Paul Simon,
There Goes Rhymin' Simon
(1973)

When something goes wrong
I'm the first to admit it
I'm the first to admit it
But the last one to know
When something goes right
Well it's likely to lose me
It's apt to confuse me
It's such an unusual sight
I can't get used to something so right
Something so right

~ Something So Right

I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
But it's all right, it's all right
We've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what went wrong

~ American Tune

No, you don't have to lie to me
Just give me some tenderness
Beneath your honesty

~ Tenderness

Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)
March 17, 1999

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school,
It's a wonder I can think at all . . .

From the opening strains of "Kodachrome" to the fading gospel vocals of the last verse of "Loves Me Like a Rock," Paul Simon's second solo album swings and soars as much as it did when it was released in 1973.  Combining pop lyrics with the best kind of white-boy R&B, There Goes Rhymin' Simon was my favorite record when I was ten years old and it's still one of my favorites today, twenty years later.

Some of Paul Simon's most memorable early solo songs came from this album.  Besides "Kodachrome" and "Loves Me Like a Rock," you'll find standouts like "American Tune" and "Something So Right."  But even the lesser-known songs on this album are great.   "St. Judy's Comet" and "Tenderness" are notable for their gentle rhythms and the quiet wisdom of their lyrics.  "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" and "Was a Sunny Day" are two songs that just make you feel good.   "One Man's Ceiling is Another Man's Floor" still rocks, even though I no longer marvel over the profundity of the lyrics the way I did when I was twelve.  And while each of the songs is strong on its own, this is one of those albums that works great as an album.  The songs are mixed just right for listening.  I just love records like that.

Listening today, I am amazed at how well Paul Simon's lyrics have stood up against time.  The songs echo with a strange sense of disillusionment tempered by a healthy love of life.  The jaded -- yet hopeful -- voice of "American Tune" is perhaps the best example.  There's a distinctly contemporary flavor to that expression of disenfranchisement and marginalization, and indeed the song has very appropriately been adopted as an anthem of the gay pride movement in the 1990s.  Other songs on this album speak to me in the same way as "American Tune," with a voice that just sounded wise when I was younger, and now feels familiar in a way I never expected.  Now when I listen, I recognize the self-questioning that has come to be such a part of my own life in the last few years.  Yet the introspection of the lyrics is balanced by bright guitar arrangements and jazzy piano riffs throughout the album.

Paul Simon was never the vocalist of Simon and Garfunkel.  Yes, he sang, but it was Art Garfunkel's ethereal voice that gave that duo its unique vocal sound.  Yet on this album Paul Simon sounds relaxed, comfortable with his own abilities and limits, and that confidence makes his lyric style very appealing to me.  And even on this early solo effort, he shows his consummate talent for surrounding himself with strong and talented vocalists who bring his arrangements to life.  On Rhymin' Simon, he calls on the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Roches for vocal support, much as he has called more recently on Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Linda Ronstadt to add complexity and depth to the songs of Graceland (1986) and Rhythm of the Saints (1990).

Coming just a few years after Simon and Garfunkel's most polished and most produced album, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970), There Goes Rhymin' Simon truly represents a change in Paul Simon's sound -- continuing the shift he began with his first solo album, Paul Simon (1972).   His dabbling in rhythm and blues, gospel, jazz, and other musical forms on Rhymin' Simon foreshadows the cultural sampling that distinguishes his later work.  And what's more, it foreshadows the sounds of a lot of other folks who were influenced by Paul Simon.

This is classic pop at its best.  It's hard to beat.