Goodies from The Paul Simon Song Book

The following is taken from a little booklet called "The Paul Simon Song Book", which also contains the sheet music for the album with the same name. I've tried to imitate the original layout as much as possible, but Lord knows it's hard.
Publishers foreword
Introduction to Paul Simon
About Paul Simon
Paul Simon's Discography
On Drums And Other Hollow Objects

Publishers foreword
Folk music is, of course, not new; in fact folk songs probably represented the first songs ever sung.
Folk songs in their countless millions have been sung (but not often written down) through the ages and there are literally a boundless wealth of such songs at the disposal of present day folk singers. However, modern life with modern progress has brought a need for modern folk songs and we feel that Paul Simon in composing this collection of songs more than plays his part to satisfy that need.
Paul doesn't sing about "causes" ... he says "I'm not a 'cause' person at all". Rather does he concentrate on personal matters common to us all and one therefore finds that identification with the subject comes quite naturally, thus completing the pleasure of singing or listening.
In preparing this book of some of Paul Simon's songs, we are confident that it will be the first of many such books which we shall produce and we, as Publishers, would like to thank Paul Simon for his great co-operation that made this production possible.
Lorna Music Co. Ltd.


Introduction to Paul Simon
 by JUDITH PIEPE
Each era has its own voice. Even the old crack that the muses are silent in the clash of arms does not hold (pace Rupert Brook). In each decade the voice which is specifically the expression of that decade is that of its young adults, the people in the eighteen to twenty-eight age group. They are the people who have been formed by, and are in turn forming the thought, the creative ideas, the whole flavour of their time, and so are making it specifically their own. In different decades different art forms have predominated as the essential expressions: the Voice of the forties may be said to have been that of the written poem and of ballet, and we saw a tremendous expansion and development in both these art forms. The fifties brought new development in the theatre and a putting out of feelers in all directions, a search for new roads in jazz and spoken verse, and in the visual arts, a neo-expressionism leading to action painting and similar experiments.
The Voice of the sixties may well be said to be that of the 'folk boom'. From the roots of a growing dissatisfaction with the ready-made entertainment provided by radio, television, cinema, and juke-box, and the tenuous thread of the near-ruined traditional folk song, kept alive by the Cecil Sharp House enthusiasts on one hand, and the skiffle movement (with the simple practical fact that a guitar can be carried from place to place) on the other, has grown what is today called Contemporary Folk Songs. There is even for those who create these songs the term 'folk poets', implying an emphasis on the words not found in the pop songs of our time or the popular songs of the past, or even the German lied which set the pattern for most art songs of this country. These folk poets of the sixties have probably more in common with the troubadours of the Middle Ages (there are sociological reasons for this which there is not space for here) and amongst those are known are Ewan McCall, Tom Paxton, Bert Jansch, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon. Of these I consider Paul Simon to be particularly significant because of the wide range of his songs, his intellectual and emotional approach give them an appeal to far more than just a narrow section of the population. This has been proved very emphatically by the spate of letters sent to me by listeners of all ages ranging from teen-age apprentice hairdressers to elderly abbots, from housewives to youth club organizers and University dons after I introduced Paul Simon in the "Five to Ten" programme of the B.B.C. in March, 1965.
Paul Simon's songs are personal and individual, the expression of his own thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears, problems and frustrations of our time, of his generation. In speaking for his generation he says what others feel but cannot find the words to say, and in doing so has a liberating and healing effect. This is particularly noticeable with some of his 'psychological' songs as, for instance, "I Am a Rock", a song of neurotic isolation which by the very fact that it gives expression to this isolation down of the barriers which divide people from each other seems to me to be one of the major effects of Paul's songs, he creates understanding, contact and love, between people. He is probably unaware that in some degree he fulfils his wish expressed in the "The Sound Of Silence" ... "hear my words that I might teach you; take my arms that I might reach you". In "A Most Peculiar Man", an epitaph for a suicide, he both creates compassion for, and spotlights the cause of suicide, speaking supremely for one unable to speak for himself. One who speaks for others, to others is an interpreter. The word prophet means interpreter. The prophets have always been pretty hot on social comment, and in songs like "He Was My Brother", "A Church is Burning", and "On the Side of a Hill" he points at the wider issues of our time in demand and protest, love and anger. Poets have always done wthis, there have always been songs that spotlight the flame and sword. What matters is that these are songs of here and now, because only by being songs of our time will some of them remain to be of value in a time to come.
By the same token, Paul Simon's most personal songs, because they are most personal are also universal. His beautiful, austere, and delicate "Kathy's Song" is, in my opinion, one of the great love songs of our time and stands supremely as the love song of the sixties just as W. H. Auden's poem "Lay Your Sleeping Head" is the love songs of the forties, while the, at a first hearing, deceptively slight "April Come She Will" spreads a delicate wing span from the Song of Songs and the troubadours to the end of all ages, and is perhaps more a folk song than any other he has ever written.
You may have heard Paul Simon sing, if not you will want to do so. You may have bought his records, if not you will want to do so. His style of singing is as individual as his style of writing. You may have bought this book because you want to sing his songs, if so you will be more true to Paul Simon who wrote them if you make these sings your own by singing the your own way ... they were written for you. You may have bought this book because you love Paul Simon's songs. So do I ... they were written for us.

