. The chief new musical element Simon has chosen to work with - one he has hitherto eschewed - is black music: R&B and gospel motifs are incorporated brilliantly both in Simon's melodic writing and in the sparkling textures of the album's ten cuts, more than half recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. 

The opener is "Kodachrome," a streamlined pop-rock production that uses the image of color photography as a metaphor for imaginative vitality. The song opens with a couple of Simon's most pungent lines: «When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school / It's a wonder I can think at all.» Next is "Tenderness," a late-Fifties-styled doo-wop ballad in which Simon tells a friend: «You don't have to lie to me / Just give me some tenderness beneath your honesty.» In addition to boasting one of Simon's loveliest vocals, "Tenderness" has a nicely subdued horn arrangement by Allen Toussaint and a soulful R&B backups by a gospel group, the Dixie Hummingbirds. "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" is sheer delight - a Latin-flavored evocation of abandon in New Orleans that fades out in joyous Dixieland music by the Onward Brass Band. This sensuous flight of fancy is followed by "Something So Right," Simon's love song to his wife in which he tells her he can hardly believe his present happiness, since he is by nature a pessimist. A ballad that begins in an offhand, almost conversational tone, it builds slowly into a declaration of great eloquence. Side one closes with a witty, R&B piece of homespun city philosophy, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor."

"American Tune," which opens side two is the album's pivotal moment. A flowing ballad with the chordal structure of an American hymm-tune, its magnificent lyrics give us Simon's definitive reflection on the American Dream. Writing from a state of exhaustion in England (Paul Samwell-Smith co-produced the cut in London, and Del Newman provided the stately string arrangement), Simon sees the country as a nation of «battered souls», but still «home,» and the American Dream either «shattered» or «driven to its knees.» In an apocalyptic reverie, he equates his own death with the death of America and sees «the Statue of Liberty sailin' away to sea.» The song, which has instrumental touches that deliberately recall Simon and Garfunkel's "America," is the single greatest thing Simon has written, a classic by any standard.

"Was a Sunny Day" reshuffles images from "Kodachrome," treating them playfully in a semi-reggae setting. A «high-school queen with nothing really left to lose» makes love with a sailor whom she calls «Speedo but his Christian name was Mr. Earl.» "Learn How to Fall" has an opening melodic phrase similar to that of Bette Midler's now-famous intro, "Friends," but a different message: «You've got to learn how to fall / before you learn to fly.» The album's last two cuts, "St. Judy's Comet" and "Loves Me Like a Rock," complete the thematic cycle of songs avowing familial devotion. In the exquisitely tender acoustic lullaby, "St. Judy's Comet," Simon enters into the imaginative life of his son, who wants to stay up late to watch for the mythical comet of the title. Simon concludes: «'Cause if I can't sing my boy to sleep / well it makes your famous daddy / Look so dumb.» In "Loves Me Like a Rock," a hand-clapping, call-and-response gospel anthem with the Dixie Hummingbirds providing the response, Simon resurrects his own childhood relationship with his mother. 

Since the anxiety-laded "Mother and Child Reunion" was the opening cut on the first Simon album, it is fitting that this incredibly powerful song of love and gratitude, reminiscent in spirit of "When The Saints," should close the second. “Rhymin' Simon'” is a rich and moving song cycle, one in which each cut reflects on every other to create an ever-widening series of refractions. Viewed in the light of the first album, Simon seems ultimately to be saying that acceptance of death is only possible through our ability to honor our human ties, especially those formed within the family structure. Only through the mutual affirmation of love can we redeem our imaginative powers from despair and be able to live with the breakdown of the wider "family" structure that is the American homeland without ourselves breaking down. (Stephen Holden, Rolling Stone 1973, June 21)

PAUL SIMON 72

Original released on LP Columbia KC 30750 (US)

and on LP CBS S 69007 (UK) – 1972, January 24 

Depois da dupla Simon & Garfunkel se ter separado, pouco depois do lançamento da obra-prima intemporal que é “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, a expectativa era grande em saber-se como iriam evoluir as respectivas carreiras a solo. Foram precisos dois longos anos para que pudessemos ter a alegria de pegar num novo álbum, este primeiro (se não contarmos com o “Songbook”, que nessa altura ainda não tinha sido editado oficialmente) de Paul Simon (“Angel Clare”, de Art Garfunkel, só saíria a público 20 meses depois, em Setembro de 1973). Vi esta capa pela primeira vez numa discoteca de Johannesburg, onde fui passar uns dias de férias, que, invariavelmente, eram preenchidos a escutar as últimas novidades discográficas. Lembro-me de me sentar ao balcão da loja (chamada “Look & Listen”, na Eloff Street) e por ali ter ficado a tarde inteira, a escutar todas aquelas pequenas maravilhas: “Mother and Child Reunion”, “Duncan”, “Run That Body Down”, “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” e “Peace Like a River” foram as que mais me chamaram a atenção e, ainda hoje, continuam a ser as minhas favoritas. Quando saí da “Look & Listen”, pelo fim do dia, já trazia o álbum debaixo do braço. Este, e o seguinte (“There Goes Rhymin’ Simon”, publicado em Maio de 1973), foram dois dos mais assíduos companheiros que tive em mais de meio século. Eu envelheci, mas eles não: continuam lindissimos, tal como da primeira vez que nos conhecemos. São assim, os amores eternos.

If any musical justification were needed for the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel, it could be found on this striking collection, Paul Simon's post-split debut. From the opening cut, "Mother and Child Reunion" (a Top Ten hit), Simon, who had snuck several subtle musical explorations into the generally conservative S&G sound, broke free, heralding the rise of reggae with an exuberant track recorded in Jamaica for a song about death. From there, it was off to Paris for a track in South American style and a rambling story of a fisherman's son, "Duncan" (which made the singles chart). But most of the album had a low-key feel, with Simon on acoustic guitar backed by only a few trusted associates (among them Joe Osborn, Larry Knechtel, David Spinozza, Mike Manieri, Ron Carter, and Hal Blaine, along with such guests as Stefan Grossman, Airto Moreira, and Stephane Grappelli), singing a group of informal, intimate, funny, and closely observed songs (among them the lively Top 40 hit "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"). It was miles removed from the big, stately ballad style of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and signaled that Simon was a versatile songwriter as well as an expressive singer with a much broader range of musical interests than he had previously demonstrated. You didn't miss Art Garfunkel on Paul Simon, not only because Simon didn't write Garfunkel-like showcases for himself, but because the songs he did write showed off his own, more varied musical strengths. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 127

RATO'S MUSIC ~ VOLUME 126