Paul Simon Playlist – Spotify

“The Sound Of Silence”
Album: “The Paul Simon Songbook”

Recorded in London before Simon & Garfunkel’s success, this album was released after said success, because that’s the way the music business works, it’s sleazy. Not that many people bought it, at least not many I knew, but now through the magic of the internet you can listen to it, and it’s fascinating.

You can be fully ready but the marketplace may not be ready for you. The songs were there, maybe they needed better treatments, but imagine you’re Simon, frustrated, having had success as a teenager with Garfunkel as Tom and Jerry and then all you hear is crickets…

You’ve got to persevere.

And you’ve got to be lucky.

“The Sound Of Silence”
Album: “Sounds Of Silence”
Simon & Garfunkel

The hit version, which erupted on AM radio during the 1965 holiday season, we didn’t believe these were their real names, we thought this was a one hit wonder.

And it’s the SOUND of silence, not SOUNDS, just like it’s “Bridge Over Troubled WATER,” not WATERS! Then again, if you’re listening they’re getting paid, they don’t care, but knowing Simon, he probably prays you get it, we took our music seriously back then, every word counted, and to no one in America more than Simon, who taught a course about songwriting at NYU.

“April Come She Will”
Album: “Sounds Of Silence”
Simon & Garfunkel

It just makes you feel good.

In our heads we’re optimistic, we dream, we believe in the possibilities, and listening to this we think we can succeed, but know we may not, but if we don’t, we can just go back to the record and be set free and get inspired once again.

“The Dangling Conversation”
Album: “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme”
Simon & Garfunkel

Remember when artists were intelligent and respected? When it was not an honor to be dumb?

bThis was back when they started to discuss lyrics in class. There was a revolution going on, and it all wasn’t in the streets, it all wasn’t about the war, we were expanding our minds, lifting the world on our shoulders, the future was so bright, but the present was pretty good too.

“For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her”
Album: “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme”
Simon & Garfunkel

John Mendelsohn called “Waterloo Sunset” the most beautiful song in the English language, I disagree, I think it’s this.

“Homeward Bound”
Album: “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme”
Simon & Garfunkel

The loneliness was palpable, when the radio was a cornucopia of sounds and emotions, when the goal was to follow your muse and create something different from everything else that would earn you kudos and the ability to continue.

And it was after this that I rode my bike down to Fairfield U. to see Simon & Garfunkel at a festival on the football field where the New York football Giants practiced earlier in the summer. Soupy Sales was the headliner, riding the popularity of “The Mouse,” Simon & Garfunkel were nearly an oldies act, with enough songs to tour, and then came…

“Mrs. Robinson”
Album: “Bookends”
Simon & Garfunkel

You’ve got no idea how big this was, no song today has the equivalent ubiquity, and it was broken by what was seen as a subversive film known as “The Graduate,” we had more questions than answers, but that did not stop us from asking.

“America”
Album: “Bookends”
Simon & Garfunkel

“Bookends” has been forgotten, a nearly perfect album far from one-dimensional that made you not only feel good, but think.

Every baby boomer knows the lyrics to this song, because that’s what they used to do, drive, save up their cash and go cross-country, in search of adventure, before you could just sit at home and surf the net.

No one’s looking for America anymore, they’re convinced they’ve found it.

But how wrong they are.

“Fakin’ It”
Album: “Bookends”
Simon & Garfunkel

It starts like it’s ending, and then twists into an adventure, never heard on the radio, you owned the album and knew it by heart, this was when LPs were truly important, when the songs were just not revenue producers, but statements, when fakin’ it was anathema, when authenticity was key.

“Old Friends”
Album: “Bookends”
Simon & Garfunkel

How terribly strange to be seventy

People sing this line to me all the time, I sing it in my head, “When I’m Sixty-Four” is more famous, but it’s this one that resonates, that creeps us out, the Beatles cut is all upbeat, this is sad and reflective, old friends are all that count and soon we’re to be forgotten, I’m watching “The Keepers” on Netflix and when they ask the retired cop who found the body for connections at the police department he says no one there would know him. Whew! It’s gonna happen to ALL OF US!

