9/9/2023 0 Comments Simon and garfunkel nowS IMON: I always like to perform, given the proper circumstances-a full house and good sound. And singing for large groups increases one’s sense of power. I became a sociologist in spirit, an incessant observer. I could never accept myself as “one of the gang.” Everything I did was cast in the image and perspective of the outsider. My parents never pushed me, or were overly proud, though. I read a lot, and I played the game of “doing well in school”-maybe by default. When I was in high school, I withdrew a lot. To be out, and involved, is not my natural state. G ARFUNKEL: I didn’t take very well to the stage. So-straight ahead, and work! When you find you’re in control of your destiny, it’s fun. If I fail, I’ve got so many ego points I’ll never be as paranoid as I was. Finally, I said, “This is what I want to do, and I want to do it as well as I possibly can.” I’m stimulated to go forward. S IMON: After “The Sounds of Silence,” the Simon-and-Garfunkel thing just kept going. Two people’s brains, and the psychological interaction. What really excites me is the scientific side of teaching-the lab aspect. I’ve been at Columbia for eight years, and I’ve always been teaching on the side, in my neighborhood. The music business has taken over now, but teaching is an experience I’d still like to include in my life. In three months, it was an established hit. M.” It had been out for a year, and it wasn’t doing anything, so Columbia took one of the cuts, “The Sounds of Silence,” and overdubbed some background-bass, electric guitar, drums-and released it as a single. We made an album for Columbia called “Wednesday Morning, 3 A. Then, in 1963, Paul started writing songs-songs that were different. I wonder “How accurately am I reading it?” We had a small hit record in 1956 It was just rock ’n’ roll. All I want to do is understand the world. Even as you know it’s a dead end, there’s a stirring to know: “Is this really right?” The fact that people have so much trouble understanding each other drives me crazy. The “convergent thinker” takes the facts and thinks the world should make sense. Paul is the opposite-what I call a “divergent thinker.” He loves the idea of going off in different directions. I follow the use of logic to an end, rather than the play of ideas. The records became very personal to me I’d watch a song fall off from No. Each record was a colored dot on a vertical line. I’d keep charts of the top forty songs on big sheets of graph paper. We recorded our first song in one of those booths at Coney Island for twenty-five cents. G ARFUNKEL: When we were teenagers, we didn’t care so much about being good as about being popular. But I see the possibility now that I could be one, and that pop music could be an art form. I don’t take the title of “poet.” It would be a slap in the face of Wallace Stevens to do that. A lot of the things we’ve done have been hack. S IMON: I think a lot of the praise we’ve had is really not warranted. There have been tunes when I’ve had no defenses, and I felt like I was flying.Īnother of Simon’s songs, “The Sounds of Silence,” goes: Every time you drop a defense, you feel so much lighter. Then people can see you laid out, and they don’t hit, and they know you won’t hit them. It was so important to people that he should be true. I always thought it was a big shock to people when Bob Dylan’s name turned out to be Bob Zimmerman. I think if we ever lie, they’re going to catch us. If you go to work and try to digest them right away, though, the effect will be a kind of growth. The “in” person is not a different cat, but there’s a fantastic bombardment of stimuli thrown at you. G ARFUNKEL: People who have gone through our kind of experience in pop music are baffled by the role they’re in. I been Ayn Rand’d, nearly branded Communist, ’cause I’m left-handed. I been Norman Mailer’d, Maxwell Taylor’d, I been John O’Hara’d, McNamara’d, I been Rolling Stone’d and Beatle’d Till I’m blind.
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