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ABOUT PAUL SIMON

Full Name:     PAUL FREDERIC SIMON

Date of Birth:    13 OCTOBER, 1941.

Home Town:    NEW YORK

Education:
BACHELOR OF ARTS DEGREE IN LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CITY OF NEW YORK. WRITERS WORKSHOP AT THE NEW SCHOOL NEW YORK.

Start of Professional Career:
WHEN SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE HE WROTE AND RECORDED A "ROCK" SONG FOR "BIG" RECORDS IN THE U.S.A. 250,000 COPIES OF THE RECORD WERE SOLD AND IT ATTAINED THE NUMBER 36 POSITION IN THE BEST SELLING CHARTS.

Started Folk Singing:
IN 1958 AT GERDES FOLK CITY, NEW YORK.

Folk Recordings:
SEE DISCOGRAPHY ON INSIDE BACK COVER.

Personal appearances in the United Kingdom:
EDINBURGH FOLK FESTIVAL, 1964, CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL, 1965 AND NUMEROUS FOLK CLUBS THROUGHOUT BRITAIN.

Radio and T.V. appearances in the United Kingdom:
READY STEADY GO LIVE, DISCS A-GO-GO, SCENE AT 6.30, THE ROLF HARRIS SHOW and many times ON BBC'S FIVE TO TEN PROGRAMME.

Favourite Authors:
JAMES JOYCE, CARSON McCULLERS AND ANTOINE ST. EXUPERY.

Favourite Pastimes:
WRITING SONGS, POEMS AND SHORT STORIES.
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PAUL SIMON'S DISCOGRAPHY

"PAUL SIMON'S SONG BOOK
C.B.S. B.P.G. 62579

A great L.P. comprising of Paul's songs:
I AM A ROCK HE WAS MY BROTHER
LEAVES THAT ARE GREEN    KATHY'S SONG
A CHURCH IS BURNING THE SIDE OF A HILL
APRIL COME SHE WILL FLOWERS NEVER BEND WITH
   THE RAINFALL
A MOST PECULIAR MAN PATTERNS


"WEDNESDAY MORNING 3 A.M."
C.B.S E.P 6053

A unique E.P. made in New York. By Paul and his very talented partner Art Garfunkel, comprising four more of Paul's songs:
BLEECKER STREET             WEDNESDAY MORNING 3 A.M.
SPARROW THE SOUND OF SILENCE

"I AM A ROCK"          and   "LEAVES THAT ARE GREEN"
C.B.S. 201797

"CARLOS DOMINGUEZ"      and   "HE WAS MY BROTHER"
ORIOLE C.B. 1930


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ON DRUMS AND OTHER HOLLOW OBJECTS
Short Story by Paul Simon.

