Paul Simon: ‘You’re the one’

By POINT MAGAZINE

From an artist whose songs have defined our time.

From a performer whose music has created a soundtrack for our lives.

From a visionary whose inspiration has revealed new worlds of sound.

From Paul Simon comes ‘You’re the one’, a triumphant affirmation of story and song from a master of the craft.

It is tempting to describe ‘You’re the one’, the brilliant collection of 11 new originals from Paul Simon, as the work of an artist coming full circle. His astonishing accomplishments as a singer and songwriter have, after all, fashioned and enduring legacy across four decades of continuous music making. And in the process, he demonstrated time and again the extraordinary ability of lyrics and melody to characterize, challenge and change our world. With ‘The sound of silence’, ‘Bridge over troubled water’ and so many more, Paul Simon, as much as any artist of the era, distilled the spirit of the Sixties. With ‘Kodachrome’, ‘Still crazy after all these years’, ‘Slip slidin’ away’ and beyond, he articulated the dreams and illusions of a generation coming of age. And with ‘Graceland’ and ‘Rhythm of the saints’, he brought to the world a new awareness of its global musical heritage. In short, the songs of Paul Simon have consistently had an impact unprecedented for so seemingly effortless an interplay of rhythm and rhyme.

But when all the reverberations of his music –sonic, social and spiritual- are stripped away, one consistent quality endures: the pure joy of storytelling in song. It’s that quality that suffuses the selections of his powerful and compelling new album: ‘You’re the one’.

It was back in 1983, with ‘Hearts and bones’, that Paul Simon last recorded a collection of original material not tied to an overarching concept or project. Since then, of course, the epochal innovations of ‘Graceland’ and ‘Rhythm of the saints’ redefined the creative and commercial potential of World Music. The period was marked by one of the artist’s most extensive and ambitious undertakings, the Broadway musical ‘The Capeman’. It’s understandable, then, that ‘You’re the one’ has the fully circular feel of a master craftsman returning to the essentials of his art.

Yet, such a description goes both too far and not far enough. While it’s true that the selections of ‘You’re the one’ are decidedly diverse in subject, style and point of view, here, as always, are individual songs unified by the distinctive genius of their creator. Over the past two decades, Paul Simon has written and performed music in the service of larger themes and schemes; yet, the breadth and depth of these 11 tracks are no less exceptional for all their versatility and variety. And, while it’s true that Paul Simon may have once revitalized the outmoded notion of a “concept” album, the consummate artistry and emotional resonance of these songs are in themselves a concept he has exemplified throughout his career.

Written and recorded over a two-year period, with time out for the artist to tour on an historic double bill with Bob Dylan, ‘You’re the one’ was tied to another strong unifying concept –a band, comprised of guitarist Vincent Nguini, bassist Bakithi Kumalo, drummer Steve Gadd and percussionist Jamey Haddad. Simon’s supple and nuanced guitar work is also another key element to the album’s cohesive chemistry.

Aside from those simple facts, it is, finally, far better to let the music of ‘You’re the one’ speak for itself. “I don’t believe in describing my music”, Paul Simon asserts. “I think it limits the ways in which a listener can interact with the songs, drawing out their own meaning and personal connections. If there’s any thematic unity to this album, it is in its optimism, in its belief in a spiritual reality that most of us –or at least some us- will recognize”.

In the end, there is no more eloquent way to express the tragic-comic complications of ‘Darling Lorraine’, the majestic and otherworldly aura of ‘The teacher’, the trenchant fable of ‘Pigs, sheep and wolves’, the transcendent serenity of ‘Quiet’, or any of the other realities called into being by the artist on ‘You’re the one’, than through the words and melodies he himself employs.

It is from those same elements that Paul Simon has achieved the unity, and the diversity that has for so long woven his music into the fabric of our lives.