Paul Simon - So Beautiful Or So What (Decca)
4/5
By: Stephen Maughan
Paul Simon certainly needs no introduction, but here’s one anyway – he’s a man responsible for some of the greatest songs of the last century (oh, and Rockfeedback DJ set staple ‘You Can Call Me Al’) who, along with Art Garfunkel, released albums like Sounds of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water which frequently appear in those ‘Top 10 Albums Of All Time’ lists magazines like to put out every so often. So beautiful.
So what. That was so last century, right? To the vast majority of the population, Paul Simon, 69, hasn't really done much of interest since 1986's Graceland, and unlike contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and even Paul McCartney, he hasn’t caught the younger crowd or the same tabloid media attention.
So what. He doesn't care! He's a poet, not a shleb! He just gets on with writing his little songs, not caring about his image or why his concerts are full of people his own age. He has made music that will break your heart it's so beautiful.
Rather than start another paragraph with another ‘so what?’, let’s get down to it. Paul Simon's latest album starts after a huge hiatus actually starts pretty weakly with 'Getting Ready For Christmas Day', a song whose title tells you all you need to know. If you can get through this one in June however, you’re in for a treat - 'The Afterlife'. It's the most intriguing songs I've heard in a while, a tale about dying and having to fill in a form before you can get into the gates of heaven, and about seeing a beautiful girl “with the sunshine hair” in heaven's waiting room and trying to hit on her - “Maybe you maybe me?”. It's about the “voice from above sugar-coated with love”. It's about how Buddha and Moses have to also fill in the same form and join the queue to get in. Bureaucracy in heaven. It's a possibility many of us have never thought about, but perhaps most of us are not at the right age to worry about those things too much.
Paul Simon, much to his credit, has always written about life as he sees it at the time of each record. So, approaching 70, a lot here is about his reflections on dying, the purpose of life, love, old age, and ultimately, God. He poetically and tenderly examines these themes in depth on 'Questions For The Angels', another highlight. But rather than asking these questions in a weary desperate way, the whole album is ridiculously easy on the ear, ably displaying Simon's trademark lightness of touch and laid back attitude.
So Beautiful Or So What is an album that could surprise, not only because of the fact that Paul Simon is still releasing records, but also because his ageless voice can still sound as sweet as ever. He's an honest man - you've got to admire a fellow who writes “I loved her the first time I saw her, I know that's an old song-writing cliche” in a tune. You can imagine him sitting down to write by a fireplace, struggling with the lyrics “Oh no, that's such a cliché!” Above all, the album reminds us Paul Simon is a great lyricist, and lines like “Man becomes machine, oil pouring down his face, machine becomes man with a bomb in the marketplace” on 'Love Is Eternal Sacred Light' could come from no other.
That all said, So Beautiful Or So What might take a while to appreciate. It's certainly not a complicated album sonically - producer Phil Ramone’s expertly smooth skills are evident on every note. Yet it has some serious questions about mortality and a wave of restlessness running through it, and finds the singer looking for meaning after all those years - “I'm driving along in my automobile...check out the radio pop music station that don't sound like my music to me” - a sentiment many of us can surely relate to. Welcome back, Paul.
So Beautiful Or So What by Paul Simon
Artists in this article: Paul Simon
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