“The Only Living Boy In New York”
Album: “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
Simon & Garfunkel

You’re a musician, you think you can cross over to the movies but you can’t. Just ask Sting and Madonna, then again, Ice Cube has done a good job of it, and Ice-T too, so maybe you’ve got to be a rapper with your hits behind you.

Famously written when Garfunkel was off filming “Catch-22,” a book teenagers no longer read, now that “Catcher In The Rye” is banned again, this is from the last Simon & Garfunkel album, which is not as good as “Bookends” but was even more successful.

“Baby Driver”
Album: “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
Simon & Garfunkel

Whimsy. Like I said, you could evidence different sides of your personality, before you had to do only one thing or you were excoriated.

“Armistice Day”
Album: “Paul Simon”

The last song on the first side of 1972’s solo LP which ended up having hits but got little respect, people still wanted Simon & Garfunkel, yes “Me and Julio” became a cultural staple and Simon was successful with reggae with “Mother and Child Reunion” before Bob Marley had any impact in the United States, but it’s the other cuts that put this LP over the top, it’s like going into Simon’s house, getting into his head, a very personal experience, where chances were taken and there were no limits, the changes and the picking in “Armistice Day” will blow your mind, and it was especially resonant in the winter, when it came out.

“Duncan”
Album: “Paul Simon”

A positively creepy story song.

If you’re young and don’t know this, listen to it, use it as inspiration, if you hit peaks this high you too will have a career.

“One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor”
Album: “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon”

“There Goes Rhymin’ Simon” is a masterpiece, but it’s not lauded like Nick Drake’s work because it had huge hits, it’s the equal of “Band On The Run,” as good or better than any solo Beatle LP and no one ever talks about it, you don’t see it considered.

This is my favorite cut on the LP, if for no other reason than Barry Beckett’s piano, which breaks your heart before Simon rescues you and makes you feel okay, but not that okay…

“Something So Right”
Album: “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon”

When something goes wrong
I’m the first to admit it
The first to admit it
But the last one to know

Blame my mother, who always kept me on my toes, was constantly keeping me from being too big for my britches, I had to go to the shrink to learn how to stop apologizing.

When something goes right
Oh, it’s likely to lose me
It’s apt to confuse me
It’s such an unusual sight
Oh, I can’t, I can’t get used to something so right
Something so right

I can’t believe it, I believe there’s a trick, it’s gonna be taken away from me, it’s not real.

And then it disappears, slips through my grasp, is it a self-fulfilling prophecy?

“My Little Town”
Simon & Garfunkel

Rumor was they were back.

But they weren’t. Yet we had this hit on each of their solo LPs.

“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”
Album: “Still Crazy After All These Years”
Paul Simon

“Kodachrome” burst out of the dashboard and obscured the magic of the album cuts and this album had huge hit singles too, although I must say the rest of the record was not quite as good as “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon,” but nothing could be.

You just slip out the back Jack

Fascinating how this number could have dark and light in the same song, kinda like a relationship, kinda like thinking about your life, where you are and where you could be

“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” and “Still Crazy After All These Years” have remained part of the conversation, the social fabric, the earlier solo stuff has faded.

“Ace In The Hole”
Album: “One Trick Pony”

We walked to Westwood to see the movie, which I thought was quite good, Simon left Columbia for Warner Brothers for the freedom and the promise of being able to direct, when that was still a goal, before the movies became moribund and everybody had a video camera in their pocket.

“Late In The Evening”
Album: “One Trick Pony”

This was the single, not so successfully so, when you tie your album to a movie you’re in trouble if the movie doesn’t hit, and this one did not.

