![]() His songs were the result not only of a single process, but all at once. For any who had the impression that Simon and his peers simply allowed songs to emerge, the truth was revealed. It showed how much focus he directed to each and every aspect of song-craft. And his demonstration of it in its nascent stages was staggering to behold, and shed a lot of light into his writing process, which was more deeply dimensional, thoughtful and yet receptive than we knew. The title alone was intriguing enough for millions of his fans to hunger for the finished record, as it’s so essentially Simon: funny and foreboding at the same time. Had Lennon gone this when “Strawberry Fields” was still in process, it would have rung the same bells. Because not only did he do it at all, he did it with a song that became a standard. Countless songwriters and musicians have said how much it impacted them. This was among the greatest songwriter moments on TV to this day, and since. Interestingly, at least to us admitted Simon nerds, is that the record is in G major (though shifts back and forth into A major), but on Cavett he plays it in D major. But hearing this, it’s clear that it was very strong. ![]() The piano arrangement worked so well, which it did, that it led him to conclude his original wasn’t as strong. Yet, as with “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” which he also wrote on guitar and then transfered to piano for the recording, he stopped playing it on guitar, and forgot the changes to it. (Beckett plays it on a Rhodes electric piano, a sound closely connected with the mid-seventies, as is the sax solo by Michael Brecker, which still is heard in the “Saturday Night Live” music, which was born at the same time.Īs consummate as the studio version is, this solo Simon rendition, even unfinished, is stunning. And it even uses some chord changes -guitaristic passing chords – that were ultimately changed on the recording when it got switched to keyboard. It’s ironic that, in the following account, that on Cavett he says he transfered the song from guitar to piano (as played by Barry Beckett) “probably because it didn’t lay right on guitar.” Yet, as this performance confirms, it lays beautifully on guitar. Playful considering his options, which he shows. (That bridge, which is discussed in the following account, changed keys and shifted the entire shape of the song.)īut at this moment in time, Simon had yet to have conceived of it, but seems content and even ![]() ![]() He plays the first two verses, leading up to the still-unwritten bridge, where he said he was stalled. Played the song exquistely, smoothly articulating its beautiful progression of what musicians sometimes call “adult chords.” Unlike most songs, including almost all the ones he wrote, each verse ends on a different chord change. Though Cavett continued to pepper the conversation with jokes, as was his job, Simon valiantly It was called “Still Crazy After All These Years.” Singing and playing beautifully complex chords on classical, gut-string guitar, he shared the seeds, both inspired and calculated, of what became one of his most iconic songs from his early solo, post-Simon & Garfunkel work. Among the most memorable moments of songwriting insight on national TV, as many of my fellow students of songwriting no doubt remember, is when Paul Simon went on “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1975 and did something rarely done: showed the host and his audience a brand new song in process. ![]()
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