Simon & Garfunkel

by Spencer Leigh

  Dylan’s outbursts and rudeness were reported in the press and, in contrast, Simon was restrained and polite. You can hear the difference in the songs themselves if you compare Simon’s song ‘The Side of a Hill’ with Dylan’s ‘With God on Our Side’. Simon could never have written that remarkable putdown, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. As the rock critic Robert Christgau put it, ‘Paul Simon has in abundance the very quality that Dylan lacks: taste.’

  Also, Paul Simon didn’t have the grounding in folk music that many of the other performers had. Dylan soaked up everything he could find about Woody Guthrie and even visited him in hospital. Paul Simon was one of the omissions from the big-name artists appearing on the Tribute to Woody Guthrie at Carnegie Hall. This lack of knowledge has worked to Simon’s advantage as he has cleverly expanded the way songs could be written. He has given us imaginative melodies from the get-go. Relatively few of his songs follow the folk route of verse-chorus-verse-chorus. He favoured using the title as the refrain at the end of the verse.

  Over a year earlier than Paul Simon, Bob Dylan had found some stimulus in the UK folk scene. A BBC Television production, Madhouse on Castle Street, called for an American folk singer. Although unknown, Dylan was flown over and booked into the May Fair hotel, BBC expenses being more lavish than today. He performed at three folk clubs in London – the Troubadour, the King & Queen, and the Pindar of Wakefield, the last being the Singers’ Club hosted by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. In a photograph, the famed folklorist Bert Lloyd can be seen frowning at Dylan, no doubt horrified by what he was hearing. Just as Paul Simon was to do, Bob Dylan befriended the British singer, guitarist and song collector, Martin Carthy.

  In 2007 Charles Ford in the academic publication Popular Music Studies wrote a feature on the rhythms in Martin Carthy’s work and said that ‘A relatively large number of popular songs in the late 60s are metrically irregular probably because of the popularity of pre-war blues and UK folk songs at the time.’ He cites Robert Johnson and other bluesmen as being very irregular which was carried through onto Bob Dylan’s first four albums. The most irregular of bands was the Incredible String Band.

  Martin Carthy (1965) and Martin Carthy’s Second Album (1966) are both very irregular, which was probably helped by the lack of a drummer. You can hear that in ‘Scarborough Fair’, where Carthy has several pauses, possibly because the singer is thinking of the response to the questions. Carthy was a compelling performer, always wanting to do justice to the songs he loved. According to Ford, his approach helped to ‘fund the anti-commercial weirdness of middle-class British hippies’.

  In the liner notes for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), Dylan recalled Carthy singing the traditional ‘Lord Franklin’, to which Dylan wrote a new lyric, ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’. Dylan was taken with Carthy’s version of ‘Scarborough Fair’ and he was to adapt the tune for his own lyric, ‘Girl from the North Country’, again recorded for Freewheelin’, although the liner note said he had been working on it for three years.

  The topics that Dylan and Simon wrote about were often similar. Dylan is famed for his anti-war tracts and his jeremiads about man’s inhumanity to man. Simon is in similar territory with ‘A Church Is Burning’, ‘The Side of a Hill’ and ‘He Was My Brother’, but his intention is different. He said, ‘There’s no point in commenting on what’s going on because everybody knows that. I just write the way I feel and the way I feel reflects the part of society I’m living in.’

  Many of the songs on The Paul Simon Songbook bear this out. His technique is best seen in ‘A Most Peculiar Man’, which is based on a newspaper story. Judith Piepe explains, ‘It was just three lines and included the item that the woman who lived above him thought he was a most peculiar man. Paul said it wasn’t enough and so he sat down and wrote an epitaph for a stranger and for all suicides.’

  ‘I Am a Rock’ is a companion piece. The protagonist offers his own story as he tells of his preference for books and poetry. Although remote, his isolation has come from a broken love affair. In ‘A Most Peculiar Man’, we never learn why the character is so inaccessible, but the character stands tall in ‘I Am a Rock’. He lives in self-assurance and the song forms a justification for his actions. Even so, I can appreciate what a minister meant when he likened the song to the scriptures, ‘He who tries to save his life shall lose it.’ Simon sometimes tells interviewers that he particularly dislikes ‘I Am a Rock’ and ‘The Dangling Conversation’ from his early songs. He has said, ‘If they would go away, I would be happy, but to be kinder to myself, I should just say that I wrote them when I was young.’

