WEBVTT - Paul Simon 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.120 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:10.120 thing the railway station. Got a ticket for a destination 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:17.400 show and today legendary songwriter Paul Simon on two one 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.680 that stands may suit case and guitar and and every 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:32.479 stop is neatly plan for a poet and award words. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:37.599 Paul Simon doesn't often give interviews. He occasionally tours, recently 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.040 with Sting, but mostly Simon lives a quiet life at 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:45.120 home in Connecticut with his wife, singer Edie Brickell. There 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.559 he spends his time making music and writing songs. He's 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.879 written hundreds, a large number of which are among the 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:58.240 most popular and admired in music history. Bridge Over, Troubled Water, Coda, Chrome, Slip, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.800 Slide in Away Graceland, to name a few. Over the years, 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.720 the way he creates his songs has changed. The process 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:10.119 has evolved. There's still elements of it that are like 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:18.120 the my first instincts about writing, but otherwise it's become 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:24.800 much slower and much more complicated. I think, well, because 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.600 it's entwined with record making with me that's singing both, 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:33.880 and it's a complicated process. Now it's um to you know, 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.960 to do it abstractly without referring to one particular song 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.280 probably wouldn't show you as much as if I gave 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.720 you an example but described what it was like before 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:50.560 they just came ripping out of you all the time. Um, 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.880 um not No. I was never a really fast writer. 0:01:54.040 --> 0:02:00.480 But when I was in my early twenties h and 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.360 I wrote all the songs for all the beginning songs 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.000 for Simon and Garth phone Call, that came pretty fast. 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.360 I was living partly here in partly in England, and yeah, 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:13.960 well really you know, I mean within a five year 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:19.240 period of from like nineteen sixty five to nineteen sixty nine, 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.760 I wrote us God, most of my big hits, you know, 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:30.040 Bridge Over, Trouble Waters, Sound of Silence, Mrs Robinson, the Boxer, 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:37.160 Homeward Bound, I am a rock, Let's see America Feeling 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:41.280 Groovy as a hit for somebody else. Um. So I 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.120 was faster, but now I'm much slower. This last group 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.960 of songs that I've been working on has been probably 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.400 taking me about three years. But it isn't like I 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.480 finished the song and go onto the next. I just 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.880 keep working on the songs. So some of them are 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:00.079 like a work in progress. That's like three fectionism. No, 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.639 I don't like that word because it implies about nine 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.560 questions that use the word perfectionism in them. So I well, 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.520 I just don't think it's It's like any performance. If 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.079 I said to you, oh, I like, you're just like 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.240 you know, you're just a perfectionist. You know, you know, 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.360 why do you want to take another take? It was great? 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.720 You're a perfectionist, you're you know. Your answer would be, 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.120 there's no perfect. Not going for perfect. I'm going for 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.480 something that I know and I know and when it 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.320 happens for me. That's what you would say. As a performer, 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.560 you can how can I think it right? You know? 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:40.400 I mean, but even if you've got it, you wouldn't say, well, 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.600 this is a perfect performance. You would say, no, I 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:49.840 realized my vision or I realized how I wanted to 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.480 play this, but you wouldn't describe it as perfect. Right. 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:55.720 Perfect doesn't have anything to do with it, with the whole, 0:03:55.920 --> 0:04:00.200 with the whole thing. It is added a question. It's 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.200 like Japanese temples where they always leave some imperfection and 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.040 a zen temple because the idea of striving for a 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:11.040 perfect temple was an affront to you know, God, It's 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.200 not possible for man to do a thing without import 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.480 with with no imperfection. When you write music, now, is 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:19.440 there like a state you want to get into? Is 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:21.960 there a place? Is there a whole you when you 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.280 left alone for a couple of hours to think about it. 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.680 I mean, I find them basically thinking about this all 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:32.839 the time when I'm not thinking about um, you know, 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.960 my wife and family or some little crisis that comes 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.880 up or something like that. If my mind is just 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.040 you know, free to go where it wants to go, 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.520 it goes to the songs I'm working on constantly, just 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:52.680 all the time. When you wrote music before, whether any 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.880 of them that just came right out of you and 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.039 it s well, sometimes they do in the early ones, 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.480 of course, like the Sounds of Silence. I wrote that 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.320 when I was twenty one years old, and I have 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.240 no idea. I couldn't have taken very long. But I mean, 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.359 I have no idea how I even wrote that song, 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.480 because and at the time it wasn't like I was 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.960 really surprised that I wrote it. I thought this was good, 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:19.960 this is a good song, but I had no idea 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.080 of what that was. Same with Bridge over Trouble Water. 