Refiner’s Fire: Paul Simon: The Only Living Boy in New York

Those who were born during or after World War II have grown up under conditions unknown in previous generations. The threat of nuclear annihilation has made the world an increasingly fearful place in which to live. The horrors of war have shattered any hope that mankind is progressing toward a world utopia. Leading theologians have proclaimed the death of God. The inner feelings and anxieties of American youth living in this environment erupted into overt forms of expression during the 1960’s. What exactly took place in that decade is still being analyzed. Paul Simon began his career in that era. He expressed in song some of the turmoil of modern living. Throughout his music there is a constant underlying tone of pessimism whether one is talking about his years with Art Garfunkel (1963–1970) or his subsequent solo career.

Paul Simon’s poetic songs with their intellectual attitude and sophisticated message have found a large audience among young people. They find in them a depth of meaning with which to identify. Starting with the basic folk style, which enjoyed a revival in the early ’60’s, Simon’s music moved into folk-rock, a hybrid that coupled rich lyrics with electric and beat backgrounds. Not all of his songs are pessimistic or somber. Each album has a frivolous song or two that lightens his otherwise bleak outlook. He began his career with high school buddy Art Garfunkel in 1957 when as “Tom and Jerry” they had a rock’n’roll hit song “Hey, School Girl.” The frivolous side of his music seems to have surfaced more in his solo career, however.

Simon lives and records in New York City, his hometown. Perhaps this has colored his outlook on life, and influenced the imagery and settings of many of his songs. He is a man attempting to cope with life and to somehow come out on top.

“Patterns” examines the feeling that the world is out of control and that we have no control over our personal lives. Simon tells of lying on his bed with a streetlight throwing random shadows on the wall. He concludes that his life is like those shadows. Like a rat in a maze he is trapped in situations beyond his control.

Although stripped of all beliefs in an orderly and stable future, man continues to exist. “Kathy’s Song” finds Simon alone: “So you see I have come to doubt/All that I once held as true/I stand alone without beliefs/The only truth I know is you.” Each person fights to maintain his sanity in an uncaring society. Just as the “Sparrow” seeks help from others but finds none and dies, so each person faces life alone. The hit song “I Am A Rock” put into words what many people were feeling: I must keep to myself; I must avoid the pain of emotional attachments; safety comes in seclusion

The lack of communicatin between people is starkly portrayed in “The Sounds of Silence.” Simon tells of a dream in which a man views a crowd that hears but does not listen and talks but does not speak. Society is sick, for “silence like a cancer grows.” The singer cries out to be heard but his words fall on deaf ears as people turn to worship “the neon god they made.” The layers of meaning warn of the dangers of such silence. Relationships between people become unreal. On the fog-covered “Bleecker Street” Simon sees a “shadow touch a shadow’s hand” and in “The Dangling Conversation” a couple sharing the same room live worlds apart until, “I only kiss your shadow/I cannot feel your hand/You’re a stranger now unto me.” In “Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall” Simon admits the dark loss of identity: “I don’t know what is real/I can’t touch what I feel.” A person can only continue to pretend, to go on each day seeking a way to cope with the bewilderment of living. Or perhaps you can find relief in that “Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine” that will “neutralize the brain.”

Many young people uprooted themselves to search for themselves. Simon reflects the loneliness of the road and the longing to return home in “Homeward Bound.” “Each town looks the same” and identity becomes blurred. “America” describes the search of someone who is forced to admit to himself that even on the road he has not found himself: “I’m lost” and “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why,” he cries out. But solace is not found back in “My Little Town”; we cannot reconcile ourselves to living the life of our parents. The past also offers nothing. The success, style, and social status of “Richard Cory” ends in suicide. Nor does it seem that peace is found in isolation as “A Most Peculiar Man” points out. He, too, commits suicide.

Simon’s only solution to this loss of meaning and identity peculiar to modern civilization is to seek some level of comfort in companionship. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” pictures a life of mutual support where some ray of hope can be found when a couple walks over the rough waves of life. Like “The Boxer” Simon remains to face the foe and carry on. Yet relationships disintegrate, for “Everything Put Together Falls Apart.” So Simon finds himself asking in “Congratulations” if a man and a woman can really live in peace together.

Old age, a supposed time of satisfaction and reward, is unsettling. “Old Friends” tells of sharing a park bench, of the fear of death, and of the feeling that life has passed by the two old men.

Paul Simon toys with religion but seldom seriously considers it. Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (Simon and Garfunkel’s first album) contains “Go Tell It On The Mountain” and “You Can Tell The World,” two folk songs with the message that Christ has come to bring peace. Yet Simon doesn’t believe the lyrics he sings. The church is alive with the struggle for freedom in Simon’s “A Church Is Burning,” but the freedom is not freedom from personal sin. Rather it is civil rights and freedom for a suppressed minority. “Mrs. Robinson,” from the movie The Graduate, is consoled with the words, “Jesus loves you more than you will know” and “Heaven holds a place for those who pray,” but these seem little more than patronizing words. The young traveler “Duncan” finds temporary salvation in a young girl evangelist who preaches from the Bible and tells of the Pentecostal experience. But the real salvation comes late at night when he creeps into her tent to be awakened sexually. Many people felt that “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was a religious song, and some Christian groups include altered versions of it in their concerts. The sound of the song is religious, but the message is not. The same can be said of “Gone At Last,” a rousing gospel-styled number. “Love Me Like A Rock” plays with the idea of consecration warding off satanic attacks. The early song “Blessed” uses the Beatitudes as a jumping off point to “bless” the ugly side of society while crying out, “O Lord, why have you forsaken me?” In Simon’s latest album (Still Crazy After All These Years) he comes to grips with the God who in “My Little Town” had his eye on us. “Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy” sees Simon brought to his knees for a brief moment:

And here I am, Lord

I’m knocking at your place of business

I know I ain’t got no business here

But you said if I ever got so low

I was busted,

You could be trusted.

Unfortunately, the next song finds him calling on God to bless the good things of life, so that we can all just “Have A Good Time.” Even though he seemed to be saying throughout his earlier work that the American dream was empty, and he admits in “American Tune” that “You can’t be forever blessed,” he reverts to the pattern of preceding generations and finds solace in things. His haunting “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night” admits that something profound has perverted modern society. Human relationships fall apart, love fades, people are not communicating, anxiety grows, time is flashing by, and society is self-destructing. Yet Simon cannot put his hand on a solution. Perhaps he will find religion, for his song “Silent Eyes,” which tells of God’s care for Jerusalem, may be an indication that he is still considering Judaism.

The songs of Paul Simon have spoken to people on many levels. His insights and poetic style have enabled him to find success. Yet he remains haunted by the realization that the good times of life cannot go on forever.

Daniel J. Evearitt is a graduate student at Drew University.

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