But, like I said, I dug the movie, when they were driving in the van playing Dead Rock Stars…

“Rene and George Magritte With Their Dog After The War”
Album: “Hearts And Bones”

A complete stiff, that’s what “Hearts And Bones” was, the first time Simon had completely failed, it looked like he was done, and then…

“You Can Call Me Al”
Album: “Graceland”

It wasn’t an immediate hit, it took that video with Chevy Chase to put it over the top, and talk about creativity, it was so simple, proving conception is key, soon video became all about bells and whistles.

Because of MTV, which amplified the hits and tamped down that which was not aired, “Graceland” was bigger than anything Simon did previously, it was an unexpected victory lap, he was a household word, but this was before MTV went all pop and the classic rockers were wiped from the channel, and the map.

“Born At The Right Time”
Album: The Rhythm Of The Saints”

A bit of a cheap shot if you ask me, well, not exactly cheap, but repetitious, weren’t we supposed to get a traditional singer-songwriter album after “Graceland” as opposed to another musing on another musical style?

“Wristband”
Album: “Stranger To Stranger”

I know I’m skipping a bunch of albums, but so did everybody else, Simon was making music, but it was not resonating with the public. But “Stranger To Stranger” is closer to the mark. Especially the subject of this song and its catchy chorus. Who else is singing about this stuff?

Maybe you’ve got to be 75 not to give a fuck.

That’s right, Paul Simon was 34 back when SNL launched, when he made fun of himself, when he was still a soft rock superstar as opposed to a world musician, before he infected a younger generation via MTV and Chevy Chase in the eighties.

The seventies were a weird era, we had sixties hangover, we knew we’d been though something that would never return, we were looking inward instead of outward, testing our own personal limits, and that’s what SNL was about, not an institution without impact, but a clubhouse for a generation, whose sensibility said we’re not part of the mainstream and we can make fun of not only them, but ourselves and our culture.

Not that Mr. Simon has been able to have an impact recently, times have changed too much, his records get reviewed but his audience only wants to hear the oldies and the younger generation is impenetrable so it’s like he’s in the rearview mirror, he’s even toyed with retirement, and then he goes on Colbert and blows away all the youngsters a third his age.

You see a baby boomer has a viewpoint. Scratch under the surface, get rid of the BMW and the fancy meals, all the lifestyle stuff, and a boomer remembers what once was, when we were all on the same page, against the war, when if you weren’t questioning everything, you weren’t conscious.

Very different from today’s generation. First and foremost it’s split. Many are left and many are right. And a whole bunch of them feel unheard, like they don’t even matter, as their parents and the press keep shitting on them, deploring the ethos of the millennials. And their best and the brightest are mercenary fucks like Zuckerberg and Spiegel, if you think Facebook and Snapchat are equivalent to the Fillmore East, the gigs of yore, you never went. There were no cameras, no selfies, it was about the music, like-minded people coming together to celebrate the elixir of life.

But it hasn’t been that way for a very long time.

And then Paul Simon goes on Colbert and captures the zeitgeist.

This is not Chris Stapleton and Kevin Bacon imitating ZZ Top on Fallon, that’s just supposed to be funny, this clip has a VIEWPOINT!

First and foremost you’re stunned that Simon can actually play, he starts picking and your heart melts, this is the sound that had you addicted to the radio, going to the show way back when.

And when Paul starts crapping on “59th Street Bridge Song”…it’s the antithesis of today, where everybody’s boasting, trumpeting their accomplishments, worried if they don’t claim every bit of their CV and more they’ll be left out in the scrum of life. Hell, ever read anybody’s bio today? You’d think they’re President! Oops! A blowhard self-promoter IS President!

And now my inbox is gonna go wild. That’s what you don’t realize if you’re not in the game, the gotcha people who breathe down your throat anytime you take a left wing position. Hell, the media missed it, because the reporters are faceless and don’t engage, but play on the internet and you see the real America.