The Pleasant Meadow Nursing Home For The Elderly stood between the animal hospital and a vacant lot used by the neighbouring community as a convenient dumping ground for old furniture and refuse. On sunny days its hard clean lines of brick and aluminium rejected the shafts of afternoon sunlight and hurled them back upon the busy street. And when it rained the drops splashed against the walls and fell in a fine mist on the concrete pavement or were herded through tunnels dark and swift by a highly competent drainage system. The closely cropped, neatly kept grounds, hidden by shrubbery, were dotted, in the summer, by brightly coloured umbrellas that shaded the empty chairs from the glaring rays. And in the winter the snow fell, a sparrow's tracks like a chinese print, drew the picture of a futile search for food.
On rare occasions a tiny, wrinkled face would peer from one of the curtained windows. Clouded eyes vacantly wandered the streets below and then returned weary and confused, to rest beneath their lids and lashes. Yet never once did my grandfather, now senile at the age of eighty-six, gaze upon the world outside the Home for his eyes saw other colours and his mind walked solitary paths and private.
His room was on the third and top floor and when I visited
I would stop for a moment and the head nurse's desk to announce my presence. There I was greeted by an efficient and steatopygous woman in her early fifties who ushered me to the elevator and with a swift reference to a constantly clinging typewritten chart, informed me that my grandfather was doing as well as could be expected for a man of his years. Thereupon, she would smile with indifferent lips and take her leave, begging the burdens of her office and permitting me to make the enclosed ascension in the company of my own thoughts.
The elevator's light burned bright red, then died as we passed each floor until, at last the doors rolled and parted in silent indication that the journey had reached its conclusion. The trip, which could not have lasted more than fifteen or twenty seconds, nevertheless spanned a lifetime. I felt as I stepped into the spotless and tiled corridor that I had left my youth below like a coat left at the reception desk that I might reclaim at a future time. Even my walk so quick and confident seconds before was halting and slack as I moved through the hallways that smelled of old age and death.
Through the open doorways I could see old men seated like fragile mosaics within their miniature rooms. And in room 311 my grandfather sat, a little boy nearly swallowed by the chair that gently held him. His eyes rested on another man, his room-mate, who lay asleep on his bed by the far wall.
"Hello Gramps. I just thought I'd pay you a visit, see if you wanted to go to a ball game or something".
It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust to my presence but when they did a happy grin crossed his face and he look very much like the grandfather that I remembered as a child.
"Well hello there young fella. Good to see ya. Have you eaten?"
"No, I'm not hungry, thanks".
"Well I'll just go down to get you something to eat".
"No really I'm not hungry. It's O.K., really".
"Just speak up if you get hungry Sonny. Plenty of food".
"I'll let you know. I just thought I'd come and visit you. Talk about the old days".
"Good. Good", he said in the happy way he could elongate words when he was feeling jolly. And the just as suddenly, he lapsed into a long sigh and sank back into his chair.
"What seems to be the trouble young fella?" I said.
"Very busy, I've been very busy at the office. These girls here. They're new. I still have to do most of the work myself".
"You mean the nurses?"
"Oh yes, the nurses too. It takes time … till they learn too … "
"Learn what Gramps?"
"Well, where the papers and files are … "
The conversation had somehow drifted and I sought to find a suitable topic, something that would lift his spirits.
"You wouldn't care to wrestle or anything would ya?" Remembering all at once that as a kid I thought he was the strongest man in the whole world. And he would crackle my knuckles when he shook my hand until my delighted childish yelps made him stop, pick me up, and spin me around in his arms until I was dizzy and laughing.
"I mean you wouldn't care to go for a few rounds".
"No you're too big for me, young fella".
Me, too big for my grandfather? How did that happen so suddenly? Could I have grown so huge? And so the conversation floated like a leaf brown by the wind to and fro until, at last, it touched ground. We were silent, my grandfather and I.
"Well", he said gently breaking the silence, "if you've got any problems you can always come up to the office and talk them over with me. Anything to do with your work or your future, you know where I am. I'll be glad to help out with anything I can Sonny. Any investments...".
Yes I will Gramp, I will come see you. If there's any problem or anything I'll come up".
"You know where I am. Same place, last thirty years..."
"Yes, I know. And I'll come up".
And then, all of a sudden I had a strange revelation. It seemed that the whole complexion of our talk had changed. Just minutes before his words were shrouded in a senile mist that I could not penetrate. I groped for the proper word or phrase to complete his thoughts. And now I realised that it was I who was confused. It was my sentences that were lacking coherence. I thought, "Oh God, there are so many things I've got to tell you Gramps, and I' not going to have enough time". Neither of us will have enough time now. And then, for perhaps the first time, I felt the thoughts that tumbled down the passageways of my mind might find a moment's rest within the walls of my grandfather's dying room. Here within the reality of my grandfather's senile walls.
"Gramp, do you remember that song you used to sing to me when I was a kid? You know. 'Coming in on A Wing And A Prayer'.
" He didn't remember for he was walking into regions I could not recognise. But it didn't matter now. The words began to flow back from childhood recollections and I tapped my fingers on an imaginary drum I played when I was young.
"Gramp, I've got to go now. I'll come back soon Gramp. Gramps, I love you".
I left him sitting as I had found him, silent, far away with his eyes resting on the man sleeping soundlessly on his bed. I walked though the hallways that smelled of age and death, past the fragile mosaics in their miniature rooms, into the descending elevator, past the matronly nurse with her mysterious chart and out to the street. I stood for a moment bewildered, unable to get my bearings, directionless in a world confused and confusing.

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