Word: simonizes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...really stuff I talk about casually," Simon says, measuring the words like a jeweler weighing gold. There is a Saints love song called She Moves On, in which a man falls victim to a woman's witchery and pays the price: "I fall to my knees/ Shake a rattle at the skies." But the pain, which undoes him, also releases him: Simon takes the high ground. "That song is close to my heart," he admits. "Too close to the heart. It's about men being afraid of women's anger. It felt pretty real...
Along with all those effulgent rhythms, it's the finesse of the language that lofts songs like this out of the arena of gossip and retribution into something far more formidable. "In its literary context, his writing is very important," says the poet Derek Walcott, to whom Simon dedicates a Saints song called The Coast. "Most poetry is sedate, quiet, self-concerned. His imagination is much bolder and more refreshing. He reminds me of Hart Crane...
...takes some effort on Simon's part to stay in such heady company. His apartment, elegant and ordered, always has a guitar handy, but there are books of poetry (Wallace Stevens, Philip Larkin) open all around the living room, within easy reach, like so many cerebral snacks. In case this sounds a little rarefied for a rock guy -- even a rock guy who sang a few tunes to Derek Walcott's poetry class at Boston University -- it should be added that Simon also enjoys listening to music as various as Miles Davis, Prince and Public Enemy. It's not always...
...those very sounds, of course, that made stars of Simon and his best friend from Forest Hills, Queens, Art Garfunkel. Under the "nom de 45" Tom & Jerry, the boys had a minor hit single in 1957, then followed the folk-music trail into the new decade. Oft-told rock legend 192: how a house producer at Columbia Records without Paul's knowledge added electric guitar, drums and bass to an earnest, intimate, acoustic ballad of Simon's; and how The Sounds of Silence, with its new rock underpinnings, became a No. 1 single in 1966. It was a fluke...
...back and listened to the playback of that record, it was a high point in my career." The highest came in 1970 with the release of Bridge over Troubled Water, which remains in the top 50 best-selling albums of all time. It was also the last album Simon and Garfunkel would make together...