Brandeis University's Independent Student Newspaper

October 24, 2000

There is a remote corner of music that is designated to songs that you don't understand until you've lived with them. Their lyrics are enigmatic, poetic and edifying. Their vocals are soft, melodic and utterly musical. Their instrumentation is varied, rich and sophisticated. This corner of music hasn't gotten much mainstream radio time since it's inception in the 1960s by Simon and Garfunkel.

This niche can be regarded as the most valuable in all of music. It exists as much to give insight as to entertain. It's motivated by a need to communicate, teach and enrich instead of a drive to succeed. Ever since the end of Simon and Garfunkel, the frontrunner of the form, Paul Simon, has been delivering a steady stream of the best it has to offer. However, while in the '80s he generated such titular albums as "Graceland" (1986) and "Rhythm of the Saints" (1989), the '90s offered up only the lackluster "Songs From the Capeman" (1997). After the lukewarm reception of that album, it was wondered if Simon, already 56, had anything left.

He does.

"You're The One" is Simon's new album released Oct. 3. Unlike "Graceland" and "Rhythm," it's less of an experiment in world music forms than a return to the styles of the '70s and early '80s that produced songs like "Train in the Distance," "Still Crazy After All These Years" and "Slip Slidin' away”.

Simon has always been adept at converting quiet desperation, the breakdown of a life and somber introspective into song. "You're The One" is possibly his most straightforward attack at this and his first since "Hearts and Bones" (1983). Lyrically, "You're The One" buries its meanings far more in the sweep of the song than in the quick insightful observations that marked much of Simon's previous work. Individual lines don't grab you very often. The songs in full estimation, however, make their points as poetically without the language being as poetic.

"Darling Lorraine," for example, a song that tells of a disintegrated marriage, sets up the couple, "The first time I saw her I couldn't be sure, but the Sin of Impatience said 'she's just what you're looking for.'" It is to the point, self-evident, but more resonant than most current music. The songs might not impress immediately, but they take a long time to be understood in which time your appreciation of them will surely rise.

Similarly simple is the instrumentation. A dizzying display of musical virtuoso is not to be found here. However, Simon shows a command of all the musical styles that he has explored throughout his 30-plus year career. You can catch hints of folksy rhythm, Brazilian drums and even a xylophone or two. No single style is forcefully highlighted so together they weave a deeply subconscious feel to each track as their quiet tunes and Simon's extraordinarily melodic voice spin.

"You're The One" is not Simon's best album. It doesn't contain any songs that are sure to stay with you the way that "Graceland" or most of Simon and Garfunkel's collection do. It makes a quiet point, takes a few tracks to reach some high points of meaning and melody, and then bows out softly with "Quiet," a song in which a man escapes from the restraints of the world through death, sleep or withdrawal.

"You're The One" is a panacea to the excesses of the '90s, something to ground yourself with and to remind you that music does not have to be permanently stuck in spring break; real life holds far more fascination.

Copyright: Brandeis University's Independent Student Newspaper /Jonathan Bernbaum, 2000