I’ve already posted my review of Paul Simon’s So Beautiful Or So What. The album jumped right to #1 on my list of the year’s albums and has remained there ever since.
Revisiting it four months later, I wouldn’t change a word of that review. In fact, this album has grown even richer over time. A couple of tracks that I hadn’t fully grasped during my first listens have settled in and become familiar.
Musically and lyrically, this is one of Simon’s most assured works and an amazing achievement this late in his storied career.
So Beautiful Or So What is principally a record about mortality and the things that matter most as we reach the end of our lives. Simon, God willing, has a lot of time left but he’s clearly thinking more about these matters.
In a bonus verse of ‘The Boxer,’ he once sang “I am older than I once was and younger than I’ll be… that’s not unusual. No, it isn’t strange that after changes upon changes we are more or less the same.” These days he’s looking ahead to the time when he won’t be younger than he will be anymore.
Is he more or less the same? I’d say so. The music on this album is experimental and inquisitive the way his music has always been, particularly his solo material. The lyrics contain the same street-smart poetry. Vocally, it’s almost eerie how much Paul Simon at 70 sounds like the Paul Simon we’ve loved for all these years.
‘The Afterlife’ is a So Beautiful Or So What track that appealed to me right away. It’s smart, funny and catchy and by the end, even a little bit profound.
I went back to my place
No moon that night, but a heavenly light
Shown on my face
Still I thought it was odd there was no sign of God
Just to usher me in
Then a voice from above sugarcoated with love
Said, “Let us begin”
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
Okay, new kid in school
Got to follow the rule
You got to learn the routine
Whoa! There’s a girl over there
With the sunshiny hair like a homecoming queen
I said “Hey, what’cha say, it’s a glorious day
By the way, how long you been dead?”
Maybe you, maybe me, maybe baby makes three
But she just shook her head
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
Buddha and Moses and all the noses
From narrow to flat
Had to stand in the line
Just to glimpse the divine
What’cha think about that?
Well, it seems like our fate
To suffer and wait for the knowledge we seek
It’s all His design
No one cuts in the line
No one here likes a sneak
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
After you climb up the ladder of time
The Lord God is near
Face-to-face in the vastness of space
Your words disappear
And you feel like you’re swimming in an ocean of love
And the current is strong
But all that remains when you try to explain
Is a fragment of song
Lord, is it Be Bop a Lula? Or ooh Papa Doo?
Lord, Be Bop a Lula? Or ooh Papa Doo?
Be Bop a Lula
Meet Me In Montauk 
As you know I LOVE this album and this is one of my favorites. I agree that he sounds the same, hard to believe he’s 70!
I agree that this is very good album, and today’s song represents it well. But, as I said a while back, Simon is an example of one of those artists who, when I am in the mood to hear him, I seem to always come back to either Rhythm of the Saints or Graceland. Nothing has eclipsed those albums in my opinion, and I’m not sure anything ever will.
I feel the same way about some artists, but not somebody of Simon’s caliber. I can get by with one album by, say, Prince or Indigo Girls, but narrowing down Paul Simon means you don’t get ‘Slip Sliding Away,’ ‘Some Folks Lives Roll Easy,’ ‘The Boxer,’ ‘American Tune,’ ‘Hearts and Bones,’ and on and on, not to mention the great music he’s created since Rhythm of the Saints and Graceland.
Well, I agree that he wrote many wonderful songs before Graceland, and a number of very good ones since. And in the age of an IPod, I certainly would leave most of the songs you referenced on if they popped up or I might even seek them out. But if I am going to reach for a CD, I’m probably not going to reach for the Simon albums that contains the songs you mentioned because most of these albums are not as consistently great as Graceland and Rhythm.
Of course most albums by anybody aren’t as good as Graceland or Rhythm, so one could argue that those should be the only two CDs in your collection! 🙂
But on a (slightly) more serious note, presumably you like either Graceland or Rhythm more than its counterpart. So why wouldn’t you limit yourself to just one Paul Simon album? What makes you allow for two?
I really love both. I know you seem to find Rhythm to be the lesser album of the two, but I really don’t.
And as to your first comment, I certainly love to hear different artists, so I wouldn’t limit to just Simon’s best. However, I would certainly suggest that both albums would likely find their way into my top 10 or 20 best albums of all time by anyone.
Thank goodness for iTunes. And before iTunes, Clay’s playlists. 🙂 (because, let’s face it, the “single” alone is insufficient)
I don’t want to be deprived of any great songs, but I also don’t want to be saddled with having to listen to a whole album, so I agree with Dana on this one. The only albums by Paul Simon I’d reach for are Graceland and Rhythm. Today’s SOTD makes me want to listen to this album again, as I don’t think I ever gave it a proper first chance (b/c a certain someone hoarded it, and I only got to hear a few notes here and there while we were driving somewhere) Who knows? Maybe it will turn the couple into a triangle!
Such blasphemous language! “Saddled” with listening to a whole album? That’s the greatest joy in music listening (assuming the album is good).