Paul Simon Show

Folk Music & Beyond Playlist for February 18, 2015
Paul Simon Show with Sandy Miranda

If you enjoyed the show, please let me know at sandy@sandymiranda.com .

Paul Simon is making songs now that are as good and as adventurous as any he has ever made.

Now for some rare outtakes, alternate takes, and little heard live cuts included on a radio-only sampler of the Complete Albums collection (2013)

#4 American Tune (unfinished demo) / Rarities (from the Complete Albums collection) (4:02)

#5 Loves Me like a Rock (acoustic demo) (3:30) changes keys as goes through life stages

#7 Something So Right (alternate version) (4:24) to keep out the Foreigners/Floridas

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#9 Gone at last (original demo with The Jessy Dixon Singers) (4:40)

#10 Spiral Highway (unreleased soundtrack recording) (2:55)

#11 Train in the Distance (original acoustic demo) (3:11)

One from 1965, and a few from reissued/remastered There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, 1973

#10 A Simple Desultory Philippic / Paul Simon Song Book / 1965 (2:18)

#11 Let Me Live in Your City (work-in-progress) (4:14)

#5 One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor (3:44)

#7 Was a Sunny Day (3:37)

Here’s an example of the process of making music:

#12 Take Me to the Mardi Gras (acoustic demo) (2:25)

#3 Take Me to the Mardi Gras (release version) (3:25)

Some from remastered/reissued Still Crazy after All These Years: 1975

#11 Slip Slidin’ Away (demo) ( 5:30)

#12 Gone at Last (Original demo with The Jessy Dixon Singers) (4:30)

[~45:00]

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from Hearts and Bones 1983, remastered 2004

Musicians included Nile Rogers, Airto, Phillip Glass, Steve Ferrone, Al Di Meola, Marcus Miller.

#5 When Numbers Get Serious

#13 Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War (original acoustic version) 3:40

The Rhythm of the Saints 1990 (remastered and rereleased 2004)

#1 The Obvious Child (4:00)

#2 Can’t Run But (3:30)

#5 Further to Fly (5:15) (expendible)

#12 Thelma (outtake) 3:55 When sunlight hits the family tree...

[17:00]

Simon laughed.

“Sometimes you get into that flow where you feel like you’re plugged in, and stuff is just coming through you.”

CD: You’re the One (with many of his usual musicians)

#3. Old / You’re the One (2000) (2:17)

#6. Look at That (Ask somebody to love you?) (4:00)

#9. Pigs, Sheep, and Wolves (allegory) (4:00)

[10:00]

So Beautiful or So What... 2011 Simon is writing the equivalent of Mexican corridos, or Carribean calypsos...telling the stories of his time in song.

#2. The Afterlife (3:42)

#10. So Beautiful or So What (4:09)

#1. Getting Ready for Christmas Day (4:09)

[12:00]

The new one: Stranger to Stranger 2016, strangely ignored at last week’s Grammys, IMHO, due to Grammy’s important and urgent need to give awards to others who have notoriously been ignored.

But Simon is no stranger to slow acknowledgment. Some of his best work has been recognized later, as we’ve heard today.

#4. Street Angel (2:08)