Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: thing the railway station. Got a ticket for a destination
Speaker 1: show and today legendary songwriter Paul Simon on two one
Speaker 1: that stands may suit case and guitar and and every
Speaker 1: stop is neatly plan for a poet and award words.
Speaker 1: Paul Simon doesn't often give interviews. He occasionally tours, recently
Speaker 1: with Sting, but mostly Simon lives a quiet life at
Speaker 1: home in Connecticut with his wife, singer Edie Brickell. There
Speaker 1: he spends his time making music and writing songs. He's
Speaker 1: written hundreds, a large number of which are among the
Speaker 1: most popular and admired in music history. Bridge Over, Troubled Water, Coda, Chrome, Slip,
Speaker 1: Slide in Away Graceland, to name a few. Over the years,
Speaker 1: the way he creates his songs has changed. The process
Speaker 1: has evolved. There's still elements of it that are like
Speaker 1: the my first instincts about writing, but otherwise it's become
Speaker 1: much slower and much more complicated. I think, well, because
Speaker 1: it's entwined with record making with me that's singing both,
Speaker 1: and it's a complicated process. Now it's um to you know,
Speaker 1: to do it abstractly without referring to one particular song
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't show you as much as if I gave
Speaker 1: you an example but described what it was like before
Speaker 1: they just came ripping out of you all the time. Um,
Speaker 1: um not No. I was never a really fast writer.
Speaker 1: But when I was in my early twenties h and
Speaker 1: I wrote all the songs for all the beginning songs
Speaker 1: for Simon and Garth phone Call, that came pretty fast.
Speaker 1: I was living partly here in partly in England, and yeah,
Speaker 1: well really you know, I mean within a five year
Speaker 1: period of from like nineteen sixty five to nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: I wrote us God, most of my big hits, you know,
Speaker 1: Bridge Over, Trouble Waters, Sound of Silence, Mrs Robinson, the Boxer,
Speaker 1: Homeward Bound, I am a rock, Let's see America Feeling
Speaker 1: Groovy as a hit for somebody else. Um. So I
Speaker 1: was faster, but now I'm much slower. This last group
Speaker 1: of songs that I've been working on has been probably
Speaker 1: taking me about three years. But it isn't like I
Speaker 1: finished the song and go onto the next. I just
Speaker 1: keep working on the songs. So some of them are
Speaker 1: like a work in progress. That's like three fectionism. No,
Speaker 1: I don't like that word because it implies about nine
Speaker 1: questions that use the word perfectionism in them. So I well,
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's It's like any performance. If
Speaker 1: I said to you, oh, I like, you're just like
Speaker 1: you know, you're just a perfectionist. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: why do you want to take another take? It was great?
Speaker 1: You're a perfectionist, you're you know. Your answer would be,
Speaker 1: there's no perfect. Not going for perfect. I'm going for
Speaker 1: something that I know and I know and when it
Speaker 1: happens for me. That's what you would say. As a performer,
Speaker 1: you can how can I think it right? You know?
Speaker 1: I mean, but even if you've got it, you wouldn't say, well,
Speaker 1: this is a perfect performance. You would say, no, I
Speaker 1: realized my vision or I realized how I wanted to
Speaker 1: play this, but you wouldn't describe it as perfect. Right.
Speaker 1: Perfect doesn't have anything to do with it, with the whole,
Speaker 1: with the whole thing. It is added a question. It's
Speaker 1: like Japanese temples where they always leave some imperfection and
Speaker 1: a zen temple because the idea of striving for a
Speaker 1: perfect temple was an affront to you know, God, It's
Speaker 1: not possible for man to do a thing without import
Speaker 1: with with no imperfection. When you write music, now, is
Speaker 1: there like a state you want to get into? Is
Speaker 1: there a place? Is there a whole you when you
Speaker 1: left alone for a couple of hours to think about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I find them basically thinking about this all
Speaker 1: the time when I'm not thinking about um, you know,
Speaker 1: my wife and family or some little crisis that comes
Speaker 1: up or something like that. If my mind is just
Speaker 1: you know, free to go where it wants to go,
Speaker 1: it goes to the songs I'm working on constantly, just
Speaker 1: all the time. When you wrote music before, whether any
Speaker 1: of them that just came right out of you and
Speaker 1: it s well, sometimes they do in the early ones,
Speaker 1: of course, like the Sounds of Silence. I wrote that
Speaker 1: when I was twenty one years old, and I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I couldn't have taken very long. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I have no idea how I even wrote that song,
Speaker 1: because and at the time it wasn't like I was
Speaker 1: really surprised that I wrote it. I thought this was good,
Speaker 1: this is a good song, but I had no idea
Speaker 1: of what that was. Same with Bridge over Trouble Water.
Speaker 1: You know, I wrote it. I said, this is better
Speaker 1: than I usually write. This is a this is this
Speaker 1: is a this is a good song. But I didn't
Speaker 1: know that it was going to be a song that
Speaker 1: was going to be fifty years and people you know
Speaker 1: would know it for you know, the songs you've made
Speaker 1: that have been in the film soundtracks? Were you appreciative
Speaker 1: of that? And great depends on that depends on how
Speaker 1: they were used or something. You know. Look, there's no
Speaker 1: time that I've that I could say I object to
Speaker 1: the way my song is used in uh in your movie,
Speaker 1: because I mean if I objected that much, I don't
Speaker 1: have to give him a license. I control publishing. So
Speaker 1: so I mean sometimes I think, oh, this is really good,
Speaker 1: you know, like, um, when I see the other day
Speaker 1: Anderson's film about the family, Wes Anderson Tenant Bounds, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Tenemy, the Royal Tenor Bounds. Right, I just saw
Speaker 1: the Royal Tenant Bounds. Again. The other dadn't seen it,
Speaker 1: probably and I don't know what ten years or something
Speaker 1: like that, eight years or something, and they used me
Speaker 1: and Julio in there, and it's perfect. Comes in said there,
Speaker 1: I said, perfect. All I could say it about somebody
Speaker 1: else's work. Anyway, it's a it's a very good choice.
