What's your favourite Paul Simon song?

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 26 Apr 22 - 06:20 PM

Too many to say

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: voyager
Date: 24 Apr 22 - 03:01 PM

It's a tie for me -

#1 - Sound of Silence performed w/Art at Monterey Pop Festival ('67) Sound of Silence

#1 - Graceland (the whole album/movie)

#1 - The Boxer

and this is my shortlist.

Paul Simon - American Musician extraordinaire voyager

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 06:53 AM

The Obvious Child - I am a fan of Olodum

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST, Lin
Date: 23 Apr 22 - 04:56 AM

By far it is "Kathy's Song." I just love this song so much.
I could listen to it over and over again and never tire of hearing it.

I also enjoy hearing some of the covers on Youtube just to hear how other people sing it. There actually are some pretty good covers of this song.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Sol
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 07:36 PM

Like with a lot of great artists, there are many great songs to chose from however, there's always one special song that you consider your own personal favourite because it wasn't 'a biggie'. With regards to Paul Simon, it has to be "Kathy's Song" for me. Beautifully composed, sung and played, based on a real person. It's just perfection.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 01:17 PM

For me, the song "The Dangling Conversation" because it reflects the ennui of the privileged class of young college students who grew up with everything given to them.

It highlights just how spoiled Americans and Brits have become with material possessions and part of the dubious "meritocracy" so revered among academics and upper classes.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,jondoe
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 09:01 AM

Which is your favorite child, or pet?
I'd say American Tune and Armisist Day have a special place. But he's like Joni Mitchell. There are way too many to mention. He had a song in Shampoo, where Warren Beatty is screwing Julie Christie in the pool house - and his GF happens to see it. A lyric-less version of Silent Eyes. Such a moving scene - and movie!
And if we include his wife, I'd add Steve Martin's Pretty Little One!

Subject: ADD: Grounds for Violence (Sound of Silence parody
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Apr 22 - 03:12 AM

Elizabeth Block sent a Canadian parody of Sound of Silence.

Grounds for Violence
With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel

Hello winter, my old friend
I don't believe you'll ever end
Because the snowbanks are still towering
And my despair is overpowering
A ridge of ice has just encrusted my whole lane
It's quite insane
These are the grounds for violence

On slippery streets I try to walk
I cannot make it round the block
Because a water main has snapped again
My gate can't open; it has frozen in
I cannot stand the mere idea of April snow
It has to go
These are the grounds for violence

And when I try to take the bus
I see the scars on all of us
No one talking, never mind speaking
Without relief, people just freaking
Reporters ruining songs their voices can not sing
It's now a thing
These are the grounds for violence

I want tomatoes in my yard
Right now the ground is really hard
I want to sit outside on patios
I want to lose my winter fat, it's gross
But my wishes do not hasten warmer air
Life isn't fair
These are the grounds for violence

-- Bartley Kives, reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg aka Winterpeg)

---

SOUND OF SILENCE (DT Lyrics)
(Paul Simon)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more,
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no-one dare,
Disturb the sounds of silence

Fools said I "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows."
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said
"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and
tenement halls."
And whispered in the sounds of silence.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Words and music by Paul Simon. Copyright 1964 and 1965 by
Charing Cross Music.

@political
filename[ SOUNDSIL
DC

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Tony Rees
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 07:51 PM

Further to the above lyric and song title, it helps to know (as I did not at first) that the "Jonah" of the song is the protagonist - a somewhat washed up musician - in Paul Simon's (sole?) movie "One Trick Pony", of which the album is notionally the soundtrack. The the "Jonah" references suddenly make sense...

Regards - Tony

Subject: ADD: Jonah (Paul Simon)
From: Tony Rees
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 06:37 PM

Lyrics to "Jonah" - from one Trick Pony... always seem so evocative - especially with the wistful melody.

Regards - Tony

JONAH
(Paul Simon)

Half an hour change your strings and tune up
Sizing the room up
Checking the bar
Local girls unspoken conversation
Misinformation
Plays guitar
They say Jonah he was swallowed by a whale
But I say there's no truth to that tale
I know Jonah
He was swallowed by a song
No one gives their dreams away too lightly
They hold them tightly
Warm against cold
One more year of traveling ‘round this circuit
Then you can work it into gold
They say Jonah he was swallowed by a whale
But I say there's no truth to that tale
I know Jonah
He was swallowed by a song
Here's to all the boys who came along
Carrying soft guitars in cardboard cases
All night long
Do you wonder where those boys have gone?
Do you wonder where those boys have gone?

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Tony Rees
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 05:48 PM

Far too many great songs to pick a favourite, but I have a soft spot for (most of) his least commercially successful albums i.e. "One Trick Pony" and "Hearts and Bones". Both title tracks are spot on in my humble opinion. And the opening guitar lick in E on "Hearts and Bones" is simply a thing of beauty.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,WNC Gal
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 12:53 PM

The tune used for a good bit of "American Tune" is quite similar to the hymn tune "Passion Chorale" composed by Hans Leo Hassler in 1601. These days the tune is most frequently associated with the hymn "O Sacred Head Now Wounded."