But you cannot be afraid.

And Stephen Colbert is not afraid. Which is why his show just won the season war, beat Fallon. Because it’s not about appealing to everybody, but SOMEBODY! Just by playing you’re gonna alienate so many people, by having a viewpoint, ignore them, those aligned with you will be titillated and will double-down.

Hello lamppost, nice to see ya
We might get bombed by North Korea
We’re gettin’ close to World War III
So run for the shelters
Feelin’ groovy

This is the sixties ethos, this is the essence of the SNL of yore, you take something innocuous and with a bit of creativity and insight you turn it into something cutting and poignant, it resonates with the audience, your intelligence shines through, and in the internet era nothing is more powerful, take that fashion and makeup!

The Arctic’s meltin’
The seas are boilin’
These aren’t the first pants that I’m soilin’
We won’t survive the century
We’re all doomed
I’m feelin’ groovy

Simon is not afraid to participate, he doesn’t put all the weight on Colbert, he’s willing to do the heavy lifting, unlike today’s wankers. Furthermore, who doesn’t like some toilet humor, especially boomers who were scared shitless the first time around, who hid under their desks to prevent the carnage of a nuclear war.

Kellyanne Conway makes no sense
And even if Trump goes we’re stuck with Mike Pence
But he might win the big one in 2020
Nevertheless, all is groovy

Name names, take your shot, don’t play nice, have a viewpoint, how come Colbert and Simon know this and the younger generation does not?

But comedians are more powerful than musicians today, not only do they sell tickets they speak truth, about our society, Netflix is all over them, the specials are abundant, from edgy people like Chappelle and Norm Macdonald and soon Chris Rock. TV is willing to take a risk, musicians?

And whether consciously or unconsciously, Paul Simon is acting positively in the now. It’s not about sitting at home concocting perfect albums for three years that are ultimately ignored, but being in the game, taking chances, creating all the time, taking a shot at going viral.

And so far, this clip has not.

But the truth is it’s not like the old days, there’s a delay, the word doesn’t spread so fast, it takes time to percolate.

This clip made me smile and feel good, made me feel that I am not alone and I’m a member of a team which may be losing today but could win tomorrow.

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU ASK FOR?

“Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street”

The world runs on information.

And so much of that information is at your fingertips. In newspapers, online…you too can be an expert and compete with world-beaters, assuming you’ve got the interest, the desire and the smarts.

Stevie Cohen is very smart.

I wanted to read a book. So I began my research. Of recently released items, highly-rated items, that’s the world we live in, of course personal recommendations are important, but whenever I get a sincere one I immediately go online and check it out, and if the tome doesn’t get four stars, I’m out, my time is just too precious, too valuable, and there’s nothing worse than a second-rate experience, a boring one in a world that is so exciting and is moving so quickly.

You too can become an expert on hedge funds if you read “Black Edge.”

But you won’t know what went through Steve Cohen’s mind, because he was never interviewed by Sheelah Kolhatkar, and he was never personally convicted. That’s what Andrew Ross Sorkin said, that “Black Edge” is for amateurs, and he almost dissuaded me from reading it, but the other reviews were so positive and I am an amateur, so I dove in.

And I could not stop reading. “Black Edge” is UNPUTDOWNABLE!

Now the author separates the financial world into two groups. The rich and privileged, groomed for this life, and those educated and smart with a chip on their shoulder who have something to prove. You can separate today’s society into two groups also… Those who want to know the truth and those who do not care. In the latter category you’ve got the followers of celebrity, those who adore Kim Kardashian and the two-dimensional pop stars. But you’ve also got the team players, the ones who e-mail me the Twin Towers were blown-up, who believe Hillary is the devil and everything on Fox News is true. I hate to tell them, everybody’s on the same team. Hill and Bill went to Donald and Melania’s wedding. Everybody went to Harvard. Or Wharton. It’s a club. And you’re either a member or you’re not. Either you know how the game is played or you don’t. And if you want to know how the financial game is played, the game that runs America today, and has for decades…

Read “Black Edge.”

This is not news. If you read the financial page, “Bloomberg,” you know all the highlights. But it’s the nuances that are scintillating.

Yes, Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital paid a huge fine, more than half a billion, and Cohen can only trade for himself until 2018, but then…

And hedge funds have recently had lousy returns. But if you think Lloyd Blankfein is the enemy, you’ve got no idea his salary is a pittance compared to the men in t-shirts and flip-flops at hedge funds.

Now it’s a moving target. If you’ve been reading recently you’re noting the ascension of the quants. But that’s how you survive in this world to begin with, by adapting.

Steve Cohen did not grow up as disadvantaged as the author portrays, and he had an interest in Wall Street (and poker, oftentimes the same thing!) from his high school days. Proving you’ve got to follow your interests, you can’t be someone you’re not, although many people in this book are, because of the MONEY!

That’s right, you go work at the hedge fund for a couple of years and if all goes right you never have to work again! And chances are you can’t, not at this level of remuneration, people wash out faster than they do from MLB. You’re hot and then you’re not, and then you’re done and no one will hire you.

But, if you want to make money, you go where it is.

So Cohen is a natural trader. In a pre-computer world for a third-rate financial firm.

And then he goes solo. Note that, all the greats cannot be contained, they write their own rules, they take risks, huge risks, and do what they wanna do whenever they wanna do it.

When he first goes to work at Gruntal, it’s about beating the spread. Noticing price differences. But then computers eliminate this option and…

Cohen becomes a glorified day trader and he buys so much from Goldman Sachs that he insists they give him information first. Yup, you call this leverage. Information comes first, leverage comes second, usually with a bit of cash sprinkled in.

But everybody gets the memo and it’s harder to compete so what does SAC Capital focus on?

Black edge.

INSIDE INFORMATION!

It’s no different from working radio promotion. Your boss says he needs adds, he doesn’t care how you get ’em, you’ve just got to deliver ’em or you get canned. So you bend the rules, after all, you’ve got a family to feed.

And the truth is…THEY’RE ALL CROOKS! All those people buying triple-digit million paintings, sitting courtside for the Knicks, on multi-hundred foot yachts….when someone says they make this money legitimately, don’t believe it, after all, Microsoft charged for Windows even if you put Linux on the box.

But these are the people running this country. Whether it be Geithner working for Obama or a Cohen guy helping Trump pick his Justice Department. You can bitch all you want to, say it’s unfair, but that’s the way it is.

And they’re living in a dark world and skating free. They’re untouchable. The government is green and gun-shy, without resources, and the best and the brightest flip to the other side, the private sector, anyway.

And that’s mightily depressing.

But the first half of the book is mightily exciting. Because the players are so damn SMART!

These are not entertainers, nitwits afraid to take a stand. These are people like the dearly departed Jerry Perenchio, who refuse to talk to the press, who most people have no idea even exist, even if they consume their products. You want to come into contact with these geniuses, glean some of their wisdom, as opposed to the public rabble-rousers on Twitter who know no one but are convinced they’ve got the one true truth but are unaware how the game is played.

Do you know how the game is played?

Let’s start from the beginning. There’s no money in music, in most of entertainment, it’s dwarfed by finance and tech. And you might think that is irrelevant, but why is Vivendi testing the waters, thinking of selling Universal Music? FOR THE MONEY! Now is not the time if you’re a long term player, the labels are only gonna go up in value, but Vivendi does not care about music, the financial players aren’t interested in the asset, they’re interested in the CASH!

It’s a funny world we live in. A bifurcated one where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer but all the smart people are rich. Yup, I hate to say that. But the truth is so many poor people are uninformed or holier-than-thou, they think their lack of cash makes them better, but the truth is it only takes them out of the game.

