Paul Simon
34 quotes
Biography
"I would be willing to do almost anything to make Art happy. I care about our friendship. The only thing I won't do is change the essence of my work."
"I've got nothing to do today but smile."
"If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, and that's what I'm looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything."
"We note our place with bookmarkersThat measure what we've lost."
"I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. "Mother and Child Reunion" for example, is not a song that you would have normally thought that Simon and Garfunkel would have done. It's possible that they might have. But it wouldn't have been the same, and I don't know if I would have been so inclined in that direction. So for me it was a chance to break out and gamble a little bit … The breakup had to do with a natural drifting apart as we got older and the separate lives that were more individual. We weren't so consumed with recording and performing. We had other activities … there was no great pressure to stay together other than money, which exerted very little influence upon us. … We didn't need the money."
"There was always some kind of strain, but it was workable. The bigger you get, the more of a strain it is, because in your everyday life, you're less used to compromising. As you get bigger, you have your own way. But in a partnership you always have to compromise. … When you get into a partnership, you're not the boss. There's no boss. That makes it hard."
"Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear... Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right."
"I didn't want to repeat the same notes in the second verse that I used in the first, so I wrote out all the notes of the song and all the notes that were missing in the scale, given that there are twelve notes from octave to octave. All those notes that weren't in the scale were the ones I wanted in for the next verse. The listener isn't aware that they are new notes, but the sound is pleasing to the ear. I change the key, and somehow it's fresh because you haven't heard those notes before."
"Well its great to do a neighborhood concert. I hope everyone can hear us. I hope that the sound is good. I hope we are blasting Central Park West and Fifth avenue pretty much away. I just want to thank the police department and the fire department and the parks commissioner, and Ed Koch [Audience boos] — and particularly, you know, people that never get recognized for doing good things for the city, a group of people that have donated half of the proceeds that they're making tonight — the guys who are selling loose joints are giving the city half of their income tonight."
"I am editing myself as we go along"
"I have gone through different phases in my music writing. There was a time when I used a little exercise — incorporating all of the twelve notes in the chromatic scale — to get me going. I used this technique for a while, but I don't any longer because I am going back to simpler melodies. Originally I moved away from the simple songs because I thought they were too simple."
"I write from instinct, from inexplicable sparkle. I don't know why I'm writing what I'm writing. Usually, I sit and I let my hands wander on my guitar. And I sing anything. I play anything. And I wait till I come across a pleasing accident. Then I start to develop it. Once you take a piece of musical information, there are certain implications that it automatically contains — the implication of that phrase elongated, contracted, or inverted or in another time signature. So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes."
"[Rock 'n' roll] really is not given to thinking — and resents thinking. Which I believe is the big error of rock 'n' roll. It's always aspired to be the music of the working class. And it's never been looked upon as a vocabulary for art and artistic thinking... We have to be able to expand the vocabulary to express more complex thoughts."
"This is near enough true bliss."
"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you."
"I get all the news I need from the weather report."
"Snowman sittin' in the sun doesn't have time to waste."
""The universe loves a drama," you know. And ladies and gentlemen this is the show."
"I am walking up the face of the mountain. Counting every step I climb. Remembering the names of the constellations. Forgotten is a long, long time."
"As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put to death."
"Faith is an island in the setting sun, But proof is the bottom line for everyone."
"Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do."
"I don't consider myself to be a major talent, so the only solace I can take is to hope I'm growing."
"Music is forever music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die."
"My life so common it disappears and sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears."