Recommendations of the Editorial team
The best songwriters of all time (8): Paul Simon
Even if his career ended in 1970 with the separation from Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon would still have written a handful of the greatest songs that were ever recorded by a pop musician. “The Sound of Silence”, “Mrs. Robinson”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”.
But Paul Simon, the archetypal New York songwriter, had just got a taste for it. His talent to juggle with different styles is just as remarkable as its peculiarity, rhythm and melody to pay the same attention. Which for musicians with roots in the folk era is rather unusual.
Ethnic music textures from all over the world, acoustic daydreaming, gospel, R&B as well as electronic music
Stylistically, he had assimilated the song smithy of Tin Pan Alley, ethnic music textures from all over the world, acoustic daydreaming, gospel, R&B and electronic music. Without losing sight of his primary function. To be a slightly amused chronicler of a world that is becoming more and more out of joint. Regardless of whether he writes about US-specific sensitivities like in “American Tune” or about a broken love as in “Graceland. His linguistic joke and the soft spot for a well thought-out wording never lets him down.
The best songwriters of all time (8): Paul Simon
For a generation that grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, he was – Dylan Not unlike – a mirror that held the problematic journey of youthful innocence on the complexity of aging in snapshots. “One of my great weaknesses,” he confessed to the Rolling Stone in 2012. I tried to sound ironically. But I can’t sound. No chance. If Dylan sings, however, his words have a double meaning. He tells you the truth – and at the same time makes fun of you. If I open my mouth, it inevitably sounds inevitably and always terrible. “