Pop singer Paul Simon talks
about women, psychoanalysis, being short, and life without Art Garfunkel.
PAUL SIMON-the pop music Paul
Simon, not the lieutenant governor, is 30, and the last few years have been rough on him. His partnership with Arthur Garfunkel is only a memory; Garfunkel is just a faded photo on the mantle, a relic of the days when there were Beatles and Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Simon is buried In the cozy comfort of an easy chair. He has a cold, and only the blinking of his watery eyes Indicates that he is alive. Coffee cups are scattered on the table and a woman s sweater dangles over a chair. Heâs been married a year.
âThe whole subject of the man-woman relationship is a big mystery to me,â Simon says nasally. âI question if there is not something basic in the male to make him sadistic, and something in the female to make her masochistic. Remember, there was rape long before capitalism.â
He pauses, reflects: âIt is some- thing deep, very, very deep, which we can only ponder and hope to resolve. You know, I was saying the other day how it s funny that you donât see mass murders of men by women. You never see a woman who goes around and kills five men. Why? I donât think women would go and kill people. I think that s something crazy in men. You could say it s because women are weaker, but a gun, knife kills anybody.â
Both Simon and his wife are very much into the Womenâs Movement. [âWeâve read our Kate Millet,â he says.l Simon insists he s fascinated by woman s potential. âYou know,â be says, âit has come out recently that some of the great works credited to men were in fact done by women. John Stuart Mill freely admitted that his wife wrote his essay on Liberty and Freedom in Society. And a lot of art and literature actually has been the work of women. F. Scott Fitz- gerald, we can Infer from Nancy
Milfordâs book on âZelda,â literally plagiarized his wifes diaries, and Iâm sure that she won t be the last ripoff. But at least we know about it, are talking about it-we recognize that the problem exists.â Paul muses: âIâd like to see if the nature of a woman, which may be a little more kind and gentle, can produce changes and improvement. For instance, Iâd like to see a woman as President,â
As if on cue, Peggy Ann-slim, clad in hippie-spiffy, softly southern [Tennessee] in voice and manner- emerges to care for her husband s cold. He takes his spoon of medicine without flinching. Peg projects a strength and sureness that is absolute, resolute.
Simonâs glance caresses his wife. âPeg has gotten me to face violent instincts which previously I couldnât imagine letting out,â Paul says. âI thought it was the mark of civilization to keep it all inside. She comes from a whole other culture. When Pegâs angry, she lets it out-and then itâs over.â
The reality of being married-ao working things out-has had its effect on Simonâs music. Lost are his early innocence and belief in perfection. Lost, too, is his original folk sim-Â ; now he has an electronic, gospel sound. A song like âCongratulationsâ [written for his pal, Elliott Gould in honor of the actorâs second marriage asks, âCan a man and a woman live together in peace?â Certainly this is a different tune from the one Paul sang in âDangling Conversation,â where lovers get along like âverses out of rhythm, couplets out of rhyme, in syncopated timeâ or âFor Emily Whenever I May Find Her,â a delectable dream vision with soft rain, cathedral bells, and frosted fields.
Simon mentions his former side-kick, Art Garfunkel, and says firmly,âI wonât take another partner.â Garfunkel now teaches mathematics to high school students in Connecticut and moonlights as a movie star for director Mike Nichols. The pair seldom see one another anymore. âNo hard feelings, just different worldsâ, Paul explains. Arthur and Paul had been pals since boyhood. Simon still seems troubled about his split with Garfunkel, as seen in a new song, âMe and Julie Down by the School- yard.â The song reveals an antipathy toward the opposite sex for breaking up the old gang.