Speaker 1: It's sort of explodes and a joyous what happened on
Speaker 1: the joy with the kids? Yeah, that's great. I never
Speaker 1: watd that film. That's why I know that film. I
Speaker 1: love his films such an on Ball. Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: his films a lot, and I really like that one
Speaker 1: in which I hadn't seen in a while. And you know,
Speaker 1: I love Gene Hackman's performance. And was Cape Man the
Speaker 1: only musical you did? The others who were on the
Speaker 1: drawing where that was the only one everyone did conceive
Speaker 1: nothing that was Yeah, it takes so long to make them. Well,
Speaker 1: it takes me a long time to do anything, you know,
Speaker 1: to do anything. But it took a long time to
Speaker 1: make the to make the cape Man, that was about
Speaker 1: five years. And then the idea began. When the idea
Speaker 1: was um, I think it was after Graceland and and
Speaker 1: the Rhythm of the Saints, I said, well, I mean
Speaker 1: it's time to do something else. I know, how do
Speaker 1: I follow those albums? You know? So I'll do I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll try to take my hand out a musical and
Speaker 1: then that kids salad grown. He's just in my memory
Speaker 1: from when I grew up here. So I picked him
Speaker 1: because that would mean that the music would be doo wop.
Speaker 1: And also he was Puerto Rican, so that means it
Speaker 1: would be Latin music in there too. So to me,
Speaker 1: I said, I could be interested in listening to a
Speaker 1: musical that was due up in Latin. I like both
Speaker 1: of them. I think it would be a nice And
Speaker 1: here's the story. So that's how I picked it, you know.
Speaker 1: That's that's why I did it, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: as as it turns out, we we didn't do it
Speaker 1: very well. And what do you mean by that? Why? Well,
Speaker 1: I should I shouldn't really put it that way. It
Speaker 1: was notably unsuccessful critically and everything, and there are serious
Speaker 1: flaws with it as a piece. But actually a lot
Speaker 1: of it was really good. I mean, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people were thrilled by the attempt that you
Speaker 1: met people who were you know, oh yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah it had. It brought a lot of goodwill.
Speaker 1: People liked it and uh, but it wasn't a success.
Speaker 1: But when it came back at Bam, I know whatever,
Speaker 1: it was seven eight years ago, and then when it
Speaker 1: was done in Central Park two years after that, they
Speaker 1: were both successful. Anyway, I think it was a very
Speaker 1: interesting piece and I'm not, by any means embarrassed by
Speaker 1: I think it's some really good things in there. Certainly
Speaker 1: the best doop song I ever wrote is in there.
Speaker 1: And uh, but anyway, I don't really have any interest
Speaker 1: in doing it. You don't. Are there other things you
Speaker 1: think of? Do you think about films? Just scoring film?
Speaker 1: Never that was the that was the deviation for you. Um. No,
Speaker 1: it's not something that I think of. But if somebody
Speaker 1: came to me with a really interesting like for example,
Speaker 1: there's a an old friend of mine who's will play right,
Speaker 1: and he asked me if I would write some guitar
Speaker 1: music to a new play that he wrote, And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting idea. But I wouldn't think to myself,
Speaker 1: I'd to write some guitar music for a theatrical piece films. Um,
Speaker 1: if somebody came to me with an idea, I would.
Speaker 1: I might be very excited by it. But really, what
Speaker 1: I think about naturally is writing songs and making records,
Speaker 1: and I'm really content to not do anything other than
Speaker 1: that because I'm still learning about that. So I think
Speaker 1: it's getting better. And as the work sort of the
Speaker 1: work getting better is a is a manifestation of me
Speaker 1: understanding things that I've been working on from you know,
Speaker 1: a long time, some things like you know, decades and
Speaker 1: decades some So I don't have a specific example. I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking about how you you, over decades learn a
Speaker 1: sense of what words to stay away from, what we're
Speaker 1: to go to, how rhythm could be used, how melody
Speaker 1: you just learn you know from your craft, uh interest
Speaker 1: you say, what words to stay away from that in
Speaker 1: different circumstances you would want to stay away from certain
Speaker 1: certain love words. A lawyer, No, I never. I went
Speaker 1: to law school for a year. But that was a
Speaker 1: complete that was a complete misunderstanding of who I was
Speaker 1: by me, where'd you go law? One year? It was
Speaker 1: so boring. I wasn't interested in I had no reason
Speaker 1: to be. This is my idea. No. No. What happened
Speaker 1: was a bunch of my friends in college, we're going
Speaker 1: to take the law boards, so I so they said
Speaker 1: you should take them. So I was an English major,
Speaker 1: but I said, okay, I'll take him. And I took
Speaker 1: him and I scored very high on them, so, you know,
Speaker 1: at twenty years old or whatever, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I'm supposed to be a lawyer
Speaker 1: or something. I mean, if I scored so high on me,
Speaker 1: so I don't know, you know. So I went and
Speaker 1: you know, did a year of in Brooklyn. I made
Speaker 1: the record I had made that record would already by
Speaker 1: that anyway, exactly Columbia deal. Yeah. So we had made
Speaker 1: this Wednesday morning, three am, and the acoustic version of
Speaker 1: the Sound of Silence in nineteen sixty four, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: so I was at school then, and then I probably
Speaker 1: wrote it. You know, I don't remember when I wrote it,
Speaker 1: by a year or two before we recorded it, you know.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I was just one of those you know,
Speaker 1: I could have wasted it on a lot of worse
Speaker 1: things than that, I suppose, but I was going to
Speaker 1: England and every break I had I was going to
Speaker 1: and I had my friends there and my girlfriend there
Speaker 1: and uh and then uh and the first semester at school,
Speaker 1: I got bees and I wasn't showing up or doing anything.