I wish it weren’t so. It didn’t used to be so. Fifty years ago, forty years ago, a successful musician was as rich as anybody in America. But not today, today they’ve all got tech investments, they too want to make bank, whereas their power lies elsewhere, which is speaking truth to power, but they abdicate this ability, because they’re enthralled by power.

Wanna know what that power is?

READ THIS BOOK!

It costs too much to do something new.

It’s not only the development expenses, never mind coming up with a new idea, but the marketing money, how do you make people aware of what you’re doing in a sea of endless messages, one in which the vaunted “Breaking Bad” took years to gain traction.

I didn’t go to see U2. I like “The Joshua Tree,” but how many times can I go and relive the past? Have you looked at what’s playing in Live Nation’s amphitheatres this summer? It’s like a reboot of what once was, from the seventies and eighties, the same damn acts doing the same damn songs because it’s just too hard to have a hit today and to have another.

Blame the internet.

The internet opened the floodgates, decimated the barrier to entry and then no matter how fat the pipe got it was clogged. And what started out as a social network, remember AOL?, turned into a for-profit venture, and obliterated everything in its path.

Especially television ratings.

So we end up with “American Idol” and “Love Connection,” and if you think people are clamoring for these shows, you probably believe Bono can write another hit.

But they’re safe.

“Idol” was canceled because ratings sank, now those same ratings are investment-worthy, only a couple of years later.

If you think there’s a drag on our creativity, you’re right.

We rely on outsiders to break the paradigm, but no one wants to risk in a world where there are so many challenges, especially economic. Quit your job in Canada and you still have health insurance, there’s a good safety net, quit your job in America and you’re on the way to poverty, and if you get sick you will go bankrupt.

So those at the top, who don’t want to let their companies lay fallow, take some time off to develop new wares, keep rebooting in order to generate revenue. That’s why all the records sound the same, the days of Mo & Joe at Warner Brothers are long gone, where the hits allowed the company to invest in innovation, left field stuff, like the electronic Beaver & Krause, the picker Ry Cooder, in the hopes of generating income years down the line. Look at a label’s roster today, no one’s even gonna play out their contract, after their hit they’ll fade into obscurity and investment will falter. As for stuff that sounds different, the only person seemingly able to do this is Richard Russell at XL. It takes guts to say no, to go the other way, and if you’re working for the man, you don’t, corporations engender groupthink.

So we end up with superhero movies.

And superhero shows on TV.

All the while they keep telling us you can get rich being an influencer on Instagram, making videos on YouTube, but the truth is very few people are making coin there, and they’re working 24/7, and looking to sell out to the big boys. Everybody’s living in the present, what about tomorrow? Isn’t that what Fleetwood Mac implored us to do, think about tomorrow?

The public craves new and different. It latches on to trends when made aware of them. But we’ve got no infrastructure crusading for the new and different, we just have endless self-congratulatory awards shows that feature the same old stuff that makes you tune out.

We’re all tuning out.

Creators need self-respect. The techies are not going to save our industries, it’s not in their DNA, they’re too practical.

The reason that Netflix burgeoned is because of investment, in creators, allowing them to do what they choose. Remember when the streaming service was all about old stuff? Now that’s all gone and you jump in to capture the zeitgeist as you cut the cord ’cause you’re sick of overpaying for moribund sports talk on ESPN, sick of paying for all the detritus you don’t use.

Good for Katy Perry that she got $25 mil for “Idol.”

But that show ain’t gonna work, it hasn’t minted a star in years, and “The Voice” never has. But we’re subjected to the endless celebrity parade like we care.

And some nitwits do.

But most people are smarter than that and don’t.

So pay your dues, take chances, evaluate whether you’ve got it or not, we’ve got no room for journeymen.

But until the gatekeepers start living in the future, and the gatekeepers are as powerful as they ever were, even though they’ve sometimes got different names, we’re screwed.