Simon denies any suggestion of homosexuality in the song. He and Garfunkel once were listed in a homosexual handbook. âI was very insulted by that,â he says flatly. He wants the world to know how happy he is, how much he loves his wife. Injustice is even harder for sensitive minstrel to reconcile when he lives in an elegant apartment.Â
Psychoanalysis has helped him to cope, he says. âIn the beginning I would sit in the dark all the time writing songs which-I thought-came out of gut suffering. Embarrassment used to be my main emotion. I remember that I was embarrassed by what I said, what I did, how I looked, who I was. As I think back, that pain was not real pain. It was not the grief of someone who has felt real sorrow. It was imaginary, contrived, a student s fantasy, not the pain of poverty, war, or even the tremendous emotional pain that people endure dally.â
Simonâs latest songs show sympathy for the little guy: the rebel, the genius, the loner, the down-and-out [âIllusion dwellersâ], and his Papa Hobo figures from rustic Americana. Paul admits his sympathy but ex- plains it from distinctly personal motives. âThese songs, in effect, cloak my anxiety about being short.â He confesses: âBet you âve never seen a little guy the hero in a movie. If heâs short, heâs always the clown, the comic relief. I see it all the time. The funny thing is that I never wrote a song about being short, because I thought people would laugh. And I still believe they will laugh. So I tend to make my people out to be the little guy as opposed to the short guy.â Paul documents his case. âRecently, Time Magazine reported that the tallest men-not the brightest -in a graduating class at a college in Illinois were offered the best starting salaries by big business.â A look of consternation marks his face. âTlbe whole white male myth makes it imperative that the hero, the winner, be the Great Dane [âUnhand me, you big bruteâ]. Thatâs why Iâm right there with the feminists, because I think the whole thing is debasing.
âItâs so hard to make it in the world, when you want it to be fair and it isnât. Itâs all a mixture. You get it for being a Jew and you get it for being black or white. You get it for being a woman and you get it because you live in a capitalist society, which feeds off other societies, so you can be wealthy. We all walk on both sides. We are all part of this mixed-up sense of injustice that there is in the world.â
Injustice is even harder for a sensitive minstrel to reconcile when he lives in an elegant duplex apartment, overlooking Manhattanâs Central Park, a pad formerly occupied by guitarist Andre Segovia. At least now Simon plays the role of rebel. Simon fans recognize the change between his isolation in âSounds of Silenceâ [âHello darkness, my old friendâ] and the pseudo-alienation of the recent âPapa Hobo.â
The same Simon who was at first ignored by the folk vanguard because he was too âweird,â now has become a classic, a standard. Record sales are up there with Mancini and Sina- tra. Every Simon album is gold [there have been seven], and last year âBridge Over Troubled Waterâ won the top . Simonâs made million-dollar singles with âSounds of Silence,â âMrs. Robinson,â âBridge,â and âCecilia.â Currently âMother and Child Reunionâ [from his first solo album} promises to be another golden great.
Back in 1955 when be was a teen- ager growing up in a middle-class environment, Paul despaired of achieving his ambition to be a pop singer. Elvis Presley was supreme and everything about him was alien to Paul Simon. But Paul wrote music, and the times changed, and what was out came in. His musical flexibility may well keep him in.
Paul leans against the coffee table. âYou see this game here?â he asks, pointing to a tilt board with holes and a small metal ball. âDo you know rm the best in the world at this game? Itâs the only thing in the world that Iâm best at.â One senses Paul would prefer to be known as the tilt- board champ. It would simplify his life. Instead, he laments: âWhat do you do, how do you behave when you walk in the street and fans want auto- graphs or you buy a car and the salesman is obsequious? You know, my most bizarre fantasies became possibilities, everyday realities. Whatever happened to be my special trip was readily available. It was all too much.â
The past comes rushing back to him. âMy insecurities made me un- comfortable with the drug scene. I like to get high, but it made me crazy. So I stopped. I had to stop. I can remember is a bunch of people running around. They were confused. I was confused. They didnât know who they were. I didnât know who I was, and we were all acting out some kind of role. And everything was weird and changing so fast. The â60s-wow, what a decade!âÂ
turnnoffyourmind
blakekathryn
vaporwave
prguitarman
