Labeling Paul Simon a singer-songwriter is akin to calling Michael Jordan a basketball player. Technically, you’d be correct. But in both cases, the definition doesn’t quite do the subject justice.
One of the key reasons that Simon remains a vital performer at age 58 is that he is constantly challenging himself and his audience. Those who adored the folk-rock songs Simon wrote and sang when paired with Art Garfunkel in the ’60s may not necessarily recognize the Simon of today, whose music has become rhythmically and melodically richer, if not as commercially accessible.
Some longtime Simon fans may be puzzled by his latest album, “You’re the One” (Warner), because it doesn’t have instantly catchy tunes in the tradition of “I am a Rock,” “Kodachrome” or “Graceland.” But anybody who appreciates subtle songcraft with a percolating, danceable groove should be charmed. Though Simon is revered as a lyricist, it’s his breezy sense of swing and his knack for the unconventional melodic hook that put him a cut above most of his ’60s and ’70s singer-songwriter peers.
Those skills are much in evidence on “You’re the One,” which Simon recorded after road-testing his 10-piece band on a 1999 summer tour with Bob Dylan. He’ll bring that same band to Chicago for two sold-out concerts Friday and Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre to showcase his new songs and, no doubt, reinvent a few old favorites. In an interview before the tour began, he talked about how he keeps the music fresh.
Trying to harmonize with Dylan as you did on that ’99 tour — it must have felt like you were stepping into a minefield.
It was immensely enjoyable. I’ve known him for many years — I remember spending a weekend out at his summer house before my son Harper was born, like 28 years ago. It was a friendly tour, and we killed them in softball. Murdered them. Bob didn’t play, but I played outfield.
Onstage it was fascinating to watch you two try to find some middle ground on those four songs you would play together each night.
When we started to rehearse for it we sat down in my house and played together, two acoustic guitars just playing folk stuff and it was really beautiful. But it changed as we got to the tour, because we were playing big places, and the bands were electric, and it felt like we couldn’t go up there in that environment and play obscure songs with two acoustic guitars. So it became a question of what can you sing of mine, and what can I sing of yours, and we tried to find some common ground. We’re of the same generation. So where are we gonna go? Buddy Holly, things like that [they often performed Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and Dion’s “The Wanderer”]. Some nights, God knows where we were. But some nights a song would take on a meaning, and we’d feel that through all our stylistic differences we’re just two guys of the same generation who through our songwriting have traveled similar paths. Of all the songs we did together, “Sounds of Silence” was the most enjoyable, because I never would have written that song if it were not for Bob Dylan. I wrote that song when I was 21 years old, and it was influenced by him, so to hear him sing it now brought a certain power to it that was fresh to my ears.
What I like is that your songs work from the hips; you’re perceived as this folk-singer lyricist, but what I hear is a guy who loves the groove.
The whole record came from hearing the band play; we made tracks, and then the tracks became guitar pieces, and those guitar pieces became the basis for writing a song. A melody began to form, and then very quickly, much to my surprise and amazement, the lyrics would come within a day or two. I like rhythms, and I like rhythms to be propulsive in a way that swings. I’m not doing hip-hop rhythms, and I’m not doing typical rock rhythms either, but they’re in there.
The hooks are unconventional too, but they’re hooks nonetheless, like the nonsense syllables in “Look at That.” Did those come come from your love of doo-wop or children’s stories?
When I was on the Dylan tour I started doing that sort of thing while singing “The Boy in the Bubble.” I was just struck by how much pleasure there is in a nonsense sound and how much that is a part of the history of songs. “Hey-nanny-nanny” or “Fiddlededee.” It’s a cool hook because we’ve known about this forever. We’ve been singing nonsense sounds since we made up songs. It’s already in the DNA. That’s why it’s a hook. There’s a certain linguistic communication that we all understand, from babies on up. The parents gurgle at the baby, and the baby gurgles at them. Nonsense sounds can be a pleasure if it’s appropriate to use them.
Are cliches ever useful in writing a pop song?
The pop-song cliche is changing all the time from generation to generation. I use a lot of cliches in my writing. They are a very important element. If you use a cliche in the right way it can be really moving. If you use it wrong, it’s boring. But the right cliche at the right moment, we recognize it, we like it, we respond to it, because it’s in a slightly different context.
That’s true of a song like “Love,” which flirts with the biggest pop-song cliche of them all.
That track existed before that song existed: a swaying, lush sound in C-minor, which has very very melancholy sound to it. Then it changes from C-minor to C-major, and it goes from a straight blues to a variation on it, and it shifts tone from acoustic guitar to electric guitar. So the colorings were already interesting when I began to write the melody and the words. When I started with a song called “Love,” my reaction was that it was such a cliche that it’s a good title, and the question now is, what are you going to say about it? The song is about how much we crave love, but it took on power and dimension when you think about what happens when we don’t have any love: master races, chosen people, destruction, evil. It became a love song with a point.
So the struggle with you is to have inspiration win out over craftsmanship?
Yeah. That’s a search. The technique has to be applied, but the search is . . . in the end you’re looking for ecstasy, if you can find it. You’re looking to be lifted. You don’t always get it. But when you get it, it’s an addiction. You want to do it again and again. The longer you do it, the more mastery you have over technique, and the more you recognize problems that you’ve encountered before in some other form. So you have more tools at your disposal to solve problems. In that sense you’re working the craft of it. But the craft alone wouldn’t produce something interesting enough for me.
Do you hear ecstasy in today’s pop music?
I listen to it when my kids [ages 2, 5 and 7] do. My value system and how I think about this process was formed in the ’60s, and today they have their own thing. Things are very well made, and the people who are doing it know how to write hooks. I think we’re at a time when it’s a lot about craft.
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Hear Greg Kot on “Sound Opinions” at 10 p.m. every Tuesday on WXRT (93.1 FM)