Speaker 1: And I said, this is you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous. The next semester, I got all d's, you know,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I mean, the truth is,
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be this, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be here, so I'm I'm leaving. You know.
Speaker 1: It's not like I said, Oh now, I'm I've got
Speaker 1: to really dig in if I don't want to get
Speaker 1: a d I just said, I'm just totally indifferent. I'm
Speaker 1: just in over the wrong place. And I went and
Speaker 1: I moved to England. And there's your girlfriend, that the
Speaker 1: one who you're married, No Kathy, who has of of
Speaker 1: you know, the songs about her. You've got a whole
Speaker 1: list of questions, these questions that you're interested in, the
Speaker 1: questions that you think people will be interested in. I
Speaker 1: get a list of questions that I have a producer, right,
Speaker 1: and some volume of them. I used that I write
Speaker 1: a lot of my own questions because the basic principle
Speaker 1: is I want people to describe for me, and whether
Speaker 1: it's you, whether it's Obama, it doesn't matter who is everybody.
Speaker 1: I wanted them to describe, how is it felt to
Speaker 1: be you? Really, that's the basic premise of the show.
Speaker 1: What about if somebody doesn't want to describe that they're
Speaker 1: free to do with whatever they please. Maybe they don't
Speaker 1: even want to describe that to themselves. To themselves, well,
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes it's a way of thinking about life, is
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Some people come in here and after
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes they begin to have a conversation that
Speaker 1: I think that they wanted to have. My next question
Speaker 1: for you is what did your parents think when you
Speaker 1: were so young? Did your parents have any kind of
Speaker 1: opinion about your career at that age? You were sixteen
Speaker 1: years old when you want American bands down? Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't think that anybody thought of it as a career.
Speaker 1: I think I thought they were, you know, be I
Speaker 1: made a record, The record got played on the radio,
Speaker 1: it was, you know, kind of a hit. We went
Speaker 1: on television. What do you think about that? They were happy?
Speaker 1: You know, my father was a professional bass player and
Speaker 1: he was used to be on some television shows that
Speaker 1: you know, like UM, the the Arthur Godfrey Show. He
Speaker 1: was in that band, and Jackie Gleason he was on
Speaker 1: that band. So I mean, it wasn't that it was
Speaker 1: added a question that you would ever see somebody on
Speaker 1: television because like we'd you know, when we're kids would
Speaker 1: let's see it, let's see if we see dad, you know,
Speaker 1: when they showed the band. But so, you know, it
Speaker 1: was like it's not exactly a show business family, but
Speaker 1: it's not exactly civilian either. You know, he was he
Speaker 1: was a good musician. I'm sure he didn't think that
Speaker 1: the piece of work that we did was very good,
Speaker 1: but he was happy that it was to change what
Speaker 1: his opinion about my work. Yeah, of course I wonder
Speaker 1: what that was like for him. Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a very very interesting question and one that I think
Speaker 1: about a lot. But I do really do think that
Speaker 1: it's like one of those questions that even though there's
Speaker 1: nothing in in the response that would be hurtful or anything,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where like it's sort
Speaker 1: of my life, you know, like it's not it's very
Speaker 1: entertaining I know for people, but why should I do that?
