Getting Ready for Christmas Day Only Paul Simon could write a Christmas song that’s not a Christmas song. This song is very dark, but has an upbeat ending. He beautifully intertwines Rev. Gates’ sermon of the same title into the song. Paul Simon (who is Jewish, but says he’s not overly religious) not only wrote a Christmas Song, but opened his new album with it, only Paul Simon would do something like that. This is as much a Christmas song as John Lennon’s Happy X-Mas was [it wasn’t, it was a protest song]. It’s a song with a theme. You’re getting ready for Christmas day, but a lot of other people are too. But this song makes you think about how the undertaker, the jailer, etc spend the day. This song has an infectious rhythm and great guitar riff. Towards the end of the song, it becomes more nostalgic, when Paul is talking about his parents and reflecting on “If I could tell my Mom and Dad that the things we never had never mattered we were always ok.” What heartfelt and truthfulness he brings some joy to the song after all the gloom and foreboding of the sermon and first couple of verses. I think this is the first time Paul has every really sampled, and like he says, the sermon sounds like it belongs there. A+
The Afterlife Paul paints such a curious picture of what happens to us once we leave this physical landscape. He weaves waiting in lines, filling out forms and likens it to being to new kid in school. Like most of his songs, it tells a story. This is the story of what happens after you die. He’s questioning if there is a God, because he didn’t meet him at the gates. What a great effect he uses on his 12 string. The chords look like it has a strange progression. Very intricate, plus the guitar may be tuned down to something like he did for the cover of Peter Gabriel’s Biko. Towards the end of song, it sounds like he does meet God. Some people feel the ending is weak because it just starts using Be Bop A Lula [which Paul and Artie sang on the S&G 2009 Asia Tour] and Ooh Papa Doo over and over and over again. I like it. A+
Dazzling Blue When I first heard this, the opening sounds like a left over track from You’re the One. It was very percussive, yet had a blue grass twang. Two years ago when I first heard that Paul was working with a blue grass band, I was surprised. I thought the whole album was going to be blue grass. I love the background vocals it sounds twangy and bluegrassy, it sounds like a Gillian Welch-sort of blue grass whaling vocal. There is a very complex rhythm going on with the percussion, and the lyrics are just as complex. I love the dobro on the left side to balance everything out. The guitars sound the same as most of the work on the You’re the One album. We should also note that Paul said there is no bass at all on this album. There is a great bottom end, so it’s amazing how he made an album without a traditional bass and got the results he did. There are some great percussion bits hidden in there too. Hope this gets to be played live. A
Rewrite This is a song that should have been executed differently than it was. This song has started to grow on me, so I have deleted some bits I don't agree with anymore. The lyrics are bit forced. The high-strung guitar or Spanish style guitar that plays fast riffs between lyrics just sounds out of place. The acoustic work is fantastic, but this is just a case where a different rhythm would have fit better. Don’t forget that he went back to the days of the 1970’s where he wrote the song first then came up with the music. Since Graceland, he has been working on the music first then fitting lyrics around that. Paul Simon can’t whistle so I don’t know why he would have such a whistle intensive song. It’s funny to watch this bonus song on Jimmy Fallon, a band of some of the best musicians in the world, and none of them can whistle. Get Jim Hynes to whistle for Me & Julio please! A quick note about the percussion on this song, Steve Shehan does a fantastic job here and the book says he telecommuted from France on this. B B+
Love and Hard Times I was a huge fan of this song. Again, the need to have things rhyme here is almost obsessive and sort of gets us off track here. When Paul debuted this song at the Beacon in February of 2009 I thought it was very good. “There are galaxies yet to be born…creation’s never done” is one of my favorite lines. The guitar work is intricate. I like how he tried to make a song using the same note in all the chords, ‘C’ I believe. I think it should have just been just guitar and piano, the orchestration gets lost in the mix and seems to be overkill. Not that the orchestration isn’t brilliant though. The bridge sounds very reminiscent of “The Late Great Johnny Ace” guitar part for “…it was the year of the Bealtes…” B-
Love Is Eternal Sacred Light. This song has a driving rhythm. I like its progression of how life on earth began going all the way up to a “bomb in the marketplace, bomb in the marketplace.” Once again he is asking the eternal question, how life began. I do enjoy the part where he lapses into “God” and in a deep voice sort of makes fun of us for believing in him. “Big Bang that’s a joke I made up when I had eons to kill.” After “God” lapses back into Paul Simon, the music gets really complex. The rhyming is almost obsessive again, but has a nice message for those who want to hear it. B+.
Amulet What they in the business call a filler track. Paul also debuted this song at the Beacon, but only played it the first night. The banter between him and Luciana Souza [his special guest for a few songs] was sickening. She wanted the song, he wouldn’t let her have it, but ended up putting it on her album. He really should have had her scat to it like they did at the Beacon. It’s too bare. It’s not even that good, he could have challenged himself more, he really is an intricate player. C-
Questions for the Angels I like how it seamlessly transitions into Questions for the Angles from Amulet. The lyrics are a bit forced on this song too, but has a nice underlying message. I like the juxtaposition of a “pilgrim on a pilgrimage…”. He paints a picture of a homeless man asking angels why he is homeless. It really is touching and makes us all think how lucky we are. The homeless man doubts his faith, saying who believes in angles, “fools do.” I like the metaphor of buying love in a bargain store, getting more what you bargained for. And then he asks for a refund. This album is very religious, I don’t know or think it is intentional. I think it’s just where Paul Simon is these days. He gets a B+ because he put Jay-Z in one his songs, he’s Paul Simon, does he even know who Jay-Z is? B+
Love & Blessings This sounds like classic Paul Simon guitar but with the volume turned up with that percussive tapping in the background. His voice is impeccable for a man who is turning 70 this year. I love the background ‘moaning’ and singing. It adds an eerie and mysterious quality and makes the track pop. It sounds like something for 70 years ago. Is he sampling here too, where did the “bop-bop-a- whoa” come from? That’s a question for the angels. The clarinet adds another vintage sound quality to this song. A-
So Beautiful Or So What I think this song was written around the guitar riff. The lyrics are very biting, and rhythm is driving and dark but has an upbeat message. “Weed street, vacant lot,” the lyrics shouldn’t make sense, but they do. I like how he is using his baritone a lot in the album. He has such amazing range. The song gets dark when he starts talking about Dr. King. I like the part about jiggering and figuring it. B+
Final thoughts. This album is about time. I don’t mind waiting five years between releases when the results are this stellar. However, you can’t be a fan of someone and like everything they do. I don’t trust people who say they like everything. I don’t like everything on this album as you can see from above. I think this album is strong, stronger than what he was doing 10 years ago. I also think that dropping Warner Bros. was a smart move on his part. “Surprise” was even better than this album, but flopped because of bad promotion and a luke-warm supporting tour. He looked like he was just going through the motions [Hearts & Bones ring a bell?]. Paul is now full of vim and vigor and this album shows it. I can’t wait for the tour to start on Friday night and think these shows will be the best he’s done in a while. Read the Jimmy Fallon review above and see what I mean. Final, final thoughts, the first three and last three songs are stellar, the middle songs are decent, but I was expecting a bit more. I mean we have Phil Ramone who is a sound God and lives one town over from Paul, and Paul Simon, what can we say about this man? Nothing that hasn’t been said already, so I’ll leave it at that. Buy this CD!
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