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.200 You know, I wrote it. I said, this is better 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.400 than I usually write. This is a this is this 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.800 is a this is a good song. But I didn't 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.480 know that it was going to be a song that 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.479 was going to be fifty years and people you know 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.080 would know it for you know, the songs you've made 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.719 that have been in the film soundtracks? Were you appreciative 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.000 of that? And great depends on that depends on how 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.040 they were used or something. You know. Look, there's no 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:49.919 time that I've that I could say I object to 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:54.640 the way my song is used in uh in your movie, 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:56.800 because I mean if I objected that much, I don't 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.960 have to give him a license. I control publishing. So 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.440 so I mean sometimes I think, oh, this is really good, 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.920 you know, like, um, when I see the other day 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:16.200 Anderson's film about the family, Wes Anderson Tenant Bounds, Yeah, 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.120 the Tenemy, the Royal Tenor Bounds. Right, I just saw 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.680 the Royal Tenant Bounds. Again. The other dadn't seen it, 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.520 probably and I don't know what ten years or something 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.039 like that, eight years or something, and they used me 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.960 and Julio in there, and it's perfect. Comes in said there, 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.240 I said, perfect. All I could say it about somebody 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.320 else's work. Anyway, it's a it's a very good choice. 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.560 It's sort of explodes and a joyous what happened on 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.560 the joy with the kids? Yeah, that's great. I never 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.760 watd that film. That's why I know that film. I 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.320 love his films such an on Ball. Yeah, I like 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.280 his films a lot, and I really like that one 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.480 in which I hadn't seen in a while. And you know, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.800 I love Gene Hackman's performance. And was Cape Man the 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.640 only musical you did? The others who were on the 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.720 drawing where that was the only one everyone did conceive 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:06.600 nothing that was Yeah, it takes so long to make them. Well, 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:08.599 it takes me a long time to do anything, you know, 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.160 to do anything. But it took a long time to 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.960 make the to make the cape Man, that was about 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.600 five years. And then the idea began. When the idea 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:29.200 was um, I think it was after Graceland and and 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:31.280 the Rhythm of the Saints, I said, well, I mean 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.000 it's time to do something else. I know, how do 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:41.000 I follow those albums? You know? So I'll do I said, okay, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.000 I'll try to take my hand out a musical and 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:49.400 then that kids salad grown. He's just in my memory 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:53.480 from when I grew up here. So I picked him 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.320 because that would mean that the music would be doo wop. 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.800 And also he was Puerto Rican, so that means it 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.520 would be Latin music in there too. So to me, 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.960 I said, I could be interested in listening to a 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.080 musical that was due up in Latin. I like both 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:10.800 of them. I think it would be a nice And 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:15.400 here's the story. So that's how I picked it, you know. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.000 That's that's why I did it, you know. I mean, 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.400 as as it turns out, we we didn't do it 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.840 very well. And what do you mean by that? Why? Well, 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.920 I should I shouldn't really put it that way. It 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:36.800 was notably unsuccessful critically and everything, and there are serious 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.160 flaws with it as a piece. But actually a lot 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.520 of it was really good. I mean, I think a 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:44.319 lot of people were thrilled by the attempt that you 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.800 met people who were you know, oh yeah, it wasn't 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:53.640 like yeah, yeah it had. It brought a lot of goodwill. 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.800 People liked it and uh, but it wasn't a success. 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.720 But when it came back at Bam, I know whatever, 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.480 it was seven eight years ago, and then when it 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.319 was done in Central Park two years after that, they 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:12.040 were both successful. Anyway, I think it was a very 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:17.240 interesting piece and I'm not, by any means embarrassed by 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.760 I think it's some really good things in there. Certainly 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:21.840 the best doop song I ever wrote is in there. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.200 And uh, but anyway, I don't really have any interest 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.480 in doing it. You don't. Are there other things you 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.080 think of? Do you think about films? Just scoring film? 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:36.400 Never that was the that was the deviation for you. Um. No, 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.800 it's not something that I think of. But if somebody 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.360 came to me with a really interesting like for example, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.840 there's a an old friend of mine who's will play right, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:52.520 and he asked me if I would write some guitar 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.679 music to a new play that he wrote, And I said, yeah, 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.720 it's kind of interesting idea. But I wouldn't think to myself, 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:07.720 I'd to write some guitar music for a theatrical piece films. Um, 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.679 if somebody came to me with an idea, I would. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.360 I might be very excited by it. But really, what 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:19.439 I think about naturally is writing songs and making records, 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.880 and I'm really content to not do anything other than 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:28.120 that because I'm still learning about that. So I think 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:36.200 it's getting better. And as the work sort of the 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.120 work getting better is a is a manifestation of me 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.400 understanding things that I've been working on from you know, 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.600 a long time, some things like you know, decades and 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:51.439 decades some So I don't have a specific example. I'm 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:56.160 just thinking about how you you, over decades learn a 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.960 sense of what words to stay away from, what we're 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:06.880 to go to, how rhythm could be used, how melody 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.920 you just learn you know from your craft, uh interest 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.560 you say, what words to stay away from that in 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.200 different circumstances you would want to stay away from certain 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:26.199 certain love words. A lawyer, No, I never. I went 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.200 to law school for a year. But that was a 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:33.280 complete that was a complete misunderstanding of who I was 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:39.080 by me, where'd you go law? One year? It was 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:44.120 so boring. I wasn't interested in I had no reason 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:50.360 to be. This is my idea. No. No. What happened 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.120 was a bunch of my friends in college, we're going 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.920 to take the law boards, so I so they said 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.160 you should take them. So I was an English major, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.240 but I said, okay, I'll take him. And I took 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.000 him and I scored very high on them, so, you know, 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.920 at twenty years old or whatever, you know, I said, 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:10.640 I don't know, maybe I'm supposed to be a lawyer 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.599 or something. I mean, if I scored so high on me, 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.720 so I don't know, you know. So I went and 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.800 you know, did a year of in Brooklyn. I made 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:21.720 the record I had made that record would already by 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:26.480 that anyway, exactly Columbia deal. Yeah. So we had made 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.600 this Wednesday morning, three am, and the acoustic version of 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:36.359 the Sound of Silence in nineteen sixty four, you know. Um, 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.840 so I was at school then, and then I probably 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.040 wrote it. You know, I don't remember when I wrote it, 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.040 by a year or two before we recorded it, you know. 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:49.679 So anyway, I was just one of those you know, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.839 I could have wasted it on a lot of worse 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.360 things than that, I suppose, but I was going to 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.520 England and every break I had I was going to 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.839 and I had my friends there and my girlfriend there 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:08.600 and uh and then uh and the first semester at school, 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.600 I got bees and I wasn't showing up or doing anything. 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:14.520 And I said, this is you know, I don't know, 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:19.200 it's ridiculous. The next semester, I got all d's, you know, 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.240 and I said, you know, I mean, the truth is, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.040 I just don't want to be this, you know, I 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.880 don't want to be here, so I'm I'm leaving. You know. 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.360 It's not like I said, Oh now, I'm I've got 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:32.800 to really dig in if I don't want to get 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.200 a d I just said, I'm just totally indifferent. I'm 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:36.840 just in over the wrong place. And I went and 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.760 I moved to England. And there's your girlfriend, that the 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.400 one who you're married, No Kathy, who has of of 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.280 you know, the songs about her. You've got a whole 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.079 list of questions, these questions that you're interested in, the 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.400 questions that you think people will be interested in. I 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.679 get a list of questions that I have a producer, right, 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:00.360 and some volume of them. I used that I write 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.280 a lot of my own questions because the basic principle 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.679 is I want people to describe for me, and whether 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:13.160 it's you, whether it's Obama, it doesn't matter who is everybody. 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.360 I wanted them to describe, how is it felt to 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.920 be you? Really, that's the basic premise of the show. 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:23.720 What about if somebody doesn't want to describe that they're 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.520 free to do with whatever they please. Maybe they don't 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:31.040 even want to describe that to themselves. To themselves, well, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.640 maybe sometimes it's a way of thinking about life, is 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:36.600 what you're saying. Some people come in here and after 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:41.400 about twenty minutes they begin to have a conversation that 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.880 I think that they wanted to have. My next question 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:45.960 for you is what did your parents think when you 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.480 were so young? Did your parents have any kind of 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.440 opinion about your career at that age? You were sixteen 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.560 years old when you want American bands down? Oh, I 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.920 don't think that anybody thought of it as a career. 