Paul Simon - One Trick Pony
#313
by Paul Zickler
Paul Simon
One-Trick Pony
Genre: Paul Simon
Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5
Paul’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Allen’s Highlights:
Late in the Evening
One Trick Pony
Paul’s Highlights:
Late in the Evening
That’s Why God Made the Movies
One-Trick Pony
Soft Parachutes
I have very clear memories of listening to this record in my friend Roger’s bedroom back in high school. We were in a band together, which at first was just a few friends who didn’t actually own or play any instruments, and later was mostly an excuse to hang out, jam for awhile, and then hang out some more and listen to music. We listened to a lot of Paul Simon, both solo and with Artie, and I guess “One-Trick Pony” was the most recent album he’d released, so it probably got played the most. To this day, hearing the opening of That’s Why God Made the Movies puts me back in that room, sitting around drinking Coca-Cola, my borrowed guitar leaning against the hand-lettered bass drum head. (Our band was called BOB, for the record. Yes, we thought of it first. Shh.)
The thing about Paul Simon is that he’s not trying to be anyone but Paul Simon. “One-Trick Pony” is the soundtrack to a film where Paul stars as… basically himself, albeit in an alternate timeline where he’s a one-hit wonder playing gigs in small clubs and traveling in an Econoline van. The songs sound like... Paul Simon songs. He even wrote a fake Paul Simon ‘60’s song for the movie (Soft Parachutes, available as a bonus track but not on the original release). How you feel about Paul’s pre-Graceland solo output might depend on how much you enjoy melodically complex tunes that sound effortless. Some people don’t dig rock music that uses G#maj9 chords, but I do. As a songwriter, I’m also kind of in awe of him. I mean, I can picture myself writing a Neil Young song, or a Tom Petty song, or even a Dylan song. But when I really analyze how Paul Simon’s songs are structured, I realize, there is no way I could ever do that.
Of course the big hit was Late in the Evening, and deservedly so. It’s a song that works better live, especially with the humongous touring bands Simon starting playing with in the late ‘80’s, but even on the record, Stevie Gadd’s Latin beats and Tony Levin’s bassline have inspired me to shake my booty more times than I can count over the years. Simon himself has admitted the whole thing is built over the basic structure of Elvis’s Mystery Train, but who can resist the story of an underage gunslinger in a funky bar who turns his amp up loud and blows the room away?
The other single that got radio play was the title track, which is ostensibly about the movie’s title character, but really functions as a metaphor for Paul Simon’s songwriting skill compared to my own.
“He makes it look so easy, look so clean. He moves like God’s immaculate machine. He makes me think about all of these extra moves I make, all this herky-jerky motion, and the bag of tricks it takes to get me through my working day. One-Trick Pony.”
Yep.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5Be2SD7NA17AVhzq3elNVX?si=MPk-rFO9QMSeyD7zqFIyCQ
