![]() ![]() ![]() You’ll find out much more about what you’re thinking that way than you will if you’re determined to say something. You want your mind to wander and to pick up words and phrases, and fool around with them and drop them.īecause as soon as your mind knows that it’s on, and it’s supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn’t or it produces things that are very predictable.Īnd that’s why I say I’m not interested in writing something that I thought about I’m interested in discovering where my mind wants to go or what object it wants to pick up. It’s a very pleasant feeling if you like playing ball, and while you do it, your mind kind of wanders, and that’s really what you want to happen. PAUL SIMON: The act of throwing a ball and catching a ball is so natural and calming. “You Can Call Me Al,” the video with Chevy Chase. Asked what effect that had on this song, he gave the following answer, which leads into his explanation of discovering what became “You Can Call Me Al.” To get to the right place to allow that discovery to occur, he’d listen to the music while tossing a baseball against the wall, and catching it. It may be just as good, but it’s more fun to discover it.” ![]() “But if I make it up,” he continued, “knowing where it’s going, it’s not as much fun. When it happens and I’m the audience and I react, I have faith in that because I’m already reacting. “He looks around, around, he sees angels in the architecture spinning in infinity, he says, 'Amen and Hallelujah!’”Īsked what the distinction was between discovery and invention, he said, “You just have no idea that that’s a thought that you had it surprises you it can make me laugh or make me emotional. As he said during our first of many conversations back in 1988, “I’m more interested in what I discover than what I invent.” Which is not to say he calculates his lyrics he doesn’t. The lyrics shift from the ordinary language of the first verse to a third verse imbued with enriched imagery, the “angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity…” That progression is not random. Simon wrote the song using a new approach to lyrics, which combined colloquial speech with abstract, “enriched” language. Jazz musician Morris Goldberg played the other solo on the song on a penny whistle. Bakithi improvised the fast fretless break, which Roy sonically doctored in New York he used the first half of the phrase, then reversed it for the second half, creating a musical palindrome. There’s a delightful bass break by Bakithi Kumalo, which was not part of the original arrangement, but suggested by Paul when learning that it was the bassist’s birthday. Rob Mounsey, who played synth, also arranged and conducted the nine-piece horn section (five trumpets, two trombones, baritone and bass saxophones). It was completed at the Hit Factory in New York with Roy Halee in April of 1986. Simon brought those recordings back to his New York City home, where he allowed the energy of the music to inspire the lyrics and melodies. ![]() “I need a photo-opportunity, I want a shot at redemption, don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard”Īll the songs for Graceland, unlike his previous work written with voice and guitar, were written to tracks he and his friend, the producer-engineer Roy Halee, recorded in Africa. It was the first single from Graceland, and became a hit, launched by the famous music video with Chevy Chase. Boulez introduced them to his guests as “Al and Betty.” Simon and his first wife Peggy arrived, meeting their host at the door, who evidently had no clue who they were. The famously funny yet enigmatic chorus, Simon said, came from a funny memory of going to a party at the New York apartment of Pierre Boulez, the conductor-composer. It’s whimsical, rhythmically infectious, poetic and conversational, all before it expands into a whole other realm. The songwriter explains the new methods used to write this and the others songs on “Graceland.”įrom Paul Simon’s landmark Graceland, “You Can Call Me Al” is quintessential Simon. ![]()
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