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.640 I think I thought they were, you know, be I 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:03.960 made a record, The record got played on the radio, 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:06.160 it was, you know, kind of a hit. We went 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:13.160 on television. What do you think about that? They were happy? 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.480 You know, my father was a professional bass player and 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.840 he was used to be on some television shows that 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:25.520 you know, like UM, the the Arthur Godfrey Show. He 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:28.360 was in that band, and Jackie Gleason he was on 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.080 that band. So I mean, it wasn't that it was 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:32.880 added a question that you would ever see somebody on 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.000 television because like we'd you know, when we're kids would 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.120 let's see it, let's see if we see dad, you know, 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:42.160 when they showed the band. But so, you know, it 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:46.440 was like it's not exactly a show business family, but 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.840 it's not exactly civilian either. You know, he was he 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.320 was a good musician. I'm sure he didn't think that 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.520 the piece of work that we did was very good, 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:01.160 but he was happy that it was to change what 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:07.800 his opinion about my work. Yeah, of course I wonder 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:15.120 what that was like for him. Well, you know, it's 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.440 a very very interesting question and one that I think 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.520 about a lot. But I do really do think that 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.360 it's like one of those questions that even though there's 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:29.520 nothing in in the response that would be hurtful or anything, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.480 it's just one of those things where like it's sort 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:37.680 of my life, you know, like it's not it's very 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:42.760 entertaining I know for people, but why should I do that? 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.280 And not the kind of thing you want to talk about? Yeah, 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.040 I don't think so how he felt about, you know me, obviously, 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.240 it was like it is a very interesting subject and 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.680 a complex and a complex subject, you know, and I 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.280 think about it a lot because, as you can imagine, 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:04.760 it would be provoke all kinds of all kinds of 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:16.720 response responses and parent child relationships. But everything happens to everybody, 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:21.479 you know. It's not like there is anything of mine 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:29.959 that is that different from anybody else's experiences that I should, 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.639 you know, bequeath it that much more time. You know, 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.720 it's something, Yeah, there was something up, something was off, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.439 you know, but that's crazy about him. I'm sure he 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.040 was crazy about me. And uh and if there was 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:48.879 a complication in it, then okay, it's like what what 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.840 you know as opposed to let me figure out what 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:58.239 that complication was and let's talk about it. That's that's so, 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:04.080 so let's go on. You know, another subject I wanted you. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:05.359 I don't mean to be rude. Do you want to 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.440 ask me another question about that? Or the only reason 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.800 I asked is because I mean, for me, my dad 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.720 died when I was twenty five years old, and he 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.840 never got to see any of what I did. And 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.080 I'm always interested in people's relationships with their parents in 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.639 terms of just how how it may or may not 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.639 affect what you do. You know, how man, you know, 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:32.600 just anecdotally, I noticed that people whose childhood's are more 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:37.560 troubled than mine was but you know, I had had 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.040 some kind of hardships, usually money issues or something like that, 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.800 or family or broken you know, divorce or you know 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:54.000 that there's more interest in the subject than I naturally 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.879 feel about it, having grown up with just my younger 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:06.480 brother and a peaceful, loving, uh family. I mean, I 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.640 can't say that I really wanted to get out of there, 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:15.560 you know, but for what purpose? She just you know, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.080 I was ready. Yeah, I was free, you know, I 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.480 just want to be free. Is a picture of my 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:27.120 my son Adrian that that I love. He's sitting He's 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.320 sitting in a snowsuit. He looks like he's maybe a 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.000 year old, sitting in the snow in Central Park, and 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:37.040 the look of exasperation on his face is so profound 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.239 that I know, it's like he was already whoever he was, 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.600 and he just you know, said, oh man, do I 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:45.600 have to go through this whole thing to get up 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:50.760 to you know? He was that guy already. And whoever 0:19:50.800 --> 0:20:02.240 I was, they people weren't prepared for for what it 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.640 is that I was in the world that I came from. 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.960 Nobody nobody said, well, will you make your living as 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.880 an artist? Like that wasn't a possibility. Certainly you can 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.879 make your living as a rock and roll artist. And 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:26.920 I mean forget about like the greatest songwriters or something 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.960 like that, just even a songwriter. You know, like you're 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:32.880 gonna like be a songwriter. Or It's like so nobody 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:38.960 was saying anything particular, like wow, you're really gifted. You 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.960 should you know, do this study that. You know, it 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.879 was like great, My father's thing was great. You know 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:49.280 you can do this. You know, it's better than waiting 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.639 on tables. You know, it's so being you know, be 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.280 a musician, but don't be a musician for your whole career. 