Was listening to Ronnie Norton's show at Bluegrasscountry.org earlier today, and he played several outstanding bluegrass covers of Simon songs, including Emmylou Harris's lovely version of "The Boxer." Ronnie mentioned having attended the Paul Simon/James Taylor/Bonnie Raitt show in Dublin last week.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: gillymor
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 12:30 PM

I still like to play "Kathy's Song" and "April Comes She Will" after all these decades and I like to listen to "Boy in a Bubble" among the later stuff.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jul 18 - 02:37 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 08:38 PM

"American Tune" surely rates - but isn't the melody actually traditional or something? Seems to me I've heard it somewhere else.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,katia
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 08:38 AM

Little joke!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 08:27 AM

I used to play that song endlessly when I was a youndg alienated student. then my room mate said to me


This song.......that line about 'the slient shroud of snow'. You know what its like....? Its like a bloody Christmas card verse from a manic depressive!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Hovering Bob
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 07:41 AM

Not my favourite, but the one that had the greatest instant impact was "I am a Rock." It was the song he started his first set with at Huntingdon Folk Club way back in 196?
It was the first time I ever went to a folk club, earth shattering!

BobH

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Tootler
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 06:10 AM

And recorded by Art Garfunkel.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Terry K
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 01:19 AM

Guest Katia - Bright Eyes was written by the chief Womble, Mike Batt.

cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 06:23 PM

Poem on the Underground Wall.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 01:56 PM

"Homeward Bound" is a great song. So is "Slip Slidin' Away".

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,Katia
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 01:46 PM

Bright Eyes - got to be

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 12:48 PM

Well it would be Scarborough Fair - if he had written it - or arranged it. I tend not to have favourites - it is all music from my youth and that is always special.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: bobad
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 09:34 PM

Homeward Bound - It brings me back to a particular time and place in my younger days.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Alba
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 09:25 PM

Lincoln Duncan.
No doubt:)

Coming in a close second,

I dream we are lying on top of a Hill Headlights slide passed the Moon
I fold in your arms and your voice is the heat of the night.
I'm on fire

In a phone booth at some local Bar and grill, rehearsing what I'll say my coin returns
How the Heart approaches what it yearns

Jude

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Greg B
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 08:40 PM

'Homeless' from Graceland with Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Nothing more need be said.

Just listen.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 08:36 PM

I always liked "Fakin' It", and "Bookends" never fails to make me cry...come to think of it, they're both from the same album, aren't they?

~D

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,Pelrad
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 08:28 PM

I have too many favorites to choose from. When I was three years old, my favorite song was "Slip Slidin' Away," and I would request it several times a day. I listened to Paul Simon's music at least once a day for ten years straight. I used to find ways to quote him in my school essays.

"Baby Driver" - I can never hear it without seeing the skit from the Muppet Show with the babies hot-rodding in their buggies.


"Hearts and Bones"

"Song about the Moon"
If you want to write a song about the moon,
Walk along the craters of the afternoon
When the shadows are deep
And the light is alien
And gravity leaps like a knife off the pavement

"The Coast" from Rhythm of the Saints
"Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" from Graceland

"That's Where I Belong" from You're the One
Somewhere in a burst of glory
Sound becomes a song
I'm bound to tell a story
Thats where I belong


"The Cool, Cool River" from Rhythm of the Saints has my absolute favorite quote:
Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Haruo
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 05:27 PM

Hey, last month I watched the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike going the other direction! Life finally imitating art, or perhaps in this case imitating paul.

Haruo

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Tootler
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 05:22 PM

My own personal favourites are

The Boxer
Diamonds in the Soles of his Shoes
Look for America

Between us, (me + wife), my sister and some friends we almost managed to "Look for America"

I didn't quite go to Saginaw, though I got pretty close
My sister didn't board a Greyhound in Pittsburgh, but she nearly boarded one to Pittsburgh
Our friends actually did manage to watch the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike on their way from Newark Airport to NYC.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Haruo
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 04:59 PM

Only one I actually have the lyrics to in Esperanto is "Sounds of Silence":

La Son' Silenta
Translated by Roel Haveman

Kara nokto, venis mi
Por paroli plu kun vi
Ĉar vizio bildojn formis,
Lasis semojn dum mi dormis.
Kaj la vizio,
Enplantita en la kor'
Ne iras for
De la son' silenta.

Ensonĝe solas la anim'
Dum vagas mi sur s^tonpavim'
Ĉe bril' de stratlanterna aŭreol'
Mi froste ŝovas jakon al la kol'
Dum l' okulojn
Trafpikas neona fulm'
Tra la mallum',
Tra la son' silenta

En nuda lumo vidas mi
Dek mil homojn, eble pli.
Dum parolo diro mankas.
Dum aŭdad' aŭskulto haltas.
Iliajn versojn
Voĉoj certe kantos ne,
Kuraĝas ne
Pro la son' silenta.

