paul simon playboy interview

paul simon – 1984 playboy interview small black beetles: the overkill
coming. What I was saying was, "I'm going to do this act of
generosity for you."
Playboy: For whom?
Simon: Well, I suspect I was thinking of Peggy. That I would
lie down and be a bridge for her. It was an overwhelming
feeling coupled with that melody. Now it's been sung so
many times by so many people that I have no feeling
whatsoever for it. But at the moment of creation, it was
huge.
Playboy: Do you always start with the melody when you
compose?
Simon: Usually it's something musical - chords or a phrase.
But sometimes I use a lyric. Like the song René and
Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War. That was a
caption of a photograph in a book I was reading, and I
thought, That's an interesting title for a song.
Playboy: Lucky you saw it first. Such an obvious title,
after all.
Simon: [ Smiling ] That's right. Leaped on it before it
could be spotted by my contemporaries. After I got the
phrase, I began to sing a melody that fit it. I didn't have an
instrument. I just sang it. My voice is my improvisational
instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is harmonic
structure. I'm not a good enough guitarist to improvise on
it.
Playboy: There seems to be a constant tension in your
songs between the esoteric and the obvious.
Simon: Isn't that when we're most moved? We don't
really understand, but we half understand. Still, I don't want
to lose people, and I think that often, people don't
understand what I'm talking about in songs. In Cars Are Cars,
I began by talking about the similarities between cars.
Then I took the ironic approach to explaining the contrast
I was setting up. I wrote, "But people are strangers / They
change with the curve / From time zone to time zone / As
we can observe / They shut down their borders / And think
they're immune / They stand on their differences and shoot
at the moon / But cars are cars / All over the world." Even
page 20