Tag Archives: Paul Simon

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Song of the Day #1,226: ‘God Bless the Absentee’ – Paul Simon

Five years after reaching the pinnacle of his solo career (to that point) with Still Crazy After All These Years, Paul Simon made the bizarre move of writing and starring in a movie.

1980’s One-Trick Pony featured Simon in the semi-autobiographical role of a fading folk rock star attempting a comeback in the face of professional and personal obstacles. While supporting characters in the film are loosely based on people in Simon’s own life, the main character seems like a stab at a self-destructive, self-fulfilled prophecy.

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Song of the Day #1,220: ‘My Little Town’ – Paul Simon

For one of the 70s’ touchstone albums, Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years is a rather low-key affair. It runs for just ten songs and under 40 minutes and every song has a similar laid-back vibe.

Even the album’s #1 hit, ’50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,’ drifts by on a silky, mellow groove. This is an album made for a lazy Sunday morning.

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Song of the Day #1,219: ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ – Paul Simon

In 1975, Paul Simon released his fourth solo album, the sublime Still Crazy After All These Years.

The record won him his second of three Album of the Year Grammys (the first went to Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water). Accepting the award, Simon thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album that year, as Wonder had won the award the previous two years (and would go on to win it again the following year).

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Song of the Day #1,213: ‘Something So Right’ – Paul Simon

If you put a gun to my head and asked me to name the best song on Paul Simon’s There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, I would first wonder why somebody would do something quite so perverse. Then I’d pick ‘American Tune.’

But coming in a very close second would be ‘Something So Right,’ one of those songs that feels like it must have been written in the 40s by Cole Porter or some other urbane songwriting genius. It’s another modern standard, a feat Simon has pulled off again and again.

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Song of the Day #1,212: ‘St. Judy’s Comet’ – Paul Simon

Paul Simon’s self-titled solo album was a bit of an oddity in that it didn’t carry over the style of the songs he wrote for Simon & Garfunkel but neither did it feel like the great material that was still to come.

His next album, released a year later in 1973, feels a lot more like a true Paul Simon record. There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, despite its goofy title, is Simon’s first great solo album.

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