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<strong>paul</strong> <strong>simon</strong> – 1984 <strong>playboy</strong> <strong>interview</strong> small black beetles: the overkill<br />
Playboy: Is there a great pleasure when you find something<br />
your ear likes?<br />
Simon: Two things come to mind that are euphoric for me.<br />
One is the universal euphoric: sex, that period of time when<br />
you are at an absolute peak of sexual feeling. The other is<br />
when I create something that moves me. When I am the<br />
audience to my own creation and I'm moved. If it were a<br />
drug and I could buy it, I'd spend all my money on it.<br />
Playboy: Do you use drugs to write?<br />
Simon: Sometimes. I know a lot of writers who use various<br />
drugs. I wouldn't be surprised if the overwhelming<br />
majority of them used some sort of drug. I'll put alcohol in<br />
there. F. Scott Fitzgerald did it to write. Couldn't get loose<br />
enough. Guys in rock smoke a joint. To get the stuff out of<br />
you - especially if what you're dealing with is yourself -<br />
requires you to open up and touch tender spots. And to<br />
touch those tender spots, you have to be anesthetized a<br />
little bit. Of course, there's a penalty: you get the bill<br />
eventually. The currency you pay with is your health. You<br />
lose your health; possibly, you lose the length of your<br />
creative life. That's what they mean when they say<br />
someone's burned out.<br />
Playboy: What happens after euphoria?<br />
Simon: Well, the moment of euphoria is when you have the<br />
breakthrough and you say it, and then I can begin to<br />
shape and deal with what I've created. Once you name<br />
the unnamable, you get numb.<br />
Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only<br />
one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and<br />
words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out. I've<br />
burst into tears uncontrollably I was saying something that<br />
I had been keeping hidden for a long time.<br />
Playboy: What's an example?<br />
Simon: In a way, I'm embarrassed to say the one that<br />
comes to mind, because now I've disowned the song, it's<br />
such a cliché. But when I wrote and first sang the line "Like<br />
a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down," it<br />
happened. Then line came all at once. I didn't know it was<br />
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