  Despite such topics, The Paul Simon Songbook is not depressing. The songs are certainly disturbing and Simon told Rolling Stone in 1972 that ‘a lot of the pain that comes in some of these songs is due to the exaggeration of being high’. More than drug or alcohol use, however, the songs stem from living in over-crowded cities and the problems that can cause. Simon fully understands the sense of feeling lonely in a crowd, and so do we after hearing this album.

  It can be argued that Paul Simon’s main theme is the lack of communication between people. It’s ironic that Simon himself has been so careful about what he communicates. His chief song on this theme is ‘The Sound of Silence’ where each line is meticulously crafted. The lyric brilliantly exposes the problem.

  To think that The Paul Simon Songbook is all about social conscience would be wrong. ‘Kathy’s Song’ is a fine love song, although Judith Piepe’s assessment doesn’t ring true: ‘quite romantic but intensely emotional, brutally honest yet terribly gentle’. Kathy is shown with Paul on the cover of the album, holding novelty toys, and sitting on the cobbles outside Piepe’s home.

  The bootleg album, Chez, is taken from a tape sent to Kathy. It was recorded in New York and is a pleasant, light-hearted affair, the sort of home tape that anyone with a bit of talent might have sent to his girlfriend. Paul performs on his own and later is joined by Art Garfunkel, who has had a frustrating time obtaining a licence for his scooter. The only new tune was a guitar piece, ‘Charlotte’, and there is an extended version of ‘Anji’. The tape ends with Paul singing Tom Paxton’s ‘Goin’ to the Zoo’ with Debbie, a little girl who lives nearby. The sound is poor but it’s an intriguing curio.

  The printed songbook for the album contains a short story by Simon entitled On Drums and Other Hollow Objects. In his early years, Simon often said that he would write a book, telling the NME in 1966, ‘In between performances, I’m always writing, trying to develop characters, so that I can write the Great American Novel.’ An ambitious task and two years on, the same periodical asked him how he was faring: ‘See, I’m attacking it by doing short stories and developing character studies in the short stories. By developing these character studies, I’ll incorporate them eventually into this novel.’ The novel idea was abandoned along the way but the short story falls into line with Paul’s musical output as it is about visiting his grandfather in a care home.

  In the liner notes to the album, Paul Simon analyses his songwriting, ‘I want ME to think that I’m something I’m not. I want me to think I’m something.’ His capitals, by the way.

  After thoughts on poppy tenders and his alter ego, he concludes, ‘This LP contains 12 of the songs that I have written over the past two years. There are some here that I wouldn’t write today. I don’t believe in them as I once did. I have included them because they played an important part in the transition. It’s discomforting, almost painful, to look back over something that someone else has done and realise that someone else is you. I’m not ashamed of where I’ve been or what I’ve thought. It’s just not me anymore. It’s perfectly clear to me that the songs I write today will not be mine tomorrow. I don’t regret the loss.’ This is strange thinking about songs that are less than two years old, but it illustrates that Simon’s skills were quickly growing.

  Based in Judith Piepe’s flat, Simon was to meet many folk musicians socially including Al Stewart, Roy Harper, San
dy Denny and another American singer/songwriter in the UK, Jackson C. Frank. Paul was there for some weeks and then took over Martin Carthy’s flat in Hampstead. While he was staying in Hampstead, a passenger was killed on the underground and this prompted his song ‘The Northern Line’. A tape of Simon performing at the Jolly Porter in Exeter in 1965 has surfaced and both the song and its lengthy introduction can be heard. Curiously both Simon and the audience are making light of the death, although this is surely not the intention.

  Paul wrote songs with Bruce Woodley of the Seekers including ‘Red Rubber Ball’ (soon to be recorded by the Cyrkle and Cilla Black) and ‘I Wish You Could Be Here’ (again recorded by the Cyrkle).