Speaker 1: And not the kind of thing you want to talk about? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think so how he felt about, you know me, obviously,
Speaker 1: it was like it is a very interesting subject and
Speaker 1: a complex and a complex subject, you know, and I
Speaker 1: think about it a lot because, as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: it would be provoke all kinds of all kinds of
Speaker 1: response responses and parent child relationships. But everything happens to everybody,
Speaker 1: you know. It's not like there is anything of mine
Speaker 1: that is that different from anybody else's experiences that I should,
Speaker 1: you know, bequeath it that much more time. You know,
Speaker 1: it's something, Yeah, there was something up, something was off,
Speaker 1: you know, but that's crazy about him. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: was crazy about me. And uh and if there was
Speaker 1: a complication in it, then okay, it's like what what
Speaker 1: you know as opposed to let me figure out what
Speaker 1: that complication was and let's talk about it. That's that's so,
Speaker 1: so let's go on. You know, another subject I wanted you.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be rude. Do you want to
Speaker 1: ask me another question about that? Or the only reason
Speaker 1: I asked is because I mean, for me, my dad
Speaker 1: died when I was twenty five years old, and he
Speaker 1: never got to see any of what I did. And
Speaker 1: I'm always interested in people's relationships with their parents in
Speaker 1: terms of just how how it may or may not
Speaker 1: affect what you do. You know, how man, you know,
Speaker 1: just anecdotally, I noticed that people whose childhood's are more
Speaker 1: troubled than mine was but you know, I had had
Speaker 1: some kind of hardships, usually money issues or something like that,
Speaker 1: or family or broken you know, divorce or you know
Speaker 1: that there's more interest in the subject than I naturally
Speaker 1: feel about it, having grown up with just my younger
Speaker 1: brother and a peaceful, loving, uh family. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't say that I really wanted to get out of there,
Speaker 1: you know, but for what purpose? She just you know,
Speaker 1: I was ready. Yeah, I was free, you know, I
Speaker 1: just want to be free. Is a picture of my
Speaker 1: my son Adrian that that I love. He's sitting He's
Speaker 1: sitting in a snowsuit. He looks like he's maybe a
Speaker 1: year old, sitting in the snow in Central Park, and
Speaker 1: the look of exasperation on his face is so profound
Speaker 1: that I know, it's like he was already whoever he was,
Speaker 1: and he just you know, said, oh man, do I
Speaker 1: have to go through this whole thing to get up
Speaker 1: to you know? He was that guy already. And whoever
Speaker 1: I was, they people weren't prepared for for what it
Speaker 1: is that I was in the world that I came from.
Speaker 1: Nobody nobody said, well, will you make your living as
Speaker 1: an artist? Like that wasn't a possibility. Certainly you can
Speaker 1: make your living as a rock and roll artist. And
Speaker 1: I mean forget about like the greatest songwriters or something
Speaker 1: like that, just even a songwriter. You know, like you're
Speaker 1: gonna like be a songwriter. Or It's like so nobody
Speaker 1: was saying anything particular, like wow, you're really gifted. You
Speaker 1: should you know, do this study that. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like great, My father's thing was great. You know
Speaker 1: you can do this. You know, it's better than waiting
Speaker 1: on tables. You know, it's so being you know, be
Speaker 1: a musician, but don't be a musician for your whole career.
Speaker 1: But I was already long gone into that. M Paul
Speaker 1: Simon's career in music has made an indelible mark. Simon
Speaker 1: and Garfunkel won the Grammy for Lifetime Achievement, and Simon
Speaker 1: himself belongs to an elite club of musicians inducted into
Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Other members
Speaker 1: include Michael Jackson, Blue Read, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our archives where I speak with
Speaker 1: another musician with a long and storied career, Radio Heads
Speaker 1: frontman Tom York. You've been with those guys for how long?
Speaker 1: And now we started when were six Radiohead, so that's
Speaker 1: quite long. What do you attribute that to? Persistence? My
Speaker 1: great diplomatic skills. Note more at Here's the Thing dot org.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: As the story goes, Paul Simon met Art Garth Uncle
Speaker 1: during a sixth grade production of Alice in Wonderland. Four
Speaker 1: years later, they signed with a label under the pseudonym
Speaker 1: Tom and Jerry, and their song Hey Schoolgirl reached the
Speaker 1: Billboard Charts. Today, Paul Simon has twelve Grammys, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, he became the first recipient of the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress' Is Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Paul
Speaker 1: never stops working on his music, and he brought a
Speaker 1: c D of some of his latest songs to our interview.
Speaker 1: I guess it's an album, you know, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what it is anymore, because I'm working on a
Speaker 1: group of songs and I've been working on him for
Speaker 1: a long time. And uh, and I'm also working on
Speaker 1: different sounds. And you know, as you combine things from
Speaker 1: different places and you find a way of expressing yourself
Speaker 1: by doing that. There's something calming about that. It's good
Speaker 1: and it sort of spills you into the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. You start the problem solve in the same
Speaker 1: way he starts. To just have a certain connection that
Speaker 1: you that you sense and you believe in it, and
Speaker 1: you go at least you go with it. And if
Speaker 1: I have to break down what my instincts are cerebraly
Speaker 1: and tell you why, I can, you know, but it's
Speaker 1: not really necessary for me to get in the way
Speaker 1: of whatever the flow is going is going to give me.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, after I've reached a certain amount
Speaker 1: of songs, I cut it off and say, okay, that's
Speaker 1: this group. Let's now I'll take a look and see
Speaker 1: is that is that something? You know? What is it?
Speaker 1: I've just finished it? What is it now? You know?
Speaker 1: Because it's not It's not this same process as like
Speaker 1: a movie company says, here, I want to make a movie.
Speaker 1: You know, here's here's what it is, here's the and
Speaker 1: here's the budget, and when you finish it will judge it,
Speaker 1: you know. But in the context that you're making it
Speaker 1: is that is a certain context. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm just finishing a bunch of songs and then saying
Speaker 1: what does that mean? And my, I guess my, you know,
Speaker 1: my first real question is it's like, what does that
Speaker 1: mean to somebody else who's listening to it? Do you
Speaker 1: have a producer? No? No, No. All the albums you've
Speaker 1: made over the many, many years, how many of them?