"Stultuloj, vi ne scias ke
Silent' kancere kreskas se
Miajn manojn vi neglektas,
Miajn vortojn ne respektas."
Sed forfluas
Silente mia vort',
Hm hm hm hm,
Drona sort'
Silenta

Klino, preĝo, eu(fori'
Por memkreita neondi'.
La signo fulmas nun averton
Per vortoj kiuj spiras certon
Kaj ĝi diras ke
La vortojn profetajn
Vi trovos sur metroa mur'
Kun flustro nur
Kie la son' silentas

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 07:03 PM

Too many to choose from, but "Duncan", "Hazy Shade Of Winter", "America", and "Hobo's Blues" (his instrumental duet/jam with Stephane Grapelli on "Paul Simon") always kill me!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: wanderhope
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 11:50 AM

One thing I remember was when he got the Grammy for Album of the Year (for "Graceland") and his acceptance speech was, "I want to thank Stevie Wonder for not recording anything this year."

Also -- my favorite of the many I love to sing -- Graceland, itself. Especially since Simon said, "It's not about Elvis.'

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 10:49 AM

Any song that gets some mileage out of sitting on a Widnes station platform has got to be an award winner

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 03:38 PM

Any of his songs with African influence.....great!
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Genie
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 03:30 PM

LOL, Sorethroat!

Fear not. We in the states also love to pop a Fisherman's Friend in our mouths PRN.

§:-D

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Crystal
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 09:52 AM

50 ways to leave your lover!

or any spoof done by the muppets!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,Sorethroat
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 09:46 AM

Way back on this thread in 02 someone mentioned the line "My father was a fisherman, my mother was a fisherman's friend"
to which another replied, 'There is no such thing!'
Well, there certainly IS - I'm suckin' on one right now.
Makin' me feel much better too.
For Stateside viewers benefit (and elsewhere), fear not! It's a brand name for a throat remedy over here in the UK.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: just john
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 09:16 AM

So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright

Architects may come and architects may go and never change your point of view.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Ross
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 09:12 AM

We are having a Paul Simon night on the 7th March 2005

At the Bull ph in Barton-Le-Clay, Bedfordshire

Singaround format - all welcome

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 06:34 AM

Ace of Spades.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Auggie
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 11:12 PM

Kathy's Song
Cloudy
Old Friends
Something So Right


Prior to this lifetime
I (too)surely was a tailor...
I own the tailor's face and hands.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: bflat
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 09:22 PM

i actually like a lot of his songs. First learned to play 59th Street Bridge. I like Homeward Bound; Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover and the Sound of Silence. He may have conscripted songs but he made them his uniquely.

Ellen

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Genie
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 07:42 PM

Quote (JustaPicker):"I think "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is the best song he's ever written - especially recorded Gospel versions by other vocalists."

Yeah, that.

I love S&G's original version, but there are other versions (e.g., Aretha Franklin, Clay Aiken) that I love just as much. To me, that's a mark of a great SONG - as opposed to a great performance or arrangement. A great song can be remade many ways and still sound great!

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Genie
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 07:30 PM

Gee, Paul wrote so many great songs (50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, The Boxer, Sounds Of Silence, Under African Skies, etc., etc.) ...

but Bridge Over Troubled Water -- hands down! (IMNSHO)

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 07:22 PM

Paul Simon has written and performed so many great songs, and delivered them to us in such a way as they have imprinted themselves in our minds, and several generations relate to them. Very few people have been able to have this lasting effect. He certainly moved with the times and managed to re-invent himself and move very successfully from a folk sound to a new african sound which was unique to the 'western'music scene at the time. I have never heard a paul simon song or a S/G song performed by anyone else that comes close to them. Complete proffessional; complete singer; complete entertainer....far too fifficult to just pick one favourite song... the more I think about it the harder the task becomes.

P S I'm a fan.

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: stevi
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 01:03 PM

Duncan
he was my brother
kathys song---- to start with the man ,s magic

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: dwditty
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 12:32 PM

Well, never did like Paul Simon much...but man, I love John Forster's portrayal of Paul ripping off cultural music of all kinds in his (Forster's) song, "Fusion."

Subject: RE: What's your favourite Paul Simon song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 12:28 PM

Yes indeed thankyou Paul for all that Music. there was hardly anything of it that i didn't love - hardly any song that doesn't evoke memories and longings for times and things that might have been.

Best paul memories. struggling wth stacatto am/Bm chord change in I am a rock. january '65. A friend had seen him play at Les Cousins, and bought the album.

my first stereo system (with teak needles as woody allen jibed!) and the cars whizzing round the room in Baby Driver.

a million pub gigs with The Boxer to keep you company.

That band in one trick pony with Steve gadd etc.

well you know it all, it was your lives as well.....


al the best

big al