  Showing more initiative than the parent company, CBS arranged some solid promotion for The Paul Simon Songbook. They released a single of ‘I Am a Rock’ and Simon performed it on the ITV pop show Ready Steady Go! on 23 July 1965. This was a live show, which was over-running. It was to close with P J Proby and his new single, ‘Let the Water Run Down’, and Simon, who was on directly before him with just his voice and guitar, was told to sing only the first two verses. Simon decided that Proby, a major star, would get other chances to promote his work and so he continued singing as normal. Surprisingly the cameras remained on him and Proby’s song was faded out during the credits.

  While Simon was in the UK, he befriended another American singer/ songwriter based there, Jackson C. Frank. He produced his first and only album and the extraordinary background to this album is discussed in the next chapter.

  In July 1965, Simon did well at the first Cambridge Folk Festival, where he accepted an ad in the programme in lieu of a fee for a thirty-minute set. It was a good calling card as he was touring the UK folk clubs. He had established a reputation on his previous impromptu tour and was now with an agent for around fifteen pounds a night. There were hundreds of folk clubs in the UK with eighty being a decent attendance.

  Ralph McTell recalls a gig at the end of August: ‘I did a gig with Paul Simon at Bexhill-on-Sea under my original name of Ralph May, but nobody was there. It was at Bexhill-on-Sea which is the clue really. They weren’t ready for white lads singing the blues. When I finished the promoter couldn’t pay me but he insisted that I took an album that he had just had sent over from the States. He insisted that I took it in lieu of payment as Paul had insisted on the full fee of £20 and there wasn’t anything left to pay me my £6.10s. I took the album and it was better than a £6.10s fee. It was King of the Delta Blues Singers by Robert Johnson and it was one of those life-changing records that seeped into my soul. I listen to Robert Johnson’s complete recordings at least once a year and I love them.’

  And what did Ralph make of Paul Simon on stage: ‘I don’t remember him on stage, so maybe I had gone for a drink. I was 20 and I did see him around Soho and he soaked up everything. He was very earnest but you have to admire him for traipsing around England with a guitar on his own. He was a long way from home. I could get home from Les Cousins in Greek Street in 45 minutes.’

  Simon played the Hough in Widnes, Lancashire on 13 September 1965 and the organiser Geoff Speed has the account book which shows he was paid twelve pounds. Geoff says, ‘At the time there was a definite chasm between the lovers of traditional folk music and the then-emerging contemporary songwriters. Paul was visiting clubs in certain instances that were full of lovers of traditional music, but he was usually able to get through with his songs.’

  Geoff enjoyed having Paul Simon as his houseguest and Simon repeated his desire to write the Great American Novel. He told Geoff that his IQ was 155 and he was surprised that Geoff hadn’t read anything by Sigmund Freud. On the other hand, he took great delight in Help!, the Beatles’ new album. Simon’s confidence was shown on a visit to the Peppermint Lounge in Liverpool. There Geoff met a friend who had lost five pounds on the gaming tables. Simon requested ten shillings (fifty pence) and within minutes, he was presenting the loser with his lost sum.

  Tony Wilson from the shanty singers Stormalong John did not book him for the Bothy Folk Club in Southport because he was ‘into a purist thing at the time’, but he did catch his act at the Cross Keys close to Liverpool Stadium. He remembered Simon as a shy, serious artist who was received very well, although Tony was taken aback by his arrogance. The British are traditionally modest and it may be that Simon simply had pride in his work. He recalled, ‘I saw him at a place behind the Stadium, some horrible Tetley’s pub, and I thought he was conceited. It came over in his songs and in his performance. We had a chance to book him for the Bothy Folk Club in Southport but I didn’t think he was worth it. I still think I would turn him down today.’

  The playwright Willy Russell was in the audience. ‘I remember a mate of mine taking me to the Cross Keys opposite Liverpool Stadium and seeing Paul Simon. It was strange because he was in this very casual, determinedly amateur environment. He was very sophisticated and professional and was doing the kind of act which was shunned in English folk clubs, where it was all shamble on, do your bit and get off. He had worked out routines, which he repeated night after night at different gigs. We thought that he was letting the side down by doing that but the music was terrific and the songs were great.’

  Hughie Jones of the Spinners, who ran a weekly club in Liverpool, remembers, ‘We had met Paul Simon at the Troubadour in Earl’s Court and he was offered to our club but we refused. We didn’t think he was very folky and we were very, very folky in those days and into British folk music. However, I did go and see him when he played Widnes. He was a beautiful guitar player and singer but he was nothing whatsoever to do with folk music.’