Speaker 1: What percentage would you say you had a producer? It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. They weren't really they weren't, you know. They
Speaker 1: they helped me. And well, look, there can be a
Speaker 1: producer who says, let's pick the songs and then you
Speaker 1: you know, you go, we'll get the musicians and we'll
Speaker 1: do it like this. And the artist says, okay, well
Speaker 1: I do that. I make up the songs, I make
Speaker 1: up the sounds. What I need to work with it
Speaker 1: and in a collaboration is a great engineer, and I
Speaker 1: am working with one. You do it all in the
Speaker 1: same studio. I do it up in a little studio
Speaker 1: in my house. There. Well, no if as if there
Speaker 1: are big, bigger things like drums or something like that,
Speaker 1: I might not do it. That might do it in
Speaker 1: the studio, but I have to record a drums there too. Well.
Speaker 1: The other day we we went up to this church
Speaker 1: and in Hartford and we recorded a big pipe organ
Speaker 1: to put on one of the tracks. That's interesting anyway.
Speaker 1: You know, you would know what I was talking about
Speaker 1: if you had heard any of this, and your reaction
Speaker 1: to it was, Oh, I like that. I'd like to
Speaker 1: hear it again. That's entertaining. I like it, you know,
Speaker 1: because most music that you hear that's new. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Steve Barton's got a great joke and he says, uh,
Speaker 1: I'd like to play a new song for you now.
Speaker 1: He said. You know, if you're like me, when an
Speaker 1: artist says they'd like to play a new song, I
Speaker 1: always think, please, don't you know. And it's very hard
Speaker 1: to get anybody to really like something that you're doing
Speaker 1: that's new, h or to like anything really. I did
Speaker 1: SNL once and Lauren had me tip McCartney and hand
Speaker 1: him a lot of money at the opening and say
Speaker 1: only the old stuff. Paul plays only the old stuff,
Speaker 1: and I slip him up a twenty dollar pillar or something.
Speaker 1: But you're right, no one wants to hear the new
Speaker 1: stuff unless it's really good. It's it's it's that people
Speaker 1: people who have been have heard enough stuff that isn't
Speaker 1: good that they now are weary. You know, when people
Speaker 1: were really interested in songs and stuff like if you
Speaker 1: go to the sixties or that and to that period
Speaker 1: of you know, people were really interested to see if
Speaker 1: what was your new song? They didn't dread it. They
Speaker 1: dread it. Now because people don't have any particularly great
Speaker 1: ideas with their new song, better off going to a
Speaker 1: new artist. Get you listen to music now? All the
Speaker 1: time you devour? I want to devour. Would you listen
Speaker 1: to a lot of music? What purpose beyond pleasure? Beyond
Speaker 1: consuming it? Like everybody else does? What? What? What? What's
Speaker 1: music in your life? Wait? What purpose beyond pleasure? But
Speaker 1: you need a purpose? You don't need You don't. You
Speaker 1: don't listen to things to find out what people are
Speaker 1: doing in popular music. I'm just curious. No, I don't
Speaker 1: much listen to popular music. You just you just ask
Speaker 1: me if I listen to music, what kind of music?
Speaker 1: All kinds? Everything? You know, old music, new, new classical music,
Speaker 1: music from different composers, odd composers, gospel music, country music, jazz. Depend.
Speaker 1: If I'm driving in the car, I have this like
Speaker 1: some Vibrus stations programmed and like what are they? Well,
Speaker 1: fifties Sinatra, Willie have the Sinatra channel, Willie's place, Uh,
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley, which is a very disappointing channel. Uh and uh.
Speaker 1: I think B B BB King's Bluesville and one other.
Speaker 1: It might be an another jazz. The sources that are
Speaker 1: that I am drawing from are far enough a field.
Speaker 1: I think that you you don't think to yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm listening to this in the context of my music.
Speaker 1: For example, there's a composer named Harry Partch, and he's
Speaker 1: dead now. He died in the seventies. He was he um.
Speaker 1: He was born in the West Coast in the report
Speaker 1: of twentieth century. Anyway, Harry Partch's belief was that that
Speaker 1: an octave is not divided into twelve notes like you
Speaker 1: see on a piano. If you go from sea to see,
Speaker 1: including black he's and white keys, it's twelve notes. He said,
Speaker 1: that's a false division of the way music occurs. Really,
Speaker 1: an octave has about forty three distinct notes, and in
Speaker 1: order for him to compose this microtonal music, he had
Speaker 1: to build instruments that played microtonally. Anyway, this composer, his
Speaker 1: instruments were out at Montclair State UH in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and and I made contact. One of the guys in
Speaker 1: my band knew UH the guy who was curating those instruments,
Speaker 1: and he played Harry parts music because his name was
Speaker 1: Dean Drummond. He he died about a year and a
Speaker 1: half ago. But anyway, I got into this thought that
Speaker 1: this song that I wrote would be very good in
Speaker 1: a context of this microL micro tonality. So I went
Speaker 1: out there and recorded it and put the song down.
Speaker 1: And you know, so I can't say that I'm listening
Speaker 1: to find out something. I'm not listening and saying what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Oh m, let's see, Oh that's that's
Speaker 1: hipper than I am, or that's not as hip as
Speaker 1: I am. Or I'm listening to things that are sounds
Speaker 1: and or thoughts that that I'm interested in. You know.
Speaker 1: So that's one track on this I mean the other
Speaker 1: tracks have all other other reasons. And then you know,
Speaker 1: for for happening like rhythmically or sonically. And then there's
Speaker 1: also the whole question of sound, what sounds are pleasing?