0:20:55.440 --> 0:21:05.840 But I was already long gone into that. M Paul 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.919 Simon's career in music has made an indelible mark. Simon 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.440 and Garfunkel won the Grammy for Lifetime Achievement, and Simon 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.920 himself belongs to an elite club of musicians inducted into 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.159 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Other members 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.800 include Michael Jackson, Blue Read, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon. 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:28.240 Take a listen to our archives where I speak with 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.920 another musician with a long and storied career, Radio Heads 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:35.760 frontman Tom York. You've been with those guys for how long? 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.160 And now we started when were six Radiohead, so that's 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.280 quite long. What do you attribute that to? Persistence? My 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:49.840 great diplomatic skills. Note more at Here's the Thing dot org. 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.400 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.280 As the story goes, Paul Simon met Art Garth Uncle 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.440 during a sixth grade production of Alice in Wonderland. Four 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.840 years later, they signed with a label under the pseudonym 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.439 Tom and Jerry, and their song Hey Schoolgirl reached the 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:22.000 Billboard Charts. Today, Paul Simon has twelve Grammys, and in 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.119 two thousand seven, he became the first recipient of the 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:29.639 Library of Congress' Is Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Paul 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.280 never stops working on his music, and he brought a 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.600 c D of some of his latest songs to our interview. 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:37.720 I guess it's an album, you know, I don't even 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.399 know what it is anymore, because I'm working on a 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:44.280 group of songs and I've been working on him for 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:49.000 a long time. And uh, and I'm also working on 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:54.000 different sounds. And you know, as you combine things from 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:59.600 different places and you find a way of expressing yourself 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:04.359 by doing that. There's something calming about that. It's good 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:06.879 and it sort of spills you into the rest of 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:10.960 your life. You start the problem solve in the same 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:19.200 way he starts. To just have a certain connection that 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:23.040 you that you sense and you believe in it, and 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.000 you go at least you go with it. And if 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:31.280 I have to break down what my instincts are cerebraly 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.320 and tell you why, I can, you know, but it's 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.520 not really necessary for me to get in the way 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:43.760 of whatever the flow is going is going to give me. 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:47.399 And then, you know, after I've reached a certain amount 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:49.200 of songs, I cut it off and say, okay, that's 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:51.120 this group. Let's now I'll take a look and see 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:56.199 is that is that something? You know? What is it? 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:58.520 I've just finished it? What is it now? You know? 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:01.240 Because it's not It's not this same process as like 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:05.720 a movie company says, here, I want to make a movie. 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:10.280 You know, here's here's what it is, here's the and 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:14.280 here's the budget, and when you finish it will judge it, 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:17.800 you know. But in the context that you're making it 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:21.320 is that is a certain context. I'm not doing that. 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:23.720 I'm just finishing a bunch of songs and then saying 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:28.040 what does that mean? And my, I guess my, you know, 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:31.280 my first real question is it's like, what does that 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:33.919 mean to somebody else who's listening to it? Do you 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:38.040 have a producer? No? No, No. All the albums you've 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:40.320 made over the many, many years, how many of them? 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:44.600 What percentage would you say you had a producer? It 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:48.600 doesn't matter. They weren't really they weren't, you know. They 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:53.040 they helped me. And well, look, there can be a 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:56.960 producer who says, let's pick the songs and then you 0:24:56.960 --> 0:25:00.760 you know, you go, we'll get the musicians and we'll 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:04.760 do it like this. And the artist says, okay, well 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:07.840 I do that. I make up the songs, I make 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:12.439 up the sounds. What I need to work with it 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:15.120 and in a collaboration is a great engineer, and I 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:18.240 am working with one. You do it all in the 0:25:18.280 --> 0:25:21.240 same studio. I do it up in a little studio 0:25:21.280 --> 0:25:24.760 in my house. There. Well, no if as if there 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:28.359 are big, bigger things like drums or something like that, 0:25:28.520 --> 0:25:30.399 I might not do it. That might do it in 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:33.320 the studio, but I have to record a drums there too. Well. 0:25:33.359 --> 0:25:35.760 The other day we we went up to this church 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:41.000 and in Hartford and we recorded a big pipe organ 0:25:41.760 --> 0:25:45.680 to put on one of the tracks. That's interesting anyway. 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:47.880 You know, you would know what I was talking about 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:50.560 if you had heard any of this, and your reaction 0:25:50.640 --> 0:25:52.879