  A visiting American folk singer might have to suffer other indignities while travelling around. Phil Ochs toured the UK after Joan Baez had taken his song, ‘There But for Fortune’ into the Top 10. When he came to Liverpool, the folk-singing duo who rang the folk club, Jacqui and Bridie, said that they would join him when he sang ‘There But for Fortune’. The good people of Liverpool perhaps saw Phil Ochs’ only performance where he didn’t sing ‘There But for Fortune’.

  Geoff recorded his performance in Widnes and gave Paul the tape. Paul promised to have a copy sent to him but it never arrived. Paul told Rolling Stone in 1970, ‘I like listening to early tapes of me. I have this tape that I did while I was in England. It gives me a lot of pleasure to listen to that.’ Paul has never released this tape, although it sounds perfect for a retrospective.

  Although Paul had remembered his time in Widnes, he wanted to forget the town. He told Roy Carr of the New Musical Express in 1971, ‘If you know Widnes, then you’ll understand how I was desperately trying to get back to London as quickly as possible. “Homeward Bound” came out of that feeling.’

  According to Geoff Speed, ‘He is said to have written “Homeward Bound” while he was staying in Widnes with me and that is sure to raise the hackles of everyone from Widnes. Yes, he did complete the song while staying with me in Widnes, but I know he had been in Birkenhead the night before and I think he was really writing about Birkenhead.’ There is a plaque at Widnes station commemorating the event although it does get stolen and has to be replaced from time to time.

  For the record, Paul Simon played the Central Hotel in Birkenhead, opposite the train station, and the quaintly named Barnacle Bill’s at the King’s Hotel, Bebington, so he covered the Wirral pretty well,

  Al Stewart recalled, ‘I lived in the same flat as Paul Simon in London. I was in the room next door. I heard him writing songs through the wall, (Sings) “Homeward bound, I wish I was homeward bound”, and after about three hours, he came out and said, “What do you think of this?” When he played me “Homeward Bound”, I thought it was okay, I didn’t think it was great. The next day he came out and played “Richard Cory” and I thought that was great. I remember saying, “This is the one; that thing you wrote yesterday can be thrown away. ‘Richard Cory’ is the hit,” which began a long and undistinguished career of mine of being unable to pick hit singles (La
ughs).’ Colin Green, who was the lead guitarist with London club band the Blue Flames, recalls a session with Paul Simon in which they did ‘Richard Cory’. This has never surfaced.

  Simon had his regular partner Art Garfunkel on hand during Art’s summer vacation. Together they appeared on Granada TV’s Scene at 6.30 singing ‘Wednesday Morning 3am’ Through her social work contacts, Judith Piepe set up some performances at prisons and Paul appeared after Sunday mass at Brixton.

  That summer of 1965 was noted for the release of Bringing It All Back Home, which became Dylan’s biggest seller to date. With the Byrds’ version of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’, everyone was talking about folk-rock and many performers were busy rearranging their material. Simon & Garfunkel had it done for them.

  Their album, Wednesday Morning 3am, was still not selling but a couple of radio stations in Florida loved ‘The Sound of Silence’. Tom Wilson added twelve-string electric guitar, bass and drums, and issued it as a single. He told Garfunkel what he was doing. Garfunkel wrote to Paul, and a few weeks later, Paul was in Holland and bought Billboard, the music trade paper. Much to his surprise, ‘The Sound of Silence’ was ‘bubbling under’ the US Hot 100. Art Garfunkel no doubt approved, as he would have seen The Paul Simon Songbook as a recurrence of True Taylor.

  Oddly enough, Tom Wilson had done a similar job with Bob Dylan’s solo version of ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ from 1962. Once it was a hit for the Animals, he thought it would be interesting to turn Dylan’s recording into a rock record and added backing. This lay in the vaults until a CD of Bob Dylan was issued over thirty years later.

  Although Tom Wilson worked with Bob Dylan, he quit after recording ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, commenting that ‘The technical standards of recording were low and you had to be drunk.’ On the other hand, he said of Simon & Garfunkel, ‘It was soft and very melodic – just a beautiful sound.’ He left Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel behind as he moved to the jazz label Verve, but he also worked with Frank Zappa and ventured into the unknown.