Speaker 1: How often to change a sound so that the mind
Speaker 1: is really being entertained in a way it likes the
Speaker 1: use of all of that if he if My feeling is,
Speaker 1: if you do it properly, Ah, anybody or many people
Speaker 1: who listen to it will find pleasure from it because
Speaker 1: it's ah, there's some there. It professes to have a
Speaker 1: truth to it. In other words, I do believe that, uh,
Speaker 1: there are forty three tones, because if you hear people
Speaker 1: singing acapella, you'd say, oh, that's attitude or that's that,
Speaker 1: or they're terrible. But no, I mean it's the human
Speaker 1: voice going down. These are all these different pitches between
Speaker 1: this note and this note and the guy's right. There
Speaker 1: are all those pitches. It's only that we divided it
Speaker 1: in that particular way that makes us think that's flat
Speaker 1: or that's sharp. So, I mean, that's a very you know,
Speaker 1: and not only is an interesting musical thought, it's just
Speaker 1: an interesting thought period when you write music. Over the years,
Speaker 1: you had a partner, You've had some ad hoc collaborations
Speaker 1: with people, like you did some performance thing either a
Speaker 1: tour with him. But but I'm assuming that you haven't
Speaker 1: done a lot of that. Have you have? You had
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunities to do that, and it's not
Speaker 1: that interesting to you or when when it comes sting?
Speaker 1: How does that happen? Well, it sting. You know. That's
Speaker 1: a performance collaboration that happened because we were both singing
Speaker 1: at a at a fundraising event. We both were supposed
Speaker 1: to sing at a fundraising event, you know, just the
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar, and so we said, okay, let's do it
Speaker 1: together and we'll sing two duets, you know, let's pick
Speaker 1: the songs. So that's how that happened. But otherwise I
Speaker 1: do lots of I just gotta I just gotta contacted
Speaker 1: by Aaron all who's my friend who said let's do something,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I'm definitely gonna do something with
Speaker 1: Aaron Nelle. I just did something with Dion. It's really
Speaker 1: good too. It's really good, you know. I mean it's interesting. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are various things that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: that I that I think of. And the fact that
Speaker 1: it's not the mainstream, well it's I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: it's neither here nor there. I mean, it's it, you know.
Speaker 1: I hate to say it is what it is, but
Speaker 1: it is what it is. That that's that's what I
Speaker 1: do with my time and my thoughts I'm not making
Speaker 1: a making any case for it. The only case I
Speaker 1: can make for that is if I what I do
Speaker 1: is entertaining, and then you know, and I'd say, okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm you know. The way I'm thinking is is
Speaker 1: good at the time that you collaborated with garf uncle,
Speaker 1: would you write songs and you and he would in
Speaker 1: your head and he was in the music d n
Speaker 1: A wise when you were writing the music. I'm assuming
Speaker 1: so when you were together, and and and if and
Speaker 1: the follow up to that is what do you find
Speaker 1: that now? Sometimes you write songs and you and that
Speaker 1: comes as in an old habit that you come in
Speaker 1: for you, not even necessarily him as somebody else. The
Speaker 1: songs come to your head sometimes that you write music
Speaker 1: seems to be passing through you like waves, you know.
Speaker 1: And when when that happens to your sit there and go,
Speaker 1: well that would I would need someone else to do
Speaker 1: that with me? No, no more, no, not anymore? Something else?
Speaker 1: I mean? Well, first of all, uh, to go all
Speaker 1: the way back to the times that I sang with Artie,
Speaker 1: since we started singing together, it was kind of natural
Speaker 1: for me too, and what I wrote for the two
Speaker 1: of us to sing it. I didn't spend any time
Speaker 1: thinking about what I should do that's going to be
Speaker 1: good for the two you know, singable for the two
Speaker 1: of us. What I was writing was singable for the
Speaker 1: two of about, and it probably didn't separate until I
Speaker 1: wrote Bridge over Trouble Water, which you know. When I
Speaker 1: wrote that, I said, well, already should sing that, you know.
Speaker 1: Not it shouldn't be two two voices. Already should sing that,
Speaker 1: you know. But otherwise I really didn't spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time thinking about who, you know who. I just
Speaker 1: sort of just keep writing the songs. They're mostly about,
Speaker 1: mostly about my life. You know, I'm not writing for somebody.
Speaker 1: I'm not writing somebody else. I'm not writing for somebody else.
Speaker 1: You don't want to talk about your life, but your
Speaker 1: life's in the music. Yeah, to the degree to which
Speaker 1: I would talk about you know, I'm not pretending that
Speaker 1: I'm that I'm a cipher, you know, I mean you could,
Speaker 1: you know, you can and for lots about who I
Speaker 1: am in my life from the information that's available. But
Speaker 1: that's you know, I wish it. I wish it wasn't
Speaker 1: wish it. It's weird times. We live in that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, without getting into any of that you know
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Mean in my own life, it's like
Speaker 1: I just can't believe. Yeah, it's it's like there's people
Speaker 1: there while you and I are sleeping, there's people doing
Speaker 1: push ups in the garage, and they wake up and
Speaker 1: they want to kill you. They just want to, They
Speaker 1: want to just you know, they construct you. And it's
Speaker 1: a it's a really big distraction if you're trying to
Speaker 1: work on some problem that you really can't quite grasp anyway,
Speaker 1: which is what's always going on with me and the
Speaker 1: music and the writing. It's like, I'm just I can't
Speaker 1: quite grasp that problem. And then you keep pushing. And
Speaker 1: when you do, if you do it right, then you
Speaker 1: get Then you solve the problem. Great, Now what's the
Speaker 1: next problem? Remember, And I'll never forget, you know, I
Speaker 1: certainly have had my public relations and reversals, and what
Speaker 1: I feelized this is I don't want you to love
Speaker 1: me or hate me. Now I get up there. I
Speaker 1: do what I do. If you like it, great, if
Speaker 1: you don't like it, But I don't do the sales,
Speaker 1: the salesmanship anymore at all. Just done to it. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, not because it's it really takes a lot
Speaker 1: of energy and thought to do that. And if you're
Speaker 1: spending your energy and thought on that, then you're not
Speaker 1: spending it on what you're interested in, which which is what,
Speaker 1: however you think about about acting and movies and that.
Speaker 1: And that's why they came to you in the first place,
Speaker 1: because they liked what you did. So now they're going
Speaker 1: to distract you with something and you won't be able
Speaker 1: to do what you did as well, and then they'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't do it as well. So for the job
Speaker 1: for the for the artist is to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't pay too much attention to you, or I
Speaker 1: can't get this done. You know, at a certain point, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, how's the business changed. That's a common question
Speaker 1: which we're just gonna say. But in a certain sense,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this it's not like this is a
Speaker 1: it's not a very profitable business. Ah, it's been like that.
Speaker 1: It's been like that for a long time, you know,
Speaker 1: for with the exception of a couple of acts at
Speaker 1: the at the top, and the records don't sell anywhere
Speaker 1: near what they did. But it's a long change that's coming.
Speaker 1: And I assume that the eventually the digital world will
Speaker 1: start to pay musicians the way they used to pay them.
Speaker 1: Right now, it's not you can't really make you can't
Speaker 1: really make a great, great living at it. But um,
Speaker 1: having said that, for me, since I'm not in the
Speaker 1: position of needing to make a living, fortunately you know,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for that, I can spend time thinking about this,
Speaker 1: which is either an indulgence on my part or is
Speaker 1: worthwhile investigation, depending upon how people listen to it and
Speaker 1: what they say afterwards. If they say great, then okay.
Speaker 1: Some people sold their songwriting uh royalties of their rights
Speaker 1: over the years. I mean, the Beatles themselves sold that
Speaker 1: a lot of that and uh and then got it back.
Speaker 1: But and you didn't. Was there ever a time when
Speaker 1: people just came to you and try trying to wrestle
Speaker 1: from you? Here they tried to tempt you to buy
Speaker 1: because you I mean, I'm saying this and hopefully a flattering,
Speaker 1: flattering way, because your music is so enduring and so
Speaker 1: you know, truth and beauty and abundance and it's going
Speaker 1: to play forever, and you wonder are they gonna do
Speaker 1: people come to you and just try to make you
Speaker 1: some insane offered to kind of run off with your
Speaker 1: song rights. Um no, no, no, yeah, they're been offers
Speaker 1: to buy and that's not a I don't see that.
Speaker 1: I don't see that I would want to sell that,
Speaker 1: And of course not if you don't. Ah, how wonderful
Speaker 1: for you that you didn't control. I'm lucky that I Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I grew up in the record business here in New York,
Speaker 1: so you know, I knew about having your own publishing company,
Speaker 1: which was nothing. All you have to do was file up,
Speaker 1: you know, some papers with Albany, and you were a company,
Speaker 1: and you could publish your own songs. Nobody was selling
Speaker 1: songs the way publishers used to, so nobody was entitled
Speaker 1: to any of it. So you start your own publishing
Speaker 1: company and I did, and you know, luckily I started
Speaker 1: with the sound of Silence. And uh so, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what's what's your question. At a different time, you see
Speaker 1: the way that the business is now and how tough
Speaker 1: it is to sell recordings and to make a living
Speaker 1: quote unquote, to make a good living in this business,
Speaker 1: and people maybe they thought that that would never evolve
Speaker 1: that way, and for whatever reason, they sold their music
Speaker 1: rights and they made a lot of money. What was
Speaker 1: a lot of money back then. I'm sure that they
Speaker 1: felt that they were doing the right thing. And nearly
Speaker 1: everybody and I know that did that regretted that. I mean,
Speaker 1: they always the rights to your intellectual property as king,
Speaker 1: and you want to hold on to that. I think
Speaker 1: it's so how fortunate for you that you were able
Speaker 1: to do that. Well, you know, it's got to be
Speaker 1: a very difficult thing for somebody to sell the thing
Speaker 1: that they made, you know, even even if they're really
Speaker 1: well compensated, just still, you know, you're still it's not
Speaker 1: you don't have any distance from that product. It's your
Speaker 1: it's your work, it's it's you, you know, so you're selling.
Speaker 1: You're selling. It's got to be some level of discomfort
Speaker 1: with that, you know, even if you say, look, hey,
Speaker 1: i'll take that, I'll take this this level of discomfort
Speaker 1: for this much money, you know. Okay, well, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe let's take a quick quick Uh can we have
Speaker 1: the music? What are we playing? Have you been told?
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I don't know if just what
Speaker 1: we want to do with this, because nobody's ever heard this.
Speaker 1: Are you are you comfortable with us playing the up
Speaker 1: of the video. I have to think about that for
Speaker 1: a minute. I was just going to play it for you.
Speaker 1: At this point in our interview, Paul Simon plays me
Speaker 1: a new song, Insomnia acts Lullaby. Well, I'm afraid to
Speaker 1: ask you any questions now as we come to the
Speaker 1: end of our time together. But are you insomni active?
Speaker 1: Trouble sleeping on? You're a good sleeper if you are,
Speaker 1: let sleep because I have terrible insomnia and it rules
Speaker 1: my life. I mean, like Understone, you're a good sleeper. Um,
Speaker 1: well when I have a lot of nightmares. Well you
Speaker 1: open that door? Now what what? What? What? What do
Speaker 1: you think that's about? No, I didn't any door. I'm
Speaker 1: just telling me. Okay, I'm sorry. You're you're right, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: we were just having a casual conversation about sleep. What's
Speaker 1: gonna happen to this music? You're gonna release this? You
Speaker 1: don't know? Yeah you are? Oh sure, as soon as
Speaker 1: I finish put it out and see see what I said,
Speaker 1: and then I'll probably gonna play it live. You know.
Speaker 1: It's tough to play some of the stuff like but
Speaker 1: well figuring out and I like my band that you know,
Speaker 1: it's the band that that was on tour with Sting
Speaker 1: and I like to you know, that's my band. I
Speaker 1: like to go out and play and you still play
Speaker 1: new music and not, you know, I want to play.
Speaker 1: I don't know. If I find I'd like to play
Speaker 1: some smaller theaters. Now, I like that sound the best
Speaker 1: of the you know, I think three thousand seeds, four
Speaker 1: thousand seed, four thousand, that that size has the best sound.
Speaker 1: By the way, I did hear forty two notes inside
Speaker 1: of each lot, at least forty Yeah, those were the
Speaker 1: instruments that I heard something coming. Yeah. Different, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know it is different. But when you record, are of
Speaker 1: spaces the turn you want or that's irrelevant the environment. No,
Speaker 1: it's not well on the studio if you're I mean,
Speaker 1: studios are disappearing. But the thing that you always looked
Speaker 1: for in the studios had it it sound and what
Speaker 1: was a lucky studio for you? Um there are lots
Speaker 1: of them in New York, I mean, but they've mostly closed.
Speaker 1: What was to be a lot used to be a lot,
Speaker 1: well A and R. It was a studio that existed
Speaker 1: for a long time, has been closed forever. There's no
Speaker 1: more Columbia Studios. Here. Ah, there's no the hit factory
Speaker 1: has gone. Um, it's only you know, there's um, there's avatar.
Speaker 1: That's that's a good place has a good that has
Speaker 1: a good studio and anyway, uh yeah, room there are
Speaker 1: rooms that are you know, really good rooms. And and
Speaker 1: in in the history of recording that really used to
Speaker 1: be the case. Like I mean, I went to Muscle
Speaker 1: shoals Alabamatory Courts because that that place had those guys,
Speaker 1: and that place had a sound. He just turned on
Speaker 1: the switch and there it was, you know, it was
Speaker 1: just you know, it was magic. And then that's not
Speaker 1: the way music is made today. I don't think. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I really don't know how it's not. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's the way music is made. Who would
Speaker 1: you love to go into a studio with and make
Speaker 1: a record with? Um just one example. There's just too
Speaker 1: many examples, is what it is. Um. The way I
Speaker 1: make music is is is not in collaboration with somebody,
Speaker 1: And maybe that would work. I don't think so. Though
Speaker 1: you know, Edie and I have written some songs together,
Speaker 1: but and we're pretty close, and it's uh, it's hard
Speaker 1: to get the balance right when you're you know, collaborating
Speaker 1: on writing if you're if you're just used to writing
Speaker 1: your own songs. So there's nobody. So there's the people
Speaker 1: that I like want to work with. Are are you know,
Speaker 1: maybe somebody who's like a specifically great at playing a
Speaker 1: pipe organ in a in a big cathedral, you know,
Speaker 1: because like I did that. It wasn't a cathedral, was
Speaker 1: big church, So I need that player. Then there's uh, oh,
Speaker 1: there's just uh there's a drummers, really great jazz drummer,
Speaker 1: Jack did John Nette and he's playing on one of
Speaker 1: the one of the tracks, and Bobby McFerrin is singing
Speaker 1: on in fact, that track that you just listened to.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of people who are doing sounds
Speaker 1: and playing stuff that I that I like to work with,
Speaker 1: and I do so maybe maybe more often than you
Speaker 1: might think, it's people ask you to be on their
Speaker 1: record or even just participating. It goes on a bit.
Speaker 1: One of the most vivid memories I have because I've
Speaker 1: collected your music. I have everything downloaded him and you
Speaker 1: name it and listen to your music all the time.
Speaker 1: My daughter is nineteen years old and she's flipped out
Speaker 1: for your music. She just loves you and loves your
Speaker 1: music and plays it all the time. When the SNLT came,
Speaker 1: it's you alone, message to myself. That's it right there.
Speaker 1: And we talked about some all times drunk, Still crazy
Speaker 1: to all, Still crazy after all. I started crying, my woman,
Speaker 1: I were crying because it was so beautiful. I'm not
Speaker 1: the child o man tends to socialize. I seem to
Speaker 1: lean on old familiar ways and I ain't no fool
Speaker 1: ful love songs that whisper in my ears. Still crazy
Speaker 1: after all these years, Still crazy after all. My thanks
Speaker 1: to the great Paul Simon. This is Alec Baldwin you're
Speaker 1